Senior Regulatory Counsel, Americas

About Airwallex Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 676,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own. We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full. About the team The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal minds and risk management experts. We're passionate about safeguarding Airwallex's operations, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct, and ensuring we navigate the global financial landscape with integrity. We provide expert guidance and support to all areas of the business, proactively identifying, mitigating, and managing legal, compliance and financial risks. What you'll do You will be primarily responsible for regulatory matters across the Americas region. This role will have a strong focus on advising on complex regulatory issues relating to payments and financial services, including licensing, money transmission and related requirements, and supporting cross-border product offerings. You will be responsible for supporting our licensing, registration and ongoing compliance obligations in relevant Americas markets by helping to design and implement appropriate measures and controls, and by partnering closely with Regulatory Compliance and other control functions. As a Senior Regulatory Counsel, you will serve as a senior advisor to the business and control functions in the Americas, owning complex regulatory workstreams, leading engagements with regulators in key jurisdictions, and contributing to the development of regional regulatory strategy. You will be a valuable member of the global legal and compliance team and will have the opportunity to support a rapidly growing business and the management team to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. This dynamic role is ideal for someone who enjoys wearing multiple hats and solving complex issues and blockers for our clients, is detail-oriented, willing to take on challenges and changes, obsessively curious and intellectually honest, thrives on taking actions and delivering impactful results, and aims to inspire and be inspired. This role is based in San Francisco or New York. Responsibilities: Be responsible for handling regulatory legal issues relating to our business across the Americas, and for providing strategic advice to cross-functional stakeholders relating to our existing licenses/registrations and potential future licence applications in the region, to ensure Airwallex can successfully scale in the Americas. Monitor, report, and influence trends and developments in payments and financial services regulation in the Americas, actively identifying and anticipating changes that may impact business operations or strategic objectives. Partner closely with Product Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk and Financial Crime Compliance teams to ensure robust compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including money transmission, stored value, FX, remittance and card issuing rules in relevant markets. Support local and global Product, Strategy, and Management teams and regional Commercial teams on new market entry and expansion of regulatory licence(s) in the Americas, providing regulatory