Associate Director, Regulatory Legal, Americas

Airwallex•San Francisco, CA

24d

About The Position

About Airwallex 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 – including Brex, Rippling, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – 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 you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us. Attributes We Value 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 you’re 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 zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next. About the team The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal minds and risk management experts. We're passionate about safeguarding Airwallex's operations, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct, and ensuring we navigate the global financial landscape with integrity. We provide expert guidance and support to all areas of the business, proactively identifying, mitigating, and managing legal and financial risks. What you'll do As Associate Director, Regulatory Legal, Americas you will play a valuable role within the global legal and compliance team and will help our rapidly growing business navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. Although you will be based in San Francisco you will have multi-regional responsibility by supporting our regulatory strategy and advising on complex regulatory issues in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. You will provide regulatory legal support for all aspects of our business, including payments, card issuing, card acquiring, Yield, and our SaaS offerings. You will also actively participate in the re-invention of the in-house regulatory legal function as a scalable AI-driven function. This dynamic role is ideal for someone who enjoys wearing multiple hats and solving complex issues for our clients, is detail oriented, willing to take on challenges and changes, obsessively curious and intellectually honest, thrives on taking actions and delivering impactful results, and aims to inspire and be inspired. This role is based in San Francisco or New York City.

Requirements

Juris Doctor and 8 years of post-qualification experience
Strong regulatory experience gained in the fintech industry, reputable law firms or financial institutions
Sound knowledge of the payments (Money Transmission License / MTL) and credit card regulatory environments
Experience managing and growing a team of lawyers
Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to deal with a range of internal and external stakeholders
Proactive, results-driven, and take ownership of your work
Ability to multi-task and a team player with strong communication skills
Strong drafting skills

Nice To Haves

Experience working with stakeholders across the globe and on cross-border payments issues
Experience advising on consumer regulatory matters
Experience using AI, LegalTech and RegTech tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness (bonus points for experience developing and deploying tools)
Fluent in Spanish or Portuguese

Responsibilities

Advise internal stakeholders, including Product, Commercial and other Legal teams, on a broad range of regulatory matters throughout the Americas
Find ways to mitigate legal and regulatory risks while progressing business objectives
Support license maintenance activities including managing regulatory relations, requests for information, and regulatory exams
Review and update manuals, policies and procedures to ensure compliance with laws and regulations in the regions in which AWX operates while identifying opportunities to create efficiencies
Manage and continue to grow the regional AWX reg legal team across multiple jurisdictions
Manage external legal counsel and consultants, ensuring high-quality, cost-effective support is aligned with Airwallex’s business drivers and risk appetite
Support and devise optimal paths to market to support Airwallex expansion activities
Use AI to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of our Regulatory Legal function, including using existing third party tools and supporting the Legal function in developing and deploying AI-driven workflows
Support government relations outreach to legislators and regulatory agencies

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