Senior Director, Enterprise Risk Management

Over deze functie

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 2,200 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 https://www.airwallex.com/us/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 Global Risk team at Airwallex plays a critical role in enabling the company’s 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. You’ll 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 you’ll tackle complex, high-impact challenges, shape how risk is managed at a global fintech, and help build the foundations for long-term scale.

What you'll do

As Senior Director, Enterprise Risk Management, you will shape and scale Airwallex’s enterprise risk management capability across the US and EMEA, helping ensure risk management is a strategic enabler of growth rather than a check-the-box exercise. You will translate Board-approved risk appetite into practical decision-making, strengthen governance and reporting, guide major product and organization changes, and help the company stay resilient as it grows across markets, products, and regulatory environments. You will work closely with the Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer and senior leaders across the business to turn complex risk signals into clear action, while building a strong and practical risk culture across the organization.

This role is based in the US or EMEA.

Responsibilities:

- Lead the evolution of Airwallex’s enterprise risk architecture, including risk appetite, taxonomy, governance standards, escalation protocols, and enterprise-wide oversight, ensuring the framework remains aligned with business strategy and global growth priorities.

- Translate complex risk data, issues, and trends into clear, decision-useful reporting for the C-suite, Board committees, and external stakeholders, and act as a trusted independent advisor who can challenge initiatives that exceed approved risk appetite or outpace control maturity.

- Oversee risk-informed change governance for new products, new markets, major systems changes, and structural changes, ensuring governance supports business velocity while maintaining effective control standards and clear accountability for remediation of material issues.

- Own and continue to strengthen the enterprise crisis management framework, including escalation triggers, governance, and executive response mechanisms, while improving preparedness for severe but plausible events across operational, regulatory, technology, and business domains.

- Drive a unified, risk-aware culture across the organisation by championing consistent adoption of enterprise risk standards, reinforcing first line ownership, and promoting risk management as a shared responsibility and competitive advantage.

- Build and lead a high-performing global second line team, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, Operations, Commercial, Compliance, Legal, Treasury, Finance, and regional leadership to support Airwallex’s next phase of scale with more data-driven and technology-enabled risk oversight.

Who you are

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

Minimum qualifications:

- Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Business, Law, STEM, or another relevant quantitative field.

- 10 to 15+ years of experience in risk management, operational risk, enterprise risk, compliance, controls, or audit within financial services, fintech, payments, banking, or another highly regulated environment.

- At least 5+ years leading enterprise risk management, operational risk, or governance programmes in a complex, matrixed, multi-jurisdiction organisation.

- Proven experience designing, building, or scaling second line of defense frameworks, including risk appetite statements, risk taxonomies, governance processes, and escalation mechanisms.

- Strong familiarity with the regulatory…