Associate General Counsel

Position Summary

The Associate General Counsel serves as a senior legal leader and strategic advisor responsible for providing enterprise-wide legal counsel to First Busey Corporation (“First Busey”), Busey Bank (the “Bank”), and their respective subsidiaries (collectively with First Busey and the Bank, “Busey”) and executive leadership. The role leads complex legal, regulatory, transactional, and risk management matters while helping shape business strategy and ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The Associate General Counsel exercises significant independent judgment, manages critical legal risks, and collaborates closely with senior leaders to support the organization's long-term objectives and protect its reputation and interests.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Serve as a trusted legal advisor to executive leadership and business partners, providing strategic counsel on legal, regulatory, operational, transactional and reputational risks affecting Busey.
• Partner with Risk Management and other departments to develop, implement, and maintain policies, procedures, and controls that align with legal and regulatory requirements. ·
• Assist with First Busey’s SEC reporting and disclosure matters, including insider trading and Section 16 guidance, policies and procedures, review of First Busey’s Exchange Act filings (Form 10-Q. Form 10-K, Form 8-K, and Forms 3, 4 and 5), preparation of First Busey’s Proxy Statement and review of First Busey’s earnings press releases and investor decks.
• Oversee Busey’s Enterprise Risk Management from the legal side, coordinating with Risk Management and other departments to identify and monitor current and emerging risks and implement appropriate controls regarding same.
• Partner with the Bank’s Wealth Management division to assist with regulatory examinations and compliance, including SEC examinations and requests.
• Provide legal support and oversight for strategic transactions in conjunction with Busey’s Finance department, including M&A, debt issuances, redemptions and refinancings, equity issuances, balance sheet restructuring activities, and asset acquisitions and dispositions.
• Lead strategic initiatives for the Legal Department (e.g. Proxy Statement updates, corporate governance updates, M&A process changes).
• Monitor emerging legal, regulatory, and industry developments; provide proactive risk assessments and recommendations; and contribute to the leadership, development, and effectiveness of the Legal Department.
• Review vendor contracts and assist with vendor management generally, as needed.
• Review general contracts (e.g. NDAs, engagement letters, restrictive agreements for new hires), as needed.

Education & Experience

Knowledge of:

• Banking and financial services regulations.

• Commercial loan structuring and documentation and secured transactions.

• Litigation management.
• Cybersecurity and data privacy laws.
• Legal risk assessment, compliance, and dispute resolution.

• Legal research tools, technology applications, and Microsoft Office products.

Ability to:

• Analyze complex commercial loan proposals, identify potential legal issues and risks and propose potential ways to mitigate such issues and risks.

• Have a strategic vision to anticipate commercial lending legal and process issues and proactively propose improvements and/or solutions.

• Handle a full range of commercial loan documentation issues, including drafting non-standard loan document language, providing guidance to Commercial Loan Documentation associates on documentation questions and issues and interacting with outside legal counsel.

• Manage litigation and determine appropriate ways to minimize financial outlay.
• Develop and implement Legal Department strategic initiatives and process improvements.

Education and Training:

• Juris Doctor (JD) from accredited law school
• Licensed to practice law and in good standing with US state bar.

• 10+ years of progressively responsible legal experience, including substantial experience in banking, financial services, corporate law, employment law, and regulatory compliance.
• Prior in-house counsel experience within a banking or regulated financial institution, with demonstrated experience advising executive leadership and working in collaboration with other departments.
• Experience managing outside counsel and legal budgets.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary offered is based on factors, including but not limited to, the job duties, required qualifications and relevant experience, and local market trends. The role may be eligible for bonus or incentives based on company and individual performance.

 

(Base Pay Range: $200,000/yr)

 

Busey provides a competitive Total Rewards package in return for your time, talents, efforts and ultimately, results. Your personal and professional well-being—now and in the years to come—are important to us. Busey’s Total Rewards include a competitive benefits package offering 401(k) match, profit sharing, employee stock purchase plan, paid time off, medical, dental, vision, company-paid life insurance and long-term disability, supplemental voluntary life insurance, short-term and long-term disability, wellness incentives and an employee assistance program. In addition, eligible associates may take advantage of pre-tax health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts. Visit Busey Total Rewards for more information.

 

Equal Opportunity

Busey values a diverse and inclusive workplace and strives to recruit, develop and retain individuals with exceptional talent. A team with diverse talent, working together, is essential to Busey’s commitment of delivering extraordinary excellence. Busey is an Equal Opportunity Employer including Disability/Vets. Visit Busey.com/Careers to learn more about Busey’s Equal Opportunity Employment.

 

Unsolicited Resumes

Busey Bank, and its subsidiaries, does not accept any liability for fees for resumes from recruiters or employment agencies ("Agency"), without a binding, written recruitment agreement between Busey and Agency describing the services and specific job openings ("Agreement"). Busey may consider any candidate for whom an Agency has submitted an unsolicited resume and explicitly reserves the right to hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the Agency, unless an Agreement is in place. Any email or verbal contact with any Busey associate is inadequate to create a binding agreement. Agencies without an Agreement are requested not to contact any associates of Busey with recruiting inquiries or resumes. Busey respectfully requests no phone calls or emails.