Director, Compliance Monitoring and Oversight

Airwallex • San Francisco, CA

13d • Onsite

About The Position

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 the Director of Compliance Monitoring and Oversight, you will be the global architect of Airwallex’s "Second Line of Defense" assurance function. You will lead a small, high-performing international team responsible for validating the effectiveness of our financial crime controls across all regions and products.
While we have a robust foundation in place, this role is about taking our assurance capabilities to the next level. You will be responsible for maturing our global monitoring framework to ensure it is scalable, data-driven, and aligned with the complexities of our rapidly expanding footprint. You will move beyond box-ticking to provide strategic insights on control health to the Board and Senior Management, helping the business grow safely and sustainably.

The role is based in San Francisco.

Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in Compliance Assurance, Internal Audit, or Regulatory Testing within the financial services or fintech sector
• Significant experience managing international teams, with a track record of developing senior talent (e.g., managing managers)
• You can see the big picture. You know how to pivot a monitoring program from a manual, transactional model to a strategic, risk-based assurance model
• Deep understanding of testing methodologies (design effectiveness vs. operating effectiveness), sampling strategies, and root cause analysis
• Exceptional executive presence. You are comfortable presenting "bad news" constructively to C-level executives and driving consensus on remediation
• Experience working across multiple regulatory jurisdictions (e.g., US, UK/EU, APAC) and understanding the nuances of differing regulatory expectations

Nice To Haves

• Previous experience in a Big 4 or Internal Audit function is highly desirable
• Experience with SQL, Tableau, or other data visualization tools to drive continuous monitoring initiatives
• Relevant professional certifications (e.g., CIA, CAMS, ICA Diploma in GRC)

Responsibilities

• Global framework strategy: Own the strategic evolution of the Compliance Monitoring and Oversight framework. You will refine our global methodology for testing, sampling, and reporting to ensure it remains best-in-class and responsive to new regulatory expectations
• Team leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop a global team of monitoring specialists. You will foster a culture of curiosity, rigor, and objective challenge
• Annual assurance planning: Design and execute the Annual Compliance Monitoring Plan. You will utilize a dynamic, risk-based approach to prioritize testing activities across high-risk products, jurisdictions, and operational processes
• Insight & reporting: Translate complex testing results into high-impact, actionable intelligence. You will provide regular reporting to the FCC and company leadership, highlighting trends, systemic issues, and remediation progress
• Stakeholder partnership: Act as a strategic partner to Regional MLROs and First Line Operational leads. You will ensure that monitoring findings are constructive, clearly understood, and that remediation plans are practical and effective
• Data-driven assurance: Drive the transition towards continuous monitoring and automated testing. You will champion the use of data analytics to identify risk trends that manual sampling might miss
• Regulatory readiness: Ensure the monitoring program is audit-ready at all times and capable of standing up to scrutiny from top-tier global regulators (e.g., FCA, AUSTRAC, NY DFS, MAS)

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed