[Hiring] Legal & Compliance - 1st hire, build with AI @Kovo

Role Description

Join us as Kovo's 1st and sole legal and compliance hire. You are the function. You'll own legal and compliance end-to-end for the business we run today and for the products we launch next, taking each new product from zero to one.

This role is a good fit if:

• You're a practicing attorney who has done legal and compliance work inside a high-growth fintech startup and wants to run the whole function yourself rather than inherit a team.
• Your first question on any new initiative is "what is the smallest set of obligations that gets us there," not "here is everything we'll need to comply with."
• You've worked in an engineering, product, or business role before (or alongside) your legal career, and you think like an operator.
• You'd rather automate a task out of existence than own it forever.
• You're interested in setting the foundation for a multi-product company.

Qualifications

• JD and active bar admission in a US state.
• Prior legal or compliance role at a fintech startup, ideally a fast-growing one.
• Mid-career: enough reps to have taken a regulated consumer product through its full lifecycle, and still hungry to build the function yourself.
• Strong preference for a multidisciplinary background: you've worked in a business, engineering, or product function before or alongside your legal work.
• Hands-on with the consumer finance stack: FCRA and credit reporting, UDAAP, TILA/Reg Z, ECOA, EFTA/Reg E, state lending and money-transmission licensing, bank partnership programs, and BSA/AML/KYC.
• Experience managing outside counsel and regulator or bank-partner relationships directly.

Requirements

• Minimal footprint is how you think, not a policy you follow.
• Comfortable in a high-intensity role with full ownership and accountability.
• Judgment is the job; you know the difference between what an agent can draft and what only you can sign off on.
• Energized by expanding financial access for millions of underserved people.

Benefits

• Direct impact on millions of people's ability to access credit.
• High ownership with minimal bureaucracy.
• Speed, learning, and impact are core values.

Company Description

Kovo is expanding access to financial tools for people historically excluded from the traditional credit system. We believe everyone deserves the opportunity for economic independence, and we're building products that help people establish financial identity and unlock opportunity.

• Over the past three years, Kovo has grown revenue 20x while maintaining exceptional capital efficiency.
• We rank above the 99th percentile in revenue per employee benchmarks, reflecting the leverage of a small, high-performing team.
• The team combines the ambition of a venture-scale company with the discipline of a profitable business.
• We reached positive free cash flow early in our lifecycle, allowing us to grow with less dilution and focus on building for the long term.
• Kovo is backed by Inspired Capital and Homebrew, and built by alumni from various leading companies.
• We're looking for exceptional people to help us scale the company another 20x and beyond.