Fractional General Counsel

Summary

Are you commercially minded, pragmatic and solution driven? We are looking for our first in-house General Counsel (GC) to join us as the business as Frive scales. This is not intended to be a narrow, back-office compliance function limited to reviewing contracts.

The General Counsel will act as a close partner to the CEO and wider C-suite: a trusted advisor on legal risk, a guardian of governance standards, and an active contributor to sound decision-making as Frive grows from an entrepreneurial business into a larger, more mature organisation. This would require understanding and experience of fundraising, investment, and M&A activity.

Overall someone who can contribute actively, bringing their knowledge of scaling businesses to help shape the next phase of our development. This is a fractional role (2 days per week).

Key Responsibilities

Commercial & Contracts

• Draft, review, and negotiate a wide range of commercial contracts, including supplier, distribution, retail, licensing, and partnership agreements.
• Provide clear, practical guidance to the executive team on contractual risk, balancing legal protection with commercial pace.
• Build and maintain a suite of template agreements and playbooks to enable the business to self-serve on lower-risk matters.

Corporate Governance & Compliance

• Support the CEO in maintaining strong standards of corporate governance and statutory filings.
• Ensure the business maintains compliance with relevant company, consumer, food safety, advertising, and competition law.
• Advise on corporate structuring, shareholder matters, and any fundraising, investment, or M&A activity.

Risk, Regulatory & Data Protection

• Help the business identify, understand, and respond to key legal and regulatory risks affecting performance, reputation, or long-term viability, including supply chain, product liability, and food safety exposure.
• Own data protection and privacy compliance (including UK GDPR), advising on data handling across customer, employee, and supplier relationships.
• Maintain visibility of critical legal risks and appropriate mitigation actions, including through use of the risk register.
• Raise concerns clearly and constructively where significant issues, conflicts, or unresolved risks could materially affect the business, recommending intervention where needed.

Intellectual Property & Brand Protection

• Protect Frive's brand, trademarks, and other intellectual property, both domestically and as the business expands internationally.
• Advise on IP considerations in product development, packaging, and marketing.

External Representation & Stakeholder Management

• Represent Frive in strategically important external legal matters, including with investors, regulators, and key commercial partners.
• Manage relationships with external law firms and other advisors, ensuring cost-effective and high-quality external support where specialist expertise is required.
• Support the Chair and CEO on Board-level legal and governance matters as required.

Candidate Profile

Experience & Credibility

• Qualified solicitor (England & Wales) or equivalent, with significant post-qualification experience (PQE) gained in-house and/or in private practice.
• Proven experience as General Counsel, Head of Legal, or senior in-house counsel, ideally within a consumer, food or retail. Experience within fast-scaling brands is critical.
• Experience managing commercial, regulatory, and food-safety-related legal risk within an organisation delivering a quality, food-safety-critical consumer product.
• A track record of operating effectively in a fractional, part-time, or multi-client capacity, balancing competing priorities across organisations.
• A credible reputation, with the presence and standing to support Frive's profile with investors, partners, and regulators.
• Experience of Employment Law and its commercial impact.

Personal Attributes

• Understands and buys into Frive's philosophy of making healthy eating convenient, delicious, and accessible, whilst championing locally sourced and organic ingredients.
• Able to translate legal complexity into clear, commercially relevant advice for a non-legal executive audience.
• Able to contribute to the development of a mutually supportive and collaborative relationship with a wide range of stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, and shareholders.
• A strong relationship builder, both internally and externally, able to listen carefully and understand the different motivations of leaders and stakeholders.
• Comfortable offering support and challenge in equal measure; confident, credible, and calm in complex or sensitive situations.
• Energised by entrepreneurial, fast-moving businesses rather than purely administrative legal roles, and willing to be engaged and value-adding within a limited time commitment.

Competencies & Style

• Commercially minded, with the ability to identify pragmatic solutions to legal risk rather than simply flagging problems.
• Acts as a role model both internally and externally, demonstrating sound judgment and integrity.
• Supportive but willing to be direct where risks are serious; advisory in style, with the confidence to push for action when issues become material.
• Practical, experienced, and credible with founders, executives, Board members, and external stakeholders.

Knowledge & Skills

• Strong working knowledge of UK commercial, corporate, employment, data protection, and consumer/food regulatory law.
• Excellent drafting and negotiation skills across a broad range of commercial agreements.
• Strong track record of shaping and supporting business, strategic, and financial decisions on a basis that takes due account of and mitigates legal risk.
• An understanding of the difference between providing good legal counsel and governance oversight, and the direct management of business issues.

What Success Looks Like

• A well-managed legal risk profile with clear visibility of key exposures and mitigations.
• A supported and better-informed executive team, able to move quickly on commercial opportunities.
• Robust governance and compliance foundations appropriate to Frive's stage of growth.
• Stronger external credibility with investors, partners, and regulators.
• A General Counsel relationship that adds meaningful value to the business, beyond routine contract review.