Director, Financial Crime Risk Ops

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 . 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 Global FCC and Risk Operations at Airwallex is a first-line-of-defence function that runs financial crime and risk operations globally. The org is led by the Head of Global FCC and Risk Operations and spans five pillars: Financial Crime Risk Ops, Risk Operations (Payments), Risk Operations (Cards), Card Credit Risk Ops, and Risk Strategy & AI Enablement. This role leads the Financial Crime Risk Operations pillar — the largest team in the org — and sits alongside the other pillar leads as a peer. You will partner closely with 2LOD Financial Crime Compliance (including the MLRO function), Regulatory & Compliance, Legal, Risk Product and Engineering, and Commercial leaders across our key markets. What you’ll do As Director, Financial Crime Risk Operations , you will own and scale our first‑line financial crime risk operations globally. You will: Lead the Financial Crime Risk Operations organisation Own vision, strategy and execution for Financial Crime Operations across domains spanning transaction monitoring, investigations / FIU, name and sanctions screening, and fraud risk operations. Build, lead and develop high‑performing teams across locations, setting clear OKRs and operating rhythms. Manage robust, scalable day‑to‑day operations Oversee alert handling, investigations, escalations and account actions across our products, ensuring timely, high‑quality decisions that balance risk, customer experience and commercial impact. Ensure accurate documentation, clear audit trails and strong evidencing for all casework and decisions. Own first‑line financial crime controls and SOPs Design and continuously improve SOPs, playbooks and control frameworks, aligned to Airwallex's financial crime and fraud policies and standards set by 2LOD. Partner with Risk Product and Engineering, and with Risk Strategy & AI Enablement, to translate risk requirements into scalable system controls, rules, models and tooling. Partner closely with FCC and Regulatory & Compliance Implement policy, standards and risk appetite in operations, including for high-risk industries and EDD use cases. Support regulatory engagements, exams and audits by providing data, narrative and evidence of effective first-line control operation. Drive risk assessment and deal escalation outcom