Head of Risk Operations

ABOUT AIRWALLEX 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 https://www.airwallex.com/en-us/operating-principles to see it in full. About the team: Risk Operations is a global 1LOD team responsible for the Acquiring, Issuing and Credit Risk domains. The team handles cases and investigations across product domains, working closely with 2LOD and Commercial teams to ensure that Airwallex operates within its risk appetite. The team is passionate about operational excellence and delivering an exceptional end-to-end customer experience. What you’ll do: As the Senior Director/Head of Risk Operations, you will lead a global team responsible for defining procedures and delivering operational excellence across new client onboarding, periodic review and in-life behaviour. You will ensure that Airwallex champions high standards for integrity, judgement and documentation in all aspects of risk operations. HOW YOU'LL MAKE IMPACT You'll set the vision, strategy and execution for Risk Operations across Acquiring, Issuing and Credit Risk, leading a global team that supports onboarding, periodic review and in-life behaviour. - Build a scalable operating model with clear OKRs, data-driven performance management and the resourcing strategy needed to balance 24/7 coverage, customer experience and cost efficiency. - Raise the quality and consistency of procedures, playbooks, control frameworks and documentation, partnering closely with 2LOD, Risk Product, Engineering and Commercial teams to make timely, high-quality decisions within Airwallex's risk appetite. - Lead the team's AI and automation transformation while keeping integrity, judgement and operational excellence at the centre of how we work. You'll work from our London office three days a week. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR ESSENTIALS - Proven experience, including senior leadership in large-scale, multi-jurisdiction operations within a rapidly growing regulated financial-services, payments or fintech business. - A track record of scaling Risk Operations across at least two of Payments, Issuing and Credit Risk across multiple geographies, while building globally consistent performance. - A background in Fraud Operations and account takeover risk control. - Strong commercial and analytical judgement, with the ability to frame decisions through unit economics, scalability and return on investment. - Experience operating at the intersection of Operations, Product and Risk, and driving cross-functional outcomes without full reporting-line authority. - Demonstrated delivery of automation or AI-led transformation in an operations setting. - Experience using big data and analytics tools, including SQL, Databricks and BI tooling. PREFERRED - Experience with cross-border payments and multi-entity, multi-licence environments. - Experience across Payments, Issuing and Credit Risk. - Comfort working with highly technical, API-first products. - Exposure to IPO readiness or public-company control environments. - A top-tier consulting or operator-investor background, with structured thinking under ambiguity. YOU'LL THRIVE HERE IF - You're comfortable owning the roadmap yourself. - 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've operated in a compliance-heavy environment and know how to move fast without cutting the corners that matter. - You know when to align and when to just decide. Collaboration isn't a way to avoid accountability. - You connect dots across functions and hold the big picture without losing grip on the details. LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR TEAM Operations at Airwallex is where global ambition gets translated into systems that actually hold at scale. This team runs the high-stakes flows businesses depend on — payments, accounts, and cross-border transactions. The work sits at the intersection of product, compliance, and customer experience. The problems are rarely simple: balancing speed with rigor, global consistency with local reality, and immediate execution with the stronger systems a growing company needs next. It's a function for operators with a builder mentality: trusted to take ownership, work cross-functionally with product and risk, and create new processes for things that have not existed before. If you want to help build the operational backbone of a global financial platform, this is work that keeps the whole machine moving. APPLICANT SAFETY POLICY: FRAUD AND THIRD-PARTY RECRUITERS 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 http://airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com http://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 c