Senior Director, Global Controls and Obligations Management

Airwallex • San Francisco, CA

2d • $220,000 - $320,000 • Onsite

About The Position

This is a senior global leadership role responsible for building and scaling Airwallex’s controls and obligations management framework across licensed entities, products, and jurisdictions. You will translate regulatory requirements into clear control requirements, testing strategies, reporting processes, and exam-ready documentation. You will work closely with Regulatory Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk, Financial Crime Compliance, Product, Operations, Finance, and external partners to strengthen a control environment that is practical, scalable, and regulator-ready. Airwallex is continuing to invest in stronger second line maturity, regulatory depth, and global compliance infrastructure as the business scales.
This role is based in the United States.

Requirements

• 15+ years of experience designing and managing complex controls in highly regulated financial services, payments, fintech, banking, or similar environments.
• Law degree, with 15+ years of legal practice experience.
• Experience translating legal, regulatory, and partnership requirements into operational controls, governance frameworks, testing approaches, and practical business processes.
• Experience interacting directly with regulators, including supporting RFIs, exams, audits, inspections, or remediation efforts.
• Experience building or overseeing regulatory reporting governance, obligations management, controls testing, or similar second line compliance infrastructure.
• In-house experience at a fintech, technology, payments, banking, or broader financial services company.
• Proven ability to lead high-performing teams and work effectively across Legal, Compliance, Risk, Product, Operations, Finance, and external advisors.
• Strong analytical, drafting, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with global payments, stored value, treasury, card, acquiring, embedded finance, or multi-jurisdiction licensing models.
• Experience building or improving obligations registers, controls libraries, knowledge management systems, or regulatory reporting operating models at scale.
• Experience working through heightened supervisory scrutiny, enforcement matters, or large-scale remediation programmes.
• Familiarity with third party risk management, outsourcing governance, and vendor oversight frameworks.
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving environment with high standards, evolving priorities, and meaningful cross-functional ownership.

Responsibilities

• Lead the global framework for identifying, interpreting, and operationalising regulatory and partner obligations across jurisdictions, products, and licensed entities, and translate those obligations into clear governance, controls, and execution requirements.
• Manage the design of key controls through implementation, and build a scalable controls testing program that defines methodology, evidence standards, issue identification, remediation tracking, and reporting.
• Engage with third parties, including auditors, consultants, service providers, and external partners, on control design, testing, reporting dependencies, and oversight expectations.
• Design and deliver a global regulatory reporting governance framework, including ownership models, documentation standards, control checks, escalation paths, and change management.
• Support regulatory exams, audits, inspections, RFIs, and related supervisory engagements by coordinating responses, maintaining regulator-ready documentation, and partnering with Regulatory Compliance, which serves as Airwallex’s primary point of contact with regulators, and Regulatory Legal.
• Maintain and continuously improve the obligations and controls register and the supporting knowledge base so teams can clearly understand what is required, who owns it, how it is implemented, and how compliance is evidenced.
• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team, setting a high bar for judgment, rigor, accountability, and cross-functional partnership.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree