Senior Director of Operational Risk (Framework & Governance)

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 250000 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 2300 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 27 offices around the globe. Valued at US$11 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 youre ready to do the most ambitious work of your career join us.

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 youre 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.

Youre humble and collaborative; turn zerotoone ideas into real products and you get stuff done end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here youll tackle complex highvisibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you lets build whats next.

About the team

The Global Risk team at Airwallex plays a critical role in enabling the companys growth by building a strong scalable and globally consistent approach to risk management. The team works across the business to define risk appetite develop frameworks and policies support strategic decision-making and provide oversight of key risks as Airwallex expands across products markets and regulatory environments. Youll be part of a highly collaborative group that partners closely with Product Engineering Operations Commercial Financial Crime Compliance Regulatory Compliance and Legal teams to help Airwallex grow responsibly and with confidence. This is a team where youll tackle complex high-impact challenges shape how risk is managed at a global fintech and help build the foundations for long-term scale.

What youll do

Airwallex is building a standalone global second line of defense and this role will be central to that evolution.

As Global Lead of Operational Risk you will build and lead the global framework that helps Airwallex identify measure escalate and reduce operational risk across a fast-growing high-transaction fintech platform.

This is a senior leadership role for someone who can challenge deeply think systemically and partner credibly with executives across Product Engineering Operations Finance and regional teams to make sure the business can scale without compromising resilience regulatory standing or customer trust.

This role is based in the US or EMEA.

Responsibilities:

• Architect own and continuously evolve Airwallexs global Operational Risk Framework including the standards governance and escalation protocols for how operational risks are identified assessed monitored and remediated across the company.

• Establish and lead core operational risk programs across event and loss management risk assessments recovery and resolution fraud risk governance and third-party risk management translating major incidents and control failures into actionable insight and durable remediation.

• Serve as the senior 2LoD authority for operational risk boundary breaches including tracking systemic exposures driving root cause analysis escalating material issues and holding first-line leaders accountable for timely and sustainable risk reduction.

• Lead the 2LoD controls model for operational risk directing and strengthening a controls center of excellence that supervises and challenges the control environment across Technology Operations Finance Product and other critical business areas.

• Drive a more modern scalable control environment by pushing the organization toward automated data-driven controls and embedded guardrails that can keep pace with continuous product launches engineering change and platform growth.

• Define the second-line approach to fraud risk governance and partner with first-line teams to challenge fraud controls model effectiveness chargeback mitigation and platform vulnerabilities without creating unnecessary friction for customers or the business.

• Enforce a rigorous global third-party risk governance approach across critical outsourced and ecosystem dependencies including cloud providers clearing and payment partners and other material service providers with clear expectations for materiality continuity substitutability and exit planning.

• Own the second-line framework for operational resilience business continuity crisis triggers and recovery and resolution readiness including scenario testing and tabletop exercises that verify the business can withstand major outages third-party failures and other severe disruptions.

• Produce high-quality operational risk reporting and documentation for executive leadership governance forums regulators auditors and bank partners and support major regulatory and licensing initiatives with regulator-grade frameworks and evidence.

Who you are

Were looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have but are not mandatory.

Minimum qualifications:

• You have 12 to 15 years of experience across operational risk enterprise risk technology risk operational resilience or related control disciplines within financial services banking payments or fintech.

• You have at least 5 years of senior leadership experience managing global or multi-regional risk and control teams in a second-line environment.

• You have built and scaled end-to-end operational risk frameworks including risk and control self-assessments key risk indicators loss event management issue management and escalation governance.

• You have led or materially strengthened second-line oversight of first-line controls across functions such as Technology Operations Finance or Product.

• You have direct experience with third-party risk management including risk tiering due diligence ongoing oversight and governance of critical outsourcing or vendor relationships.

• You have experience designing maintaining or defending business continuity operational resilience recovery planning or resolution-related frameworks in regulated environments.

• You are able to engage credibly with senior executives regulators auditors and cross-functional stakeholders and you know how to challenge constructively in a fast-moving environment.

• You have a bachelors degree in Business Administration Finance Technology Engineering Law or a related discipline.

• You have deep knowledge of operational risk methodologies and frameworks such as Basel operational risk principles COSO ISO standards or equivalent approaches.

Preferred qualifications:

• You have experience leading operational risk in a cloud-native API-first high-growth fintech payments platform neobank or other technology-led financial institution.

• You have strong technical fluency and can engage effectively on topics such as cloud infrastructure software development lifecycles platform dependencies and control design in modern engineering environments.

• You have direct experience overseeing fraud risk governance in digital payments including areas such as account takeover onboarding fraud merchant fraud or card-not-present fraud.

• You have a track record of modernizing traditional controls through automation analytics GRC tooling or data-driven monitoring.

• You have experience coordinating through major live incidents or crises such as platform outages cloud failures payment rail disruption or critical partner failure.

• You hold an advanced degree or relevant professional certifications such as CRISC CISA CAMS CFE BCI or equivalent.

To protect you from recruitment scams please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport) or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @ email address. Please apply only through or our official LinkedIn page.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition regardless of any other provision to the contrary.

Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit qualifications competence and talent. We dont regard color religion race national origin sexual orientation ancestry citizenship sex marital or family status disability gender or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation please let us know.

Required Experience:

Exec