Head of Risk Operations

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: Risk Operations is a global 1LOD team responsible for the Acquiring, Issuing and Credit Risk domains. The team handles cases and investigations across product domains, working closely with 2LOD and Commercial teams to ensure that Airwallex operates within its risk appetite. The team is passionate about operational excellence and delivering an exceptional end-to-end customer experience. What you’ll do: As the Senior Director/Head of Risk Operations, you will lead a global team responsible for defining procedures and delivering operational excellence across new client onboarding, periodic review and in-life behaviour. You will ensure that Airwallex champions high standards for integrity, judgement and documentation in all aspects of risk operations. Responsibilities: Own the vision, strategy and execution for Risk Operations Build, lead and develop high-performing a globally distributed team Own the location and resourcing strategy of the team, solving for 24/7 coverage, quality of customer experience and cost efficiency Create a repeatable & scalable operating rhythm, including clear OKRs Take a data-driven approach to performance management Strike the right balance between risk, customer experience and commercial impact, ensuring timely, high-quality decision making and communications Drive continuous improvement in the quality of procedures, playbooks and control frameworks, aligned to Airwallex financial crime and fraud policies defined by 2LOD and partnering closely with Risk Product and Engineering Ensure that Airwallex continues to improve the quality and consistency of documentation Lead AI transformation of the Risk Operations team This role will be based in either London or Singapore. Who are you: 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: Proven experience, including senior leadership in large-scale, multi-jurisdiction operations in a rapidly growing regulated financial-services or payments/fintech business Proven track record of scaling Risk Operations (at least 2 of Payments, Issuing and Credit) across multiple geographies, and of building globally consistent performance Background in Fraud Ops and ATO risk control Strong commercial and analytical judgement — comfortable framing decisions in unit economics, scalability and return on investment Track record of operating at the Operations–Product–Risk intersection and driving cross-functional outcomes without full reporting-line authority Demonstrated delivery of automation/AI-led transformation in an operations setting Evidence of big data/analytics (including SQL, DBX and BI tooling) Preferred experience: Cross-border payments; multi-entity, multi-licence environments Experience across Payments, Issuing and Credit Risk Comfort with a highly technical, API-first product Exposure to IPO readiness / public-company control environments Top-tier consulting or operator-investor b