Director, Credit Risk

Airwallex•San Francisco, CA

2d•$190,000 - $320,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Credit Risk team is part of Airwallex’s Second Line of Defence and helps the company grow responsibly as a global financial platform. We work at the intersection of credit, FX, and counterparty risk, partnering closely with Product, Sales, Operations, Treasury, Finance, Engineering, Compliance, and Legal to enable commercial growth while protecting Airwallex from financial loss and excessive risk exposure. This is a team for analytical, commercially minded risk leaders who are energized by building scalable frameworks and practical controls across a fast-moving, multi-currency global network. As Director, Credit Risk, you will lead Airwallex's global second-line oversight of credit, FX, and counterparty risk. You will set the risk guardrails that allow the business to grow safely across merchant acquiring, charge cards, FX, treasury, settlement, and banking-partner activities. Reporting to the Senior Director, Financial Risk, you will own the global framework, risk appetite, limits, governance, and portfolio oversight for these risk areas. You will provide independent challenge to first-line decisions and act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across the business. This role is based in New York or San Francisco.

Requirements

10–15 years of progressively senior experience across credit risk, counterparty risk, FX risk, treasury risk, or related financial risk disciplines within banking, payments, fintech, or another highly regulated financial services environment.
Deep experience designing, implementing, and governing second-line credit risk frameworks in a complex, multi-jurisdictional organization.
Strong understanding of credit risk identification, measurement, underwriting, limit management, monitoring, mitigation, provisioning, loss recognition, and capital implications.
Demonstrated experience managing risk across multiple product lines, such as merchant acquiring, commercial or charge cards, B2B lending, payment processing, FX, treasury, settlement, or banking-partner activities.
Practical experience overseeing FX and counterparty risk, including exposure measurement, concentration risk, limits, settlement risk, prefunding, collateral or other mitigants, and escalation governance.
Proven ability to challenge first-line decisions and communicate clear risk positions to senior executives, commercial leaders, product and operations teams, banking partners, auditors, and regulators.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree such as an MBA or Master’s in Finance, Economics, Risk Management, or a related field.
Professional certification such as FRM, PRM, CFA, or an equivalent qualification.
Experience with automated decisioning engines, credit scoring models, portfolio analytics, or alternative data used in underwriting and monitoring.
Familiarity with IFRS 9, expected credit loss methodologies, stress testing, or other relevant prudential and accounting frameworks.
Strong data literacy and familiarity with SQL, Python, or similar tools used to analyze portfolio, exposure, and loss trends.
Experience working in a regulated payments fintech, digital bank, or financial institution with multiple licenses and banking partnerships.
Comfort operating in a high-growth environment with evolving priorities and a bias for practical, scalable execution.

Responsibilities

Define, implement, and continuously enhance the global second-line credit risk framework, including policies, risk appetite thresholds, limits, escalation protocols, and governance standards across Airwallex’s products and legal entities.
Oversee credit exposures across merchant acquiring, charge cards, B2B and commercial activities, FX pre-funding, treasury-related exposures, settlement flows, and other relevant products.
Review and challenge first-line underwriting strategies, customer and merchant risk policies, credit assessments, limit-setting methodologies, and exception processes. Act as a senior escalation point for complex or high-value credit decisions.
Establish and monitor appropriate second-line guardrails for FX exposures arising from pre-funding, settlement, customer activity, treasury flows, and other multi-currency activities. Challenge controls, limits, escalation triggers, and risk reporting to ensure exposures remain within approved tolerances.
Set and oversee counterparty risk standards for banking partners, payment partners, merchants, customers, and other material counterparties. Establish appropriate exposure limits, concentration thresholds, monitoring requirements, and escalation processes.
Lead proactive monitoring of credit, FX, and counterparty portfolios, including exposure, concentration, delinquency, default, chargeback, loss, settlement, liquidity-of-counterparty, and other relevant risk indicators. Identify emerging trends and escalate material issues before they become systemic.
Review and challenge first-line monitoring, collections, collateral, prefunding, reserves, chargeback, and other mitigation strategies. Ensure deteriorating counterparties, customers, merchants, or exposures are identified and addressed promptly.
Partner with Product, Engineering, Commercial, Treasury, Finance, and Operations to assess and challenge the risk design of new products, features, markets, currencies, and partner arrangements before launch.
Lead or support risk committee decisions, material risk approvals, limit exceptions, breach assessments, and remediation plans. Ensure decisions are documented clearly and aligned with approved risk appetite.
Represent Credit Risk during regulatory examinations, internal and external audits, and reviews with banking and strategic partners. Prepare clear, decision-useful materials for senior management, risk committees, and the Board where appropriate.