Senior Corporate Counsel, Deal Acceleration

The Senior Corporate Counsel, Deal Acceleration will provide expert legal advice and assistance on a range of complex commercial transactions, serving as a dedicated escalation point for high-value, strategic deals. Based in EMEA, this position will expertly manage and resolve critical contract escalations dealing with security (InfoSec), trust, data protection, privacy, and artificial intelligence (AI) matters.

You will be part of a fast-moving, collaborative legal team that directly impacts all go-to-market aspects of the business. The Deal Acceleration Team is focused on unlocking revenue and unblocking complex negotiations to scale across the entire Palo Alto Networks platform. This position works closely with sales, commercial counsel, deals desk, revenue, finance, information security, and product teams, and is a critical resource for colleagues globally. Strong candidates are proactive, solutions-driven, and independent, with direct and leading experience in negotiating subscriptions, cloud services, data protection agreements (DPAs), security addenda, and AI frameworks.

The Senior Corporate Counsel will report to the Senior Director of Legal - Product and Deal Acceleration.

• Manage Commercial Escalations: Serve as the primary, expert escalation point for complex, high-value commercial transactions involving software, subscriptions, services, and cloud agreements, ensuring deals close efficiently while aligning with company risk tolerances.
• Unblock Trust & Security Gatekeepers: Expertly negotiate and resolve sophisticated customer challenges surrounding enterprise security requirements, information security addenda, and customer trust frameworks.
• Drive Privacy & Data Protection Deals: Review, draft, and conclude complex Data Protection Agreements (DPAs) and cross-border transfer mechanisms, successfully aligning customer demands with GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and global data regimes.
• Navigate AI Transactions: Advise on and negotiate contract provisions relating to current and upcoming legislation and customer requirements for artificial intelligence, automated decision-making, and algorithmic data usage.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner promptly and effectively with sales, operations, revenue, deals desk, and core privacy/product legal teams to recommend practical courses of action under tight deal timelines.
• Enablement and Scalability: Assist in training sales enablement and commercial counsel on handling frontline security, trust, privacy, and AI objections, reducing escalation friction over time.
• Process Optimization: Support the continuous improvement of standard form playbooks, fallback provisions, and legal escalation processes to accelerate deal velocity.

• Credentials: Must be a lawyer qualified to practice law in at least one jurisdiction in EMEA with an active license in good standing.
• Years of Experience: 5+ years of relevant legal experience with the ability to work both independently and with a team and show demonstrated success, including direct in-house experience.
• Transaction Expertise: Significant experience advising internal clients on structuring sales, licensing, subscription, and commercial transactions under high pressure.
• Domain Knowledge: Expert-level familiarity with data protection/privacy regimes (GDPR, CCPA), information security practices, data governance, and emerging commercial AI liabilities.
• Execution Under Pressure: Excellent interpersonal skills, business judgment, strategic thinking, and superior work ethic, with the proven ability to manage numerous complex contract negotiations simultaneously under tight deadline and quarter-end pressure.
• Collaboration Mindset: Highly dynamic, team-oriented, and able to confidently influence and align cross-functional stakeholders (Sales, InfoSec, Product) to drive revenue forward.
• Industry Focus: Experience in cybersecurity or other high-technology sectors is preferred.

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.