Head of Legal & Compliance
Leads the company's legal and compliance function: contracts, advertising and product requirements, licensing, and regulator engagement for nutra projects.
What a Head of Legal & Compliance does
The Head of Legal & Compliance ensures that the business in high-risk verticals can operate and scale without legal blocks. In nutra this is especially critical: ad creatives, landing pages, claims about product composition and effects, subscription and refund terms, and work with payment providers and traffic platforms all operate under legal constraints, and a single error can stop all traffic.
The role sits at the intersection of law, compliance, and business. The head sets the rules: what can be promised in advertising, how to vet a product and supplier, which documents are needed for KYC and verification, and how to respond to complaints and claims. They translate regulator requirements and payment partner rules into clear checklists for marketing, product, and support teams.
In the org structure, the position usually reports to the CEO, COO, or a business co-owner, and sometimes sits directly on the management committee. The head oversees lawyers handling contracts and advertising, compliance specialists, sometimes a regulatory affairs manager, and a document management assistant. Externally, they coordinate outside counsel and licensing consultants.
Responsibilities
- Build and oversee the company's legal and compliance policies for the nutra division
- Approve ad materials, landing pages, and creatives for compliance with requirements governing dietary supplements and health products
- Vet products, suppliers, and manufacturers: certificates, composition, labeling, and quality documentation
- Develop and maintain user agreements, offers, refund and subscription policies
- Organize KYC and AML processes for customers and payment operations where required
- Handle claims, user complaints, regulator inquiries, and requests from payment partners
- Oversee contracts with affiliates, media buyers, contractors, and payment providers
- Train marketing, product, and support teams on risk rules and approved wording
- Prepare internal regulations, checklists, and escalation processes, and monitor their enforcement
- Report to leadership on risks, incidents, and the state of the compliance program
Skills
- Knowledge of advertising law and how it applies to dietary supplements and health products
- Ability to translate legal requirements into clear rules for marketing and product teams
- Contract work: negotiation, risk assessment, and approval of non-standard terms
- Understanding of the payments ecosystem, payment provider rules, and the causes of account blocks
- Designing content and creative review processes that keep pace with launch speed
- Managing teams of lawyers and compliance specialists, including task and priority allocation
- Communicating with regulators, partners, and internal stakeholders, including in conflict situations
- Assessing risk and making decisions with incomplete information, including the ability to say 'yes, but with conditions'
Tools
- Electronic document management and contract signing systems
- Task and approval trackers (Jira, Notion, Asana, and similar)
- Contract registers and CLM systems
- Shared knowledge bases and checklists for reviewing ad materials
- CRM and ticketing systems for handling complaints and claims
- Spreadsheets and BI reports for monitoring risks and incidents
How performance is measured
- Share of creatives and landing pages approved without blocks or rejections
- Number of account blocks and payment declines linked to violations, and their trend
- Response time to claims, regulator inquiries, and payment partner requests
- Share of contracts approved within the agreed timeframe
- Number of risks identified and closed before they became incidents
- Level of compliance with internal regulations and results of internal audits
By vertical
Nutra
In nutra, the main workload falls on advertising and the product: reviewing health claims, creatives, testimonials, composition and labeling, and handling subscription and refund terms. The head often acts as the intermediary between marketing, which wants aggressive wording, and payment partners, who will not approve it.
Levels
Head of / Director
At the Head level, the role is responsible for the entire legal and compliance function: it sets risk strategy, approves policies, decides on entry into new geos and products, represents the company before regulators and partners, and reports to leadership. Accountability for the consequences of decisions rests personally with the head and with the function as a whole.
How to get there
People typically enter the field from legal practice: corporate lawyers, advertising and media lawyers, and compliance staff at banks and payment companies. The path often begins as a contracts lawyer or compliance specialist in a high-risk vertical, where the specifics of nutra, crypto, or gambling become clear quickly. Experience with ad platforms, payment providers, or KYC and AML checks is valuable.
To prepare, study advertising regulations for dietary supplements and health products, how payment systems work, basic AML and KYC processes, and the practice of account blocks and analysis of payment declines. It is useful to learn to write short regulations and checklists that non-lawyers will actually use, and to understand marketing and product metrics so you can speak the team's language.
Growth comes from expanding responsibility: from reviewing individual materials, to designing processes, then to managing a team and making risk decisions at the business level. A further step is experience across several verticals or countries, as it demonstrates the ability to adapt rules to different regulatory environments.
Next steps: General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), Head of Risk, Director of Legal Operations
FAQ
How is a Head of Legal & Compliance different from a regular lawyer in a company?
A regular lawyer handles specific tasks: a contract, a claim, approving a text. The Head is responsible for the system: policies, processes, the team, and risk strategy. They make decisions that affect the whole business, not just a single document.
Do you need a law degree to take this position?
Usually yes: a legal education and practical experience are required, most often in corporate or compliance work. In nutra and other high-risk verticals, understanding marketing, payment processes, and the product is also important, since without it it is hard to give practical advice.
Why are there so many legal restrictions in nutra?
Health products attract close attention from regulators and payment partners. Advertising claims, testimonials, subscriptions, and refunds often trigger complaints and blocks, so legal control is built into the entire product and traffic cycle.
What determines income in this role?
Compensation usually depends on the scale of the business, the number of verticals and countries it operates in, the size of the team, the complexity of risks, and whether bonuses, stock options, or profit sharing are included in the role.
How do employers assess candidates for this role?
Most often they check experience with advertising restrictions, the ability to state risks concisely, experience managing a team, and skill in negotiating with partners. Candidates are often asked to analyze a real case of an account block or a disputed creative.
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