Senior Manager, Financial Partnerships, Card Issuing & Acquiring, EMEA

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,700 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.

You’ll scale Airwallex’s card issuing and acquiring businesses by building and managing partnerships with global card networks, including Visa, Mastercard and Amex, as well as regional and local card schemes.

You’ll lead Airwallex’s entry into new markets by coordinating network licensing, regulatory requirements and programme implementation. You’ll identify and execute strategic opportunities with network partners, including product and feature collaboration, new revenue streams, cost optimisation and co-marketing initiatives.

You’ll negotiate and structure mutually beneficial partnership agreements, then oversee Airwallex’s obligations and delivery under those agreements. You’ll also represent Airwallex at partner and industry events, building our profile with partners and customers while working closely with Product, Legal, Compliance, Finance and Commercial stakeholders on strategic planning, business analysis and critical initiatives.

You’ll work from our London or Amsterdam office three days a week.

Essentials

• 7+ years of experience working with payment networks, card schemes, financial institutions or other organisations in the card issuing or acquiring industry.

• Deep understanding of card network dynamics, issuing and acquiring business models and economics.

• A proven track record of building and managing strategic partnerships in a fast-paced, technology-led environment.

• Strong negotiation, relationship management and commercial agreement-structuring skills.

• Experience working cross-functionally with Product, Legal, Compliance, Finance and Commercial teams.

• International experience, including working across multiple markets or managing cross-border relationships.

• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to connect with stakeholders at all levels and communicate project expectations and progress clearly.

• Creative problem-solving skills and innate curiosity—you’re interested in exploring new business constructs, not just replicating the models used by industry incumbents.

Preferred

• Experience at a global, high-growth fintech or pre-IPO startup.

• Experience building financial partnerships in a new geography.

• Experience with merchant acquiring and/or card portfolio management, including pricing, interchange and product profitability.

• Recognition as an industry thought leader, with experience representing your company at industry events.

• You own the outcome and you don't wait for permission to fix what's broken.

• You're comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and moving quickly anyway.

• You enjoy working closely with people across multiple countries and time zones as part of one connected, global team, including flexing your hours occasionally to make that connection work.

• You value in-person collaboration and are happy being in the office three days a week.

• You connect dots across functions and hold the big picture without losing grip on the details.

Financial & Strategic Partnerships builds the relationships that expand what our platform can do and where it can go next. This team structures deals with financial institutions, fintech platforms, and enterprise software companies that embed Airwallex's infrastructure into their own products: commercially complex work that accelerates growth, opens new markets, and extends distribution reach.

It's a function for strategic thinkers and dealmakers who think in systems, with range across commercial negotiation, technical scoping, and cross-functional coordination. The work is open-ended by nature, and the best outcomes come from people who thrive without an inherited playbook.

If you want to identify, define, and negotiate consequential commercial relationships at the frontier of global finance, this team does the kind of work that will challenge and motivate you.

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.