Stop Hiring Talent
From Recruiters Who've
Never Done the Job Before.
Generic recruiters screen CVs for "contract drafting skills" and "negotiated deals" and call it done. Our founders held senior legal, compliance, regulatory, and risk roles at fintechs, banks, and crypto companies. We interview your candidates the way your executives will, and only send you the ones who pass.
companies across Asia
You know this story too well.
Hiring legal, compliance, regulatory, and risk talent in fintech and crypto isn't like any other hire. The talent pool is tiny, the stakes are existential, and generic recruiters keep getting it wrong.
You need a General Counsel who's actually built and run a legal function. You keep getting lawyers who've only ever executed instructions.
These days, fintech and crypto companies need hybrid legal leaders who can build from scratch, advise at board level, and navigate novel regulatory territory. Recruiters without legal backgrounds can't tell the difference between a functional head and a skilled executor. You can, we can, they can't.
Your recruiter sent ten CVs. Nine of them have never heard of the Travel Rule.
General recruitment firms assign an available compliance consultant to your role. That consultant has never sat into a regulator audit, never read a token offering memorandum, and never built a licensing roadmap for a digital asset firm. The screening is inevitably surface-level, and your shortlist shows it.
Your last risk officer hire looked solid on paper. Six months in, they'd never completed an ISO 27001 risk assessment for a fintech, ever.
Risk management in fintech and crypto requires context that traditional finance backgrounds don't automatically provide, these industries are tech first above all else. Smart risk professionals who lack this unique tech and finance exposure can miss the exposures that matter most. Getting that fit wrong costs you capital, confidence, and in regulated environments, your license.
Mandates we've delivered
Every search below represents a role that had defeated other recruiters, a tight timeline, or a highly specific brief. Here's how we approached them.
We were engaged by a leading global institutional digital assets platform to hire a Legal Counsel specializing in crypto trading and derivatives documentation. The role was newly created to build in-house legal capability, requiring a rare combination of digital asset regulatory expertise, ISDA documentation experience, and strong commercial stakeholder management.
The search was further complicated by a competitive senior-leaning talent market and the role being structured initially as a contract engagement with potential conversion. Through rapid market mapping and targeted headhunting across crypto platforms, fintech firms, and financial institutions, we delivered a high-quality shortlist within a compressed timeline, enabling the client to strengthen legal coverage for institutional trading and accelerate regional expansion.
A leading digital assets and payments platform engaged us on a confidential mandate to hire a VP of Compliance, a business-critical role that had remained open for over six months with another recruiter before our appointment.
We rapidly conducted targeted market mapping and activated our senior compliance network across fintech and digital assets, presenting a high-quality shortlist within days. Through responsive coordination and disciplined search execution, we placed a senior compliance leader who progressed efficiently through interviews and accepted the offer shortly after, enabling the client to close a long-standing leadership gap and advance key regulatory and growth initiatives.
Legal. Compliance. Regulatory. Risk.
The four functions you can't afford to get wrong.
Every role we place sits at the intersection of legal expertise and fintech and crypto operational reality. These aren't side specializations for us, they're all we do. And because our founders held these seats, we know what great actually looks like from the inside.
In-House Counsel, General Counsel & Chief Legal Officer
Commercial, regulatory, and transactional lawyers who operate at startup pace. From first hire through to CLO in payment fintechs, digital asset firms, and broader financial services.
Chief Compliance Officers & MLROs
Hands-on CCOs and MLROs with lived experience across MAS, FCA, VARA, MiCA, and VASP frameworks. Built for regulated fintech environments, not banks.
Regulatory Affairs & Licensing Leads
Specialists who own regulator relationships, drive licensing applications, and manage your ongoing regulatory calendar. Including local regulatory officers for VASP, MPI, and equivalent frameworks.
Risk Officers & FCC Specialists
Enterprise and operational risk, financial crime compliance, AML/KYC program leads for payment institutions, digital asset firms, and scaling fintechs with serious regulatory obligations.
Board Members & Non-Executive Directors
Credentialed, regulator-approved independents with regulatory relationships who satisfy licensing conditions and add genuine governance depth to your board, not just a name on a form.
Crypto & Digital Asset Legal Specialists
Lawyers who understand DeFi structuring, token offerings, DAO governance, smart contract legal risk, and emerging crypto regulatory frameworks across key jurisdictions.
Recruiters who've done the job.
Not just recruited for it.
Established recruitment firms have deep databases. What they don't have is a team that's actually worked these roles. That difference shows up in every candidate we bring you, because we were once one of them.
At established recruitment firms, a consultant with 18 months in legal and compliance recruitment is assessing whether your next Head of Compliance truly understands MAS Notice PSN02, or whether your prospective Chief Legal Officer has actually built a global licensing roadmap. They're matching keywords against a job description with AI. We're matching judgment against an industry we've lived. That's not the same thing.
