Senior Manager, Merchant Risk Operations, APAC

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. As part of our Risk Operations team, you’ll be responsible for strengthening our global risk control strategy, managing a well-performed risk operation team and ensuring portfolio risk level aligned with the enterprise risk appetite. You are a self-starter and independent thinker with exceptional analytical and communication skills, capable of solving complex problems that will drive the evolution of our business. WHAT YOU WILL DO - Lead APAC Merchant Risk Operations team for Payments - Own end‑to‑end operational performance for APAC merchant risk operations, including SLAs, quality, loss metrics, and customer impact - Oversee design and execution of merchant monitoring, investigation and escalation workflows across APAC region - Partner with global legal, risk and compliance team to implement new policies and control changes efficiently into operations - Work with Product and Engineering to evolve risk tooling (rules engines, case management, AI/LLM‑based workflows, analytics surfaces) for higher accuracy and efficiency - Champion automation and AI to reduce manual work, speed up decisions, and improve reviewer effectiveness while maintaining strong control standards - Drive the key performance metrics (fraud ratio, chargeback ratio, etc) in MRM team to meet the company OKR - Proactive stakeholder management including risk, compliance, commercial, product etc. - Always challenge the status quo and continuously strive for operational excellence WHO YOU ARE You are an experienced risk operations leader who is equally comfortable in the details of complex cases and in board‑level conversations about strategy and risk appetite. You know how to scale teams, influence cross‑functional stakeholders, and build systems that enable both growth and protection. 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: - 8+ years of experience in payments / fintech / acquiring with at least 3+ years people management experiences - Deep expertise in one or more of Merchant Risk: - credit and fraud risk ( reserves and exposure management) - brand risk (AUP and compliance management) - Proven track record managing senior ICs in multi‑location teams - Demonstrated ability to operate fast in ambiguity, set clear priorities, and drive outcomes in a fast‑moving, high‑growth environment - A strong desire to learn about new payment trends and technologies. - Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: - Strong analytical and data skills – comfortable using dashboards and data tools to diagnose issues, design experiments, and measure impact - Experience building or scaling risk operations in a global fintech or top‑tier payments company - Hands‑on experience partnering with Product/Engineering to design risk tooling or automation, including use of AI/ML/LLMs in operations - Mandarin language proficiency. 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 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. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY 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.