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 â including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more â 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 2,000 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 youâre 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 youâre 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 zeroâtoâone ideas into real products, and you âget stuff doneâ end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, youâll tackle complex, highâvisibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, letâs build whatâs next.
Global FCC and Risk Operations at Airwallex is a first-line-of-defence function that runs financial crime and risk operations globally. The org is led by the Head of Global FCC and Risk Operations and spans five pillars: Financial Crime Risk Ops, Risk Operations (Payments), Risk Operations (Cards), Card Credit Risk Ops, and Risk Strategy & AI Enablement.
This role leads the Financial Crime Risk Operations pillar â the largest team in the org â and sits alongside the other pillar leads as a peer. You will partner closely with 2LOD Financial Crime Compliance (including the MLRO function), Regulatory & Compliance, Legal, Risk Product and Engineering, and Commercial leaders across our key markets.
As Director, Financial Crime Risk Operations, you will own and scale our firstâline financial crime risk operations globally.
You will:
Lead the Financial Crime Risk Operations organisation
Own vision, strategy and execution for Financial Crime Operations across domains spanning transaction monitoring, investigations / FIU, name and sanctions screening, and fraud risk operations.
Build, lead and develop highâperforming teams across locations, setting clear OKRs and operating rhythms.
Manage robust, scalable dayâtoâday operations
Oversee alert handling, investigations, escalations and account actions across our products, ensuring timely, highâquality decisions that balance risk, customer experience and commercial impact.
Ensure accurate documentation, clear audit trails and strong evidencing for all casework and decisions.
Own firstâline financial crime controls and SOPs
Design and continuously improve SOPs, playbooks and control frameworks, aligned to Airwallex's financial crime and fraud policies and standards set by 2LOD. Partner with Risk Product and Engineering, and with Risk Strategy & AI Enablement, to translate risk requirements into scalable system controls, rules, models and tooling.
Partner closely with FCC and Regulatory & Compliance
Implement policy, standards and risk appetite in operations, including for high-risk industries and EDD use cases. Support regulatory engagements, exams and audits by providing data, narrative and evidence of effective first-line control operation.
Drive risk assessment and deal escalation outcomes
Act as a key first-line reviewer in deal escalation and risk assessment processes, assessing residual financial crime and fraud risk and recommending mitigants or conditions. Provide clear, pragmatic guidance to Commercial, Product and Partnerships teams on complex or novel structures.
Lead transformation and continuous improvement
Identify and execute on opportunities to automate, standardise and regionalise operational processes, reducing manual effort and error rates while improving SLAs. Use data and analytics to track performance (alert volumes, cycle times, false positive rates, SAR output, fraud loss rates, recovery rates) and drive iterative optimisation.
Shape our risk culture
Champion high standards for integrity, judgement and documentation in all financial crime operations work.
Act as a senior mentor and thought partner for leaders across the Risk Operations org, 2LOD FCC and Regulatory & Compliance on financial crime and fraud topics..
You are an experienced financial crime / fraud operations leader who thrives in highâgrowth, highâambiguity environments and is excited to build a bestâinâclass firstâline function in a global fintech.
Minimum qualifications
Extensive experience (typically 10+ years) across financial crime risk operations and/or fraud operations, including leadership of multiâcountry teams in banks, payments companies or highâgrowth fintechs.
Deep knowledge of AML / CTF, sanctions, fraud, KYC, transaction monitoring and investigations processes and controls, and how they map into firstâline operations.
Proven track record leading largeâscale operational teams (managers, investigators/analysts) with clear performance management, coaching and succession planning.
Demonstrated experience designing and running control frameworks, QA and auditâready documentation in integrityâsensitive environments.
Strong partnership experience with 2LOD FCC / MLROs, Regulatory Compliance, Legal, Risk and Product, including on policy implementation, escalations and regulatory engagements
Excellent judgement under uncertainty, able to balance risk, regulatory expectations and commercial realities, and to make clear, wellâreasoned decisions quickly.
Outstanding communication skills â able to distil complex risk topics for senior executives, regulators and crossâfunctional partners.
Bachelorâs degree or equivalent experience; relevant professional certification (e.g. CAMS, ICA, ACAMS, fraud or AML certifications) is a strong plus.
Preferred qualifications
Experience operating in global payments or cross-border financial platforms, including exposure to complex, multi-jurisdictional financial crime and fraud regimes.
Demonstrated success driving tooling and rule-set evolution with Risk Product / Engineering and data science teams, including ML-enabled controls.
Prior experience engaging directly with regulators or law enforcement on financial crime or fraud topics.
Experience in high-growth, API-first environments where speed, scalability and resilience must coexist.
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