| What matters | Specialist legal recruiter | LDU Recruitment |
|---|---|---|
| Industry depth | Consultants from general staffing backgrounds. Fintech and crypto are one vertical among many. | ✓ Our founders held senior legal, compliance, regulatory, and risk roles at fintechs, banks, and crypto companies. |
| Regulatory vocabulary | CV screening by keyword: "MiCA", "MAS", "VASP". No real ability to probe depth, nuance, or real-world application. | ✓ Our team has read the regulations, applied them to live deals, and advised clients on them. We assess genuine capability. |
| Candidate network | LinkedIn databases and job boards. Strong for active job seekers. Weak for passive, senior, specialized talent. | ✓ Built over years of operating inside Singapore's fintech and crypto ecosystem. Warm access to talent that doesn't advertise. |
| Contextual fit judgment | Structured interview templates. Hard to assess "will this CCO actually thrive in a Series B crypto exchange?" | ✓ We've been in those rooms. We understand the culture and operational demands of fast-moving regulated fintechs firsthand. |
| Integrated offering | Recruitment only. You manage legal structuring, compliance, and regulatory advisory separately. | ✓ LDU also provides fractional GC and senior legal counsel by the hour. One partner to cover all your needs. |
| Fee model | Retained or contingency. Retained fees often due regardless of outcome quality. | ✓ Competitive contingency-based model. You pay only on successful placement. Our incentives are perfectly aligned with yours. |
Placed by people who've lived these roles
Before running recruitment, our co-founders navigated MAS and MiCA licensing, built out compliance infrastructure for crypto companies, and advised on cross-border entity structures and licensing arbitrage from within fast-scaling fintechs. When they assess a candidate's regulatory depth, they're not reading from a rubric, they're testing against experience.
Daniel was born in Singapore and raised in New Zealand. He is a qualified lawyer in New Zealand, with a career anchored in in-house legal work across the tech, financial services, and crypto sectors. He holds a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Studies (Victoria University of Wellington).
He has held legal roles at Grab, IBM, Binance, Nomura, Digital Realty, Citi, Standard Chartered Bank, and ByteDance, with a focus on data privacy, commercial contracts, regulatory compliance, and digital asset issues. He is currently advising a number of startups as an ad hoc general counsel.
As a co-founder and director of LDU, he leads efforts to make legal support more accessible and practical for startups and high-growth ventures across Southeast Asia.
Daniel was born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada. He is a triple-qualified lawyer in Canada, England & Wales, and the British Virgin Islands. He holds a BA in politics and criminology and an LLM in securities regulation (University of Toronto), and an LLB (University of Birmingham).
With over a decade of legal, compliance, and risk experience, Daniel has advised on M&A, private equity, offshore funds, and digital assets across both private practice and in-house roles. His career includes positions at Dentons, Walkers, UBS, RBC Capital Markets, Cake Group, and currently Acheron Trading, where he serves as Managing Director and Chief Legal Officer.
As a co-founder and director of LDU, he strives to provide startups and crypto-native businesses with legal support that is fast, commercial, and grounded in real-world experience. Outside of his practice, Daniel is a board member of ACCESS Singapore.
Neil was born in the Philippines and moved to Singapore at the age of 13. He later graduated with a degree in Economics from the State University of New York.
Neil is a recruitment and business development professional with over five years of experience supporting financial services, fintech, and digital asset organizations across Asia and global markets. He specializes in executive search and strategic hiring across legal, compliance, finance, technology, and commercial functions. He began his recruitment career at Storm2, and later joined Evolution Singapore where he established a new recruitment desk focused on regional mandates outside Singapore.
At LDU, Neil focuses on recruitment strategy and talent partnerships, helping clients access specialized professionals who can support regulatory readiness, operational growth, and long-term business success across Southeast Asia.
Built for fintech.
Fluent in your specific hiring challenge.
Every type of fintech faces a different talent pressure. In every case, the edge is the same: a recruitment team that has worked this industry, not just hired for it.
Payment Institutions Scaling Compliance
MAS-licensed MPIs and global payment platforms building compliance functions to meet licensing conditions and volume growth. We place CCOs, risk officers, and AML specialists with payment-specific regulatory depth, not generic financial services CVs.
Crypto & Digital Asset Firms Building Legal Teams
Digital asset exchanges, DeFi protocols, and crypto ventures that need talent who understand both the regulatory landscape and the technical reality of blockchain. We are crypto native and have placed candidates at licensed VASPs and early-stage protocols alike.
Funded Fintechs Hiring First Legal Leadership
Series A to C companies ready for their first in-house legal or compliance hire. We source people with the entrepreneurial mindset and regulatory credentials to build legal functions from scratch in fast-moving, resource-constrained environments.
Digital Banks Entering Asian Markets
International fintechs and digital banks expanding into Singapore, Hong Kong, or Southeast Asia. We find local regulatory officers, in-country legal counsel, and compliance professionals who know the jurisdictions they operate in, not just the job description.
From brief to shortlist
in days, not months.
A process built for urgency. Whether you're racing an MAS audit, scaling ahead of a Series B, or replacing a CCO who just resigned, most clients receive a qualified shortlist within one week of briefing.
Role Brief & Deep Discovery
We learn your regulatory environment, team dynamics, and the real demands of the role, not just the job spec.
Market Mapping & Sourcing
We tap active and passive networks across Singapore, UAE, EU, and broader Asia. LinkedIn is the start, not the limit.
Rigorous Screening
Our legal, compliance, regulatory, and risk background means we assess real capability, not keyword matches.
Interview Support & Offer Strategy
We coordinate interviews, benchmark compensation, and advise on offer strategy to close the right candidate.
Post-Placement Follow-Through
We stay engaged after placement to ensure smooth integration and address any early challenges.
across Asia & globally
to first shortlist
only on placement
Your next legal, compliance,
regulatory, and risk hire.
Fit just for you.
Every month a critical seat stays empty is a month your regulatory exposure grows. Tell us the role. We'll have a vetted, fintech-native shortlist back to you within the week, from a team that's operated in these exact seats.