Senior Director, AML & Sanctions, Governance & Policy

About the role

Airwallex, the AI-native financial operating system for global commerce, is hiring a Senior Director, AML & Sanctions, Governance & Policy for its Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) team. FCC acts as the independent second line of defence, owning the global AML/CTF programme, sanctions framework, risk assessment methodology and governance infrastructure. The role shapes and scales the global financial crime policy and risk-based programme, sets risk appetite, defines governance frameworks and strengthens executive risk reporting. It is based in London.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the evolution of the Global Core FCC Policy Framework so that the compliance baseline meets global regulator expectations while supporting business growth and regional scalability.
• Lead the FCC governance model and risk management framework, including risk appetite, risk acceptance and governance structure, and the enterprise risk assessment.
• Define the methodology, thresholds and data-scoring models for identifying and mitigating financial crime risks, working with Product, Data Science and Engineering to embed automated compliance controls.
• Turn compliance data, issues and audit findings into clear reporting for executive leadership and the Board's Audit and Risk Committee, with protocols for material risk escalations.
• Oversee regulatory examination defence and disclosure governance, delivering uniform, legally defensible evidence portfolios to regulators and clearing partners.
• Establish the vision for global financial crime training and capability building, and support the Global Head of FCC and Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer on strategic priorities.
• Build and lead a global second-line team of compliance attorneys, quantitative risk modelers, policy writers and governance managers.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Law, Criminology, Public Policy, Finance, Business Administration, International Relations or a related field.
• CAMS certification or an equivalent globally recognised compliance credential (e.g. ICA International Diploma in AML).
• 12 to 15+ years of experience in AML, Sanctions and Financial Crime Compliance in financial services, fintech, payments or banking.
• At least 5+ years leading a global or multi-jurisdictional compliance policy, governance or risk methodology function at a senior level.
• Proven experience designing enterprise-wide risk assessment frameworks and defending against high-stakes regulatory examinations and audits.
• Preferred: advanced degree (JD, LLM or Master's in Regulatory Compliance or Financial Crime) and designations such as CAMS-Audit, CGSS or CAMS-RM.

Applicants should apply through the company's careers site or LinkedIn page; the company states it will not ask for bank details or sensitive IDs during the process and does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters.