Senior Director, Global Controls and Obligations Management

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 200,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale.

Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,200 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us.

We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor.

You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next.

About the team

The Regulatory & Compliance team helps Airwallex grow responsibly as a global financial platform. We work at the intersection of law, regulation, risk, and business execution, partnering closely with teams across the company to navigate complexity, enable growth, and protect the trust our customers, partners, and regulators place in us. It’s a team for people who are thoughtful, practical, and energized by solving hard problems in a fast-moving, highly regulated environment.

What you'll do

This is a senior global leadership role responsible for building and scaling Airwallex’s controls and obligations management framework across licensed entities, products, and jurisdictions. You will translate regulatory requirements into clear control requirements, testing strategies, reporting processes, and exam-ready documentation. You will work closely with Regulatory Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk, Financial Crime Compliance, Product, Operations, Finance, and external partners to strengthen a control environment that is practical, scalable, and regulator-ready. Airwallex is continuing to invest in stronger second line maturity, regulatory depth, and global compliance infrastructure as the business scales.

This role is based in the United States.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the global framework for identifying, interpreting, and operationalising regulatory and partner obligations across jurisdictions, products, and licensed entities, and translate those obligations into clear governance, controls, and execution requirements.

• Manage the design of key controls through implementation, and build a scalable controls testing program that defines methodology, evidence standards, issue identification, remediation tracking, and reporting.

• Engage with third parties, including auditors, consultants, service providers, and external partners, on control design, testing, reporting dependencies, and oversight expectations.

• Design and deliver a global regulatory reporting governance framework, including ownership models, documentation standards, control checks, escalation paths, and change management.

• Support regulatory exams, audits, inspections, RFIs, and related supervisory engagements by coordinating responses, maintaining regulator-ready documentation, and partnering with Regulatory Compliance, which serves as Airwallex’s primary point of contact with regulators, and Regulatory Legal.

• Maintain and continuously improve the obligations and controls register and the supporting knowledge base so teams can clearly understand what is required, who owns it, how it is implemented, and how compliance is evidenced.

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team, setting a high bar for judgment, rigor, accountability, and cross-functional partnership.

Who you are

We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.

Minimum qualifications:

• 15+ years of experience designing and managing complex controls in highly regulated financial services, payments, fintech, banking, or similar environments.

• Law degree, with 15+ years of legal practice experience.

• Experience translating legal, regulatory, and partnership requirements into operational controls, governance frameworks, testing approaches, and practical business processes.

• Experience interacting directly with regulators, including supporting RFIs, exams, audits, inspections, or remediation efforts.

• Experience building or overseeing regulatory reporting governance, obligations management, controls testing, or similar second line compliance infrastructure.

• In-house experience at a fintech, technology, payments, banking, or broader financial services company.

• Proven ability to lead high-performing teams and work effectively across Legal, Compliance, Risk, Product, Operations, Finance, and external advisors.

• Strong analytical, drafting, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with global payments, stored value, treasury, card, acquiring, embedded finance, or multi-jurisdiction licensing models.

• Experience building or improving obligations registers, controls libraries, knowledge management systems, or regulatory reporting operating models at scale.

• Experience working through heightened supervisory scrutiny, enforcement matters, or large-scale remediation programmes.

• Familiarity with third party risk management, outsourcing governance, and vendor oversight frameworks.

• Comfort operating in a fast-moving environment with high standards, evolving priorities, and meaningful cross-functional ownership.

To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.