Director, Corporate Legal

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 judgement, 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

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

In this Director, Corporate Legal role, you will be the senior transactions lead within Corporate Legal for Airwallex globally. You’ll own the full lifecycle of high‑impact corporate transactions, including private company financings, fundraising, secondary sales, and M&A, while shaping our capital structure, governance, and global footprint. You’ll work directly with the CEO’s Office, Corporate Development & Investor Relations, Finance, Tax, Regulatory Legal and other LRC teams to design and execute complex, cross‑border deals that enable Airwallex’s next phase of growth.

This hybrid role is based in San Francisco or New York.

Responsibilities

• Lead as primary internal counsel on private company fundraising and financing transactions (equity and equity‑linked), including term sheet development, drafting and negotiating definitive agreements, coordinating due diligence and driving transactions to close.
• Partner closely with the Corporate Development & Investor Relations team on fundraising strategy, investor due diligence, data room management, disclosure, and ongoing investor rights and governance matters across multiple rounds and instruments.
• Lead end‑to‑end legal execution of domestic and cross‑border M&A and strategic transactions, including acquisitions of licensed fintech entities and other strategic assets: structuring, documentation, regulatory and licensing considerations, closing mechanics and post‑closing integration support.
• Advise on and structure secondary sales and other private‑company liquidity programs for existing shareholders, employees and early investors, including transfer restrictions, ROFR/ROFO mechanics and stakeholder approvals, in close partnership with the Company Secretary and People teams.
• Provide expert advice on corporate governance, intragroup structuring, internal reorganisations and corporate actions (including capital raising and board/committee matters), ensuring our global entity and ownership structure effectively supports licensing, tax, regulatory and commercial objectives.
• Collaborate with Regulatory Legal, Regulatory Compliance, FCC, Product Legal, Data & Privacy and Risk to ensure transactions are designed and executed in a way that preserves our licenses, meets regulatory expectations and aligns with our risk appetite.
• Select, manage and direct external counsel across multiple jurisdictions, holding them to a high bar on quality, commerciality, speed and cost, while ensuring consistent legal positions and documentation standards.
• Build and improve scalable transaction processes, playbooks, templates and approval frameworks for Corporate Legal, thoughtfully leveraging LegalTech and AI tools to increase speed, consistency and deal capacity.

Who You Are

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

• U.S. legal qualification (or foreign equivalent) and active license to practice in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
• 10+ years of experience in an in‑house legal department and/or in private practice advising on private company financing and mergers and acquisitions, with a strong track record running transactions end‑to‑end.
• Significant experience drafting and negotiating core transaction documentation for equity financings, M&A, joint ventures and secondary sales (including term sheets, purchase/merger agreements, shareholder and investor rights agreements, and ancillary documents).
• Strong working knowledge of U.S. corporate and securities law as applied to private companies, particularly in the context of fundraising, secondary transactions and corporate governance.
• Demonstrated ability to work directly with senior executives, investors and cross‑functional stakeholders, providing clear, commercially grounded, risk‑balanced advice in fast‑moving environments.
• Excellent drafting, negotiation, analytical and project‑management skills, with the ability to manage multiple complex matters simultaneously and drive deals to closure under tight timelines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in high‑growth technology, fintech, payments or broader financial services, ideally with exposure to cross‑border structures and licensed entities.
• A mix of top‑tier law firm and in‑house experience, ideally in a late‑stage growth or pre‑IPO company.
• Experience designing or executing private‑company secondary programs, tender offers or other structured liquidity solutions.
• Demonstrated experience collaborating with Legal, Risk & Compliance peers (Regulatory Legal, Regulatory Compliance, FCC, Data & Privacy, Product Legal) on transactions that intersect with regulatory and product issues.
• Experience building or enhancing transaction‑related legal operations (processes, playbooks, templates, tooling) to support scale in a global organisation.