Senior Legal Counsel

About Tensec Founded in 2023, Tensec is a global fintech that enables small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to enter global trade and thrive by giving them access to global transaction banking solutions that are user-friendly, efficient, and secure. Tensec founders have driven startups from foundation to exit, built decacorns, and led global teams at companies such as PayPal, Credit Karma, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. We're putting together a world-class team to disrupt the $50 trillion cross-border b2b financial services industry by providing SMBs the financial strength to participate and win in the global economy. We believe that successful companies and teams are directly correlated to a company's cultural DNA. At Tensec, we make a deliberate effort to create values and foster a culture able to unleash both human and organizational potential. We strongly believe that the best business results derive from teams that have a strong identification with a mission, push themselves to the edge, and love what they do. The Tensec team is diverse and global, with members in San Francisco, New York, Miami, Monterrey, and Sao Paulo. We are funded by top venture capital firms such as Quiet Capital, Costanoa Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Clocktower, WillowTree, and prolific angels such as Jason Pate (Chief Strategy Officer, Plaid), Bora Chung (ex-Chief Experience Officer, Bill.com http://Bill.com and Board Member, Remitly). How We Work We move fast, debrief quickly, and expect you to own your output. This is a dynamic company, we value speed and decisiveness over process. You'll have the context you need to make good decisions, and the autonomy to make them. About the Role Tensec is expanding rapidly across the US, Brazil, and Mexico, and the legal infrastructure that enables this growth needs to be built correctly — by someone who understands financial services regulation, commercial contracting, and multi-jurisdictional compliance all at once. As Senior Legal Counsel, you will be Tensec’s primary internal legal voice across all US matters: corporate governance, regulatory compliance, vendor and partner contracting, and the legal framework that supports our expanding trade finance and cross-border payments operations. This is not a policy-writing or external-counsel-management role. You are the legal infrastructure. You will advise the CCO and COO directly, own Tensec’s regulatory development roadmap across BSA/AML, FinCEN, and OFAC, manage all material legal agreements, and build the legal scaffolding that lets Tensec enter new markets on its own terms. What You'll Do - Legal Affairs Leadership: Serve as Tensec’s primary internal legal voice across all US matters — corporate (other than board matters), contractual, marketing, regulatory, and risk — advising the COO and CCO directly at the operating level - Manage MTL obligations across all US jurisdictions and monitor the regulatory landscape as Tensec expands into new corridors and states - Direct and coordinate Tensec’s existing external legal network; manage outside counsel relationships strategically and cost-efficiently - Lead legal review on all client agreements, vendor contracts, and external partnerships; provide legal input on banking and financing relationships as they flow through you, with relationship ownership at COO level - Build the legal infrastructure including templates, playbooks, and review processes that scale and that the GC/CLO will inherit as the organization grows - Compliance Advisory: Inform the CCO organization on US and cross-jurisdictional legal requirements that affect how the compliance program must be structured; you are the legal input, not the compliance owner - Advise strategically on compliance program design across markets, translating regulatory developments across BSA/AML, FinCEN, OFAC, and sanctions into actionable guidance for the compliance team - Own compliance program ownership and external compliance…