Director, EMEA Government Affairs & Public Policy

<div class="content-intro"><p>Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk. <br><br>Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. <br><br>Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.</p></div><h3>The role in a nutshell:</h3> <p>Our customers include some of the most regulated organizations in the world, and we have a strong and growing UK and European customer base. Europe is one of our highest-growth priorities.</p> <p>It is also where the rules for our category are actively being written — the Cyber Resilience Act, NIS2, the EU AI Act, and the standards work running underneath all of them.</p> <p>We are hiring our first dedicated European government affairs and public policy leader to own that ground. You will set Chainguard’s European policy strategy, establish us as a trusted technical voice with the officials and bodies shaping cyber regulation on the continent and in the UK, and translate fast-moving policy into what it means for our positioning, our product, and our customers.</p> <h3>What you'll do</h3> <ul> <li>Set and own Chainguard’s European policy strategy — priorities, positions, target institutions and officials, and the narrative we take into the policy process.</li> <li>Engage governments, regulators, and standards bodies across Europe and the UK, including the European Commission (notably DG CNECT and DG GROW), the European Parliament, ENISA, and the standards bodies — CEN-CENELEC and ETSI — doing the technical work underneath the CRA and NIS2.</li> <li>Decide where Chainguard shows up through industry coalitions (e.g., DigitalEurope, CCIA Europe, BSA, techUK) versus direct advocacy, and represent Chainguard in those bodies where it adds leverage.</li> <li>Forecast what’s coming, not just what’s happened, bringing political acumen and the ability to read where a debate is heading before it becomes public on developments relevant to Chainguard.</li> <li>Develop policy positions, consultation responses, and written submissions, and speak authoritatively on Chainguard’s behalf in public and industry fora.</li> <li>Translate technical concepts into policy language — and emerging requirements back into clear implications for our messaging and roadmap.</li> <li>Support product, marketing, and revenue teams with policy credibility and positioning where it helps them, while staying firmly on the policy side of the line.</li> <li>Build the function by establishing the processes, relationships, and intelligence flow that make European government affairs repeatable rather than a series of one-offs.</li> <li>As the business grows in the region, help build the path toward leading a team.</li> </ul> <h3>Who you are:</h3> <ul> <li>8+ years of directly relevant experience in government affairs or public policy — within a public sector organization, a regulatory or standard-setting body, or a private company with a comparable government affairs function</li> <li>A track record of building independently: standing up or growing a government affairs program or line of effort, or developing and shepherding specific regulations, standards, or policy strategy through to an outcome</li> <li>Senior official engagement experience, with the judgment and presence to represent a company credi