Senior Manager, Regulatory Strategy & 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. HOW YOU'LL MAKE IMPACT This is a high-impact role within Airwallex’s Regulatory Legal & Compliance organisation. You’ll turn strategic regulatory priorities into coordinated, measurable delivery across our global business, bringing structure to complex initiatives and strengthening the governance and execution discipline needed to support continued growth. - Drive the end-to-end delivery of strategic regulatory projects, from defining the problem and developing the approach through implementation, tracking and benefits realisation. - Translate strategic priorities into clear plans, milestones, dependencies, decision points, owners and measurable outcomes. - Coordinate complex initiatives across Regulatory Operations, Regulatory Compliance, Regulatory Legal, Risk, Financial Crime Compliance, Product, Engineering, Finance, Operations and other business teams. - Establish governance for complex programmes, including steering committees, working groups, status reporting, risk management, issue escalation and decision tracking. - Strengthen the interfaces between Regulatory Legal, Regulatory Compliance and the first-line business teams responsible for execution, while maintaining clear ownership across each function. - Coordinate preparation for regulatory examinations, inspections, audits, information requests and supervisory engagements, including timelines, evidence gathering, stakeholder alignment and follow-up actions. - Identify operational bottlenecks, duplicated activity, unclear accountabilities and delivery risks, and develop practical recommendations to improve efficiency, consistency and scalability. - Define and monitor programme metrics, delivery dashboards and management information that give senior leaders a clear view of progress, risks, dependencies and regulatory readiness. - Prepare concise, decision-ready papers, presentations, dashboards and recommendations for senior leadership and governance forums. - Facilitate senior stakeholder discussions, resolve competing priorities and ensure decisions result in clear action and follow-through. - Capture lessons learned from regulatory programmes, examinations, audits, monitoring activity and regulatory interactions, and use them to improve future delivery. - Act as a trusted strategic partner to the Regulatory leadership team, bringing structured problem-solving, sound judgment and a strong bias toward execution. This role is based in London or Amsterdam, with three days in the office each week. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR Essentials - Significant experience leading complex strategic, regulatory, compliance, risk, transformation or operational programmes. - Demonstrated experience coordinating cross-functional initiatives across a matrixed, international organisation. - Strong programme management skills, including planning, governance, dependency management, risk management, issue resolution and delivery tracking. - Proven ability to structure ambiguous problems, develop practical recommendations and translate strategy into executable plans. - Experience working with senior stakeholders and influencing outcomes across functions and geographies. - Excellent written and oral communication skills, including experience preparing executive-level materials and presenting complex issues clearly. - Strong analytical skills and attention to detail, with the ability to synthesise regulatory, operational and commercial information into clear decisions and actions. - Ability to work independently, take ownership and maintain momentum across multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment. - A pragmatic, collaborative and low-ego approach to working with Legal, Compliance, Operations, Product, Engineering, Risk and other business teams. - Experience in financial services, payments, fintech, technology or another highly regulated industry. Preferred - Experience as a strategy or management consultant, or in a comparable internal strategy, transformation or programme management role. - Experience delivering regulatory change, compliance transformation, licensing, market-entry, regulatory engagement or operating-model initiatives. - Familiarity with regulatory obligations, controls, regulatory reporting, governance, risk frameworks or GRC tooling. - Experience working with Regulatory Operations, Regulatory Compliance and Regulatory Legal teams to deliver regulatory programmes. - Experience supporting regulatory examinations, audits, information requests or supervisory engagements. - Experience partnering with Product, Engineering, Data or Operations teams to improve processes or implement automation. - Experience in a global payments, cross-border payments, electronic money, banking, digital assets or other financial services environment. - Relevant qualification in business, finance, economics, law, risk, compliance, operations or project management. YOU'LL THRIVE HERE IF - You own the outcome and you don't wa