Associate Director, Obligations Management (San Francisco)

About AirwallexAirwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 250,000 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 2,300 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 27 offices around the globe. Valued at US$11 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 ValueWe 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 teamThe Regulatory & Compliance team helps Airwallex grow responsibly as a global financial platform. We work at the intersection of law, regulation, risk, and business execution, partnering closely with teams across the company to navigate complexity, enable growth, and protect the trust our customers, partners, and regulators place in us. It’s a team for people who are thoughtful, practical, and energized by solving hard problems in a fast-moving, highly regulated environment.What you'll doAs the Associate Director, Obligations Management, you will own the central governance infrastructure that identifies, catalogs, and tracks regulatory and financial partner requirements across Airwallex’s footprint. Sitting as a global central team, you will lead the architecture and maintenance of the global obligations register, mapping complex statutory and clearing-partner mandates directly to internal compliance controls.You will also oversee the institutional RFI knowledge base and the central global audit register, ensuring traceability of control performance and tracking issue lifecycles through to verified closure. You will partner extensively with Regional Regulatory Legal, Local Regulatory Compliance, Internal Audit, and Second-Line Risk teams to transform abstract legal mandates into a structured, data-driven, and audit-ready compliance inventory.This role holds a global mandate and can be based in the US or EMEA.ResponsibilitiesArchitect, scale, and maintain the central Global Obligations Register, comprehensively cataloging all international regulatory rules, statutory laws, and Tier-1 financial partner requirements alongside their respective compliance controls.Collaborate closely with the Risk team to ensure all mapped compliance controls and reporting obligations within the registry are structured effectively for independent monitoring, validation, and testing.Manage and continuously evolve the centralized global RFI knowledge base, synthesizing data and insights from local Regulatory Compliance teams to curate uniform, legally defensible evidence portfolios for banking partners and regulatory bodies.Own the global central audit register, tracking internal audit findings, external examination gaps, and material regulatory issues to drive accountability and verify robust root-cause remediation before deadlines.Partner with Regional Regulatory Legal teams to ingest ongoing legal interpretations and horizon scanning data, ensuring the global obligations registry is dynamically updated to prevent compliance gaps or control drift.Direct and scale a high-performing obligations management team, replacing manual trackers and spreadsheet dependencies with advanced, scalable GRC tooling and automated compliance dashboards.Who you areWe're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.Minimum qualifications10 to 12+ years of experience within corporate governance, regulatory compliance, internal audit, or operational risk management inside a highly regulated financial services, fintech, or banking environmentAt least 3 to 5+ years of experience managing a compliance inventory, regulatory obligations framework, or GRC program at a senior level within a multi-jurisdictional environmentProven track record of constructing complex compliance matrices, mapping internal controls to international laws, supervising audit registers, and managing institutional RFI mechanismsA high-ownership, systematic approach to problem-solving, with exceptional corporate drafting skills and the cross-functional agility to align decentralized regional teams with central hub standardsPreferred qualificationsBachelor's degree in Law, Public Policy, Risk Management, Business Administration, or a related structured analytical disciplineJuris Doctor (JD), Master of Laws (LLM), or a Master's degree in Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management, or Business AdministrationProfessional designations such as Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), or equivalent GRC-related credentialsDeep experience working within a high-growth cross-border payments company, top-tier neobank, or API-driven digital platform handling high volumes of regulated transactionsDirect experience selecting, deploying, or configuring institutional Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) software systems to automate policy mapping and issue remediation workflowsApplicant Safety Policy: Fraud and Third-Party RecruitersTo protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page.Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary.Equal opportunityAirwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.Compensation Range: $157,327 - $247,000LocationUS - New York; US - San FranciscoEmployment TypeFull timeLocation TypeHybridDepartmentRegulatory & ComplianceRegulatory ComplianceCompensationNY/SFBase $157,327 – $247,000 • Offers Equity • Offers BonusAirwallex promotes fair compensation practices in accordance with applicable national, federal, state, and local law.These expected base pay ranges are based on information at the time this post was generated and represent the company’s good faith minimum and maximum ranges for this role at the time of posting.The actual compensation offered to a candidate will be dependent upon multiple factors, including but not limited to relevant experience, skills and other qualifications, geographic location as noted, internal equity, and other external market factors.Certain roles may be eligible for other compensation including, but not limited to, annual bonuses, commissions, RSUs, or other forms of compensation in addition to the established salary range.Benefits vary by country and employment type in accordance with local statutory requirements. All employees receive at least the statutory minimum for paid annual leave and public holidays, with many of our locations offering additional company-provided vacation days.For example, for US-based employees, they are eligible to participate in medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan, short-term and long-term disability, basic life insurance, and well-being benefits. US-based employees also receive 20 paid days of vacation and 12 paid days of company holidays in a calendar year.Further details about our compensation and benefits package are available upon request by contacting our Talent Acquisition team.