Role purpose

The Legal Advisor will provide practical, commercially minded and independent legal advice to the COO and Leadership as the Foundation expands its international humanitarian, philanthropic and global health activities.

The role will act as a trusted legal partner to leadership, advising on a wide variety of legal matters, assessing risk and ensuring compliance, while helping build the legal, governance and compliance infrastructure required for a growing international foundation.

The Legal Advisor will support the Foundation across grants, international partnerships, government agreements, major projects, procurement, governance, compliance and institutional matters, enabling the Foundation to achieve its objectives in a proportionate and legally sound manner. It will work and manage relationships with external legal advisors when specific expertise needs to be resourced externally. 

Major Duties and Responsibilities

Leadership and Legal Advisory

• Provide clear, practical and independent legal advice to senior leadership, including identifying material risks, recommending options and supporting informed decision-making.
• Act as a trusted advisor who enables responsible delivery of the Foundation’s objectives with a solutions orientated approach to legal risk.
• Work closely with Programs, Grants, Finance, Procurement, HR and leadership to balance institutional protection with humanitarian impact.

Grants and Philanthropic Funding

• Advise on the legal structure of grantmaking, including grant agreements, restricted funding conditions, milestone-based disbursements, reporting obligations and audit rights.
• Support amendments, suspension, termination, recovery of funds, sub-granting, unspent balances and counterparty due diligence.
• Work with grant management, programs and finance teams to ensure funding arrangements are legally robust and operationally workable.

International Agreements and Partnerships

• Support, draft and negotiate agreements with governments, ministries, UN agencies, international organisations, NGOs, foundations and other institutional partners.
• Advise on governing law, jurisdiction, dispute resolution, privileges and immunities, audit rights, liability, financial controls, local-country legal requirements and cross-border funding restrictions.

Major Projects, Procurement and Complex Contracts

• Advise on complex contracts relating to international health, infrastructure, hospital, medical equipment, consultancy, contractor, operator, procurement and operations and maintenance arrangements.
• Identify and mitigate legal and commercial risks, negotiate appropriate protections and determine when specialist external counsel is required.

Governance, Compliance and Integrity

• Support the development of the Foundation’s governance framework, including Board and committee matters, delegations of authority, corporate policies, conflicts of interest, decision rights, resolutions, records and regulatory obligations.
• Provide legal input on AML/CFT, sanctions, anti-bribery and corruption, fraud, beneficial ownership, politically exposed persons, high-risk counterparties and integrity due diligence.

Institutional Legal Capability

• Build and improve the Foundation’s internal legal function, including contract and grant templates, clause libraries, approval processes, legal and regulatory risk registers, contract repositories, external counsel arrangements, matter tracking and management reporting.
• Support the implementation or improvement of contract-management processes and legal technology where appropriate.

Profile 

• Qualified lawyer with approximately 10–15+ years of relevant experience.
• UAE or wider Gulf experience is highly desirable, including the ability to adapt quickly to the UAE institutional and government environment.
• Strong in-house legal experience, or significant experience advising organisations and senior decision-makers at leadership or Board level.
• Demonstrated contract drafting, negotiation and legal risk-management capability across cross-border or multi-jurisdictional matters.
• Experience of various legal areas of work within operations of philanthropy, foundation, INGO, multilaterals or government entities.
• Strong understanding of governance, compliance, sanctions, integrity and institutional risk matters.
• Ability to operate independently, exercise sound judgement, work pragmatically in a developing institutional environment and build effective legal systems.

Languages

• Strong Arabic and English capability is a significant advantage, particularly the ability to review and draft professional legal documentation in both languages.

Terms of Appointment

This is a two-year renewable contract.

Role Location

The role is based in Abu Dhabi, UAE, with some travel.

How to Apply

To apply for this position, please ensure you complete the Application Form provided below by 28 September 2026 (23:59 hrs, GMT +4). It is essential that you submit your CV in English, specifically in Microsoft Word format (.doc/.docx), not exceeding 10MB.

Applications in other languages or formats will not be considered.

Rest assured, all information will be handled with the utmost confidentiality.

SRI Executive is exclusively retained by the Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity to undertake this assignment.