Senior Lead Counsel II, Finance and Markets Treasury Americas (Hybrid)

Job Purpose:

To provide legal advisory support to the Rates and Markets Treasury businesses within Markets business.

Job Background/context:

The Markets Legal Department is a global team organized around product groups and associated business lines. The Markets Business provides world-class products and financing solutions for corporations, governments, and institutional investors through Citi’s market leading underwriting, sales and trading, and distribution capabilities. A key part of the coverage of this critical and core Citi global business is centered within the Markets Legal Team.

Comprising around approximately 330 permanent legal staff located across different parts of the world, the Markets Legal team working in tandem with global and country cluster legal colleagues, provides a wide range of services, support and advice to multiple global and country Markets business and related functional areas, including general advice, transaction negotiation, document drafting and execution, as well as oversight of regulatory developments and requirements. The Markets business areas covered include the core product groups of Equities, Rates, Markets Treasury, FX, Global Spread Products and Commodities.

In addition, the Markets Legal Team provides advice and support to product, legal and functional colleagues and to Citi’s governance forums and entity management with respect to different global booking vehicles.

The role resides within the Rates and Markets Treasury Legal team.  The role holder will be one of the senior dedicated coverage lawyer for the structured Rates and Markets Treasury businesses in North America and Latin America.  The role holder will be required to have a good knowledge of structured derivatives and securities financing transactions including relevant regulations which may be applicable and entered into by the Rates and Markets Treasury businesses in North America and Latin America. 

The role holder will also be required to develop and guide junior lawyers on transactions for the businesses the role holder has primary responsibility for. 

Key Responsibilities:

The role holder will be responsible for providing strategic legal advice, legal risk management and transaction support to the structured Rates and Markets Treasury businesses in North America and Latin America (the Covered Business”). 

The role holder will be required to support the Covered Business on business strategy and governance by partnering with business seniors, product development teams, other Control Function partners and Operations & Technology teams on a wide variety of projects from business development and enhancements in the client experience (e.g. new products; improved trading functionality; enhancement of risk and control) through to process improvements and vital regulatory, compliance and business re-engineering projects driven by regulatory change.

The role requires detailed knowledge of laws and regulations applicable to the Covered Business.  The role holder will be required to have highly developed communication skills and an ability to identify risk mitigation solutions as well as influence the decision-making process by providing expert counsel and leadership in the areas allocated to a senior accountable lawyer.  As a senior lawyer in the Rates and Markets Treasury legal team, the role holder will also be expected to provide leadership and guidance to more junior lawyers in team (who may not be located in NY) who are working on transactions for the Covered Business.

The ability to work independently to analyze complex legal issues, exercise good judgement, recommend a risk-mitigated course of action, present to senior stakeholders and remain resilient under pressure are all essential skills. The role holder will be expected to establish a trusted advisor relationship within Legal, the relevant businesses as well as other functional partners – notably Risk and Compliance. The role holder will also be required to develop and start building a strong internal network across functions and countries and operate autonomously with direct accountability for the delivery of legal services to the businesses within the parameters of the Legal function's mission and objectives. 

Key responsibilities will include:

• Providing Legal risk management, legal advice and transaction management with supervision to support the relevant businesses including management of the day-to-day legal work and the legal risk decisions on transactions for the relevant businesses.
• Manages and develops relationships with outside counsel to ensure the provision of suitable regulatory and transactional advice on a cost-effective basis including responsibility for ensuring achieving value for money on external legal spend.
• Act as a trusted p