Senior Compliance Director & MLRO, US

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 Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) team at Airwallex is a strategically vital function operating under a clear Three Lines of Defense model. As the independent second line, FCC owns the global AML/CTF program, sanctions framework, risk assessment methodology, and governance infrastructure across all global entities. As Airwallex scales into new markets and deepens its engagement with global regulatory bodies, we are building a world-class compliance organization capable of managing complex financial crime risks at scale. This is an environment where you will tackle high-impact challenges, shape global fintech risk strategies, and help establish foundations for long-term growth. What you'll do As the Senior Compliance Director & MLRO, US, you will lead and scale the regional compliance architecture across the United States, Canada, and expanding Americas markets, ensuring absolute financial crime compliance while supporting regional business expansion. Leading a regional team of compliance specialists and localized MLROs, you will serve as the primary liaison for federal and state regulatory bodies, oversee regional compliance operations, and monitor shifting regulatory developments. You will act as the definitive second-line regional authority, providing compliance sign-off on complex risk decisions, guiding new license applications (including US state money transmitter licenses), and advising on product and customer use cases. You will work closely with the global FCC leadership team, product executives, and regional business heads to ensure compliance is a strategic enabler of growth. This role is based in New York. Responsibilities Lead, mentor, and scale the AMER regional compliance team, ensuring robust regulatory coverage, local compliance sovereignty, and consistent application of global standards across all active jurisdictions and states. Act as the primary regulatory liaison for the AMER region, managing day-to-day relationships, complex regulatory inquiries, and high-stakes examinations with federal and state authorities (including FinCEN, NYDFS, state banking departments, and FINTRAC). Oversee and execute local financial crime operations and reporting workflows in instances where regional regulatory mandates strictly require second-line actions to be performed within the region or specific state jurisdictions. Monitor the AMER regulatory landscape for shifting BSA/AML, USA PATRIOT Act, sanctions, and financial crime developments, ensuring material updates are proactively analyzed and escalated to the Global Policy team for framework integration. Serve as the definitive regional second-line authority, providing formal compliance sign-off on high-risk decisions and complex escalations elevated to the Governance and Risk Committee (GRC). Provide strategic regulatory guidance and compliance advisory on Product Requirement Documents (PRDs), Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs), novel customer use cases, and new regional or state license applications to ena