Legal & Compliance Lead ( IC role)

SBNRI · Gurgaon · Reports to the CEO

About SBNRI

35 million NRIs are trying to manage money in India from thousands of miles away. Most of them don't trust anyone enough to help. SBNRI is building the company that changes that, across mutual funds, fixed deposits, taxation, and cross-border compliance, for investors in over 120 countries.

Our users live under one country's rules and invest under another's. Regulation isn't a constraint on this business. It is the business.

Why this role exists :

We are scaling across regulated activities, including mutual fund distribution under SEBI and AMFI, a payment services entity at GIFT City under IFSCA, and marketing to NRIs across multiple jurisdictions. As that footprint grows, compliance needs a permanent, accountable owner inside the company.

This role is that owner. You will sit in product and business discussions from the start, not at the end.

What you'll own :

Regulatory assessment and structuring

- Assess new products, services, geographies, and partnerships for regulatory feasibility: what is permitted, what registrations or approvals are needed, and how the activity must be structured to be compliant.
- Maintain a clear line between distribution and advice across our products, communications, and customer interactions.
- Support our GIFT City entity across IFSCA requirements, including permissible activities, policies, reporting, and governance.
- Build and maintain a country-wise marketing and regulatory matrix for our key markets (US, UK, UAE, Singapore, Canada, Australia), covering what may be communicated, to whom, with what disclosures, and where local counsel is required.

Compliance infrastructure

- Own the compliance calendar, regulatory obligations register, audit trail, and compliance SOPs.
- Track SEBI, AMFI, RBI, IFSCA, and FIU-IND developments, and translate them into internal changes with named owners and deadlines.
- Oversee our KYC, AML, and CFT framework, including customer due diligence standards, sanctions screening, ongoing monitoring, and escalation and reporting procedures.
- Oversee data protection obligations under the DPDP Act, consent, and data-sharing arrangements with partners and vendors.




- Run internal compliance training and maintain audit readiness.

Business partnership

- Review marketing across website, app, WhatsApp, email, social, and paid campaigns for accuracy of claims, return representations, risk disclosures, and required disclaimers, and run a review process that is fast enough not to block growth.
- Handle agreements with AMCs, banks, partners, and vendors, including NDAs, DPAs, terms of service, and product disclosures.
- Report to the Board on the state of compliance, material risks, and remediation.

Our non-negotiables for this function :

Every function at SBNRI has five commitments that are not optional. These are the ones for Legal & Compliance.

- Answer with a path, not a verdict. "Not permitted" is half an answer. The full answer is what is not permitted, why, and what structure would be. If the answer is genuinely no, say so early and clearly.
- Speed with quality is the standard. A decision that arrives after the window has closed is a decision not made. Reversible questions get a same-day view; irreversible ones get a written analysis and a recommendation.
- No deadline is ever discovered late. Filings, renewals, certifications, and reports are yours to track and close. If a date is missed, it is a failure of the system you own.
- Nothing goes to a user or a regulator that you would not defend in an inspection. Every claim, disclosure, and submission should hold up on the record.
- Build systems, not dependencies. Recurring reviews and checks should become checklists, templates, and automations that others can run without you. If you are doing it by hand a third time, something is wrong.

What we're looking for

Experience :

- 3 to 5 years combined across a law firm's financial regulatory practice and an in-house role at a regulated fintech, wealth,



or financial services business. We value having seen both the rigour of a firm and the pace of a startup.
- LLB required. A company secretary or compliance qualification alongside it is a plus.

Depth we need :

- FEMA and NRI regulation: NRE, NRO, and FCNR accounts, repatriation, permitted investments, and OCI-specific rules.
- SEBI and AMFI framework for mutual fund distribution: NRI onboarding, KYC and KRA, FATCA and CRS, suitability, distributor versus adviser obligations, and commission disclosures.

Areas you can navigate, with specialist support where needed

- IFSCA and GIFT City: permissible activities, reporting, and governance.
- AML, CFT, and PMLA: customer due diligence and enhanced due diligence, beneficial ownership, PEPs, sanctions screening, and suspicious transaction reporting.
- AIF and PMS: categories, investor eligibility, and distribution and marketing restrictions.
- Foreign marketing regimes for NRI-facing communication.
- Advertising standards for financial products.
- DPDP Act, cross-border data transfer, and vendor data agreements.

How you work

- You read a regulation and ask what it permits, not only what it prevents.
- You write for non-lawyers. Your memos end with a recommendation, not a list of considerations.
- You use AI tools to move faster on research and drafting, and you verify before you rely on anything.
- You close your own loops. Work is yours until the outcome lands, not until it is handed off.

What we'll give you

- A direct line to the founders, and a seat in product and business decisions from the start.
- A dedicated budget to engage external counsel and specialists, including foreign local counsel, when a question needs depth we do not have in-house.
- Contemporary AI research and drafting tools, and support to build the compliance function's systems properly.
- A path to grow into Head of Legal & Compliance as the function and the entity scale.

This is not for you

- You want to operate purely as a reviewer at the end of a process.
- Your default response to an unclear question is silence until someone else resolves it.
- You need a large existing team to be effective.

📌 Legal Compliance Officer (Gurugram)
🏢 SBNRI
📍 Gurugram