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Airwallex is an AI-native financial operating system serving over 675,000 businesses globally, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok. The company operates as the regulated backbone for global payments across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, with 85+ licenses and 2,300+ employees across 27 offices.
In this Director role, you will lead the Product Legal team supporting Embedded Finance, Lending, Issuing, and Payments for Platforms. You'll manage two direct reports while remaining deeply involved in the highest-impact matters. Your responsibilities include:
- Leading legal strategy and execution for embedded finance and lending products, structuring novel financial models for strategic enterprise customers in partnership with Enterprise Sales, Product, Financial Partnerships, Risk, Regulatory Compliance, Engineering, and bank partners.
- Providing practical, risk-weighted guidance on U.S. and international payments and financial services laws, including money transmission, AML/BSA, Reg E, UDAAP, card network rules, state licensing, and bank-partner and BaaS requirements.
- Advising Product and Engineering from early ideation through PRD review, regulatory structuring, terms drafting, and go-to-market readiness for new products and markets.
- Drafting, reviewing, and negotiating financial partnership agreements and platform terms and conditions with banks, payment processors, card networks, and other financial partners, managing terms updates across jurisdictions.
- Building scalable legal playbooks, approved use-case repositories, and reference materials to accelerate recurring deal patterns.
- Coordinating with Regulatory Legal, Data & Privacy, Risk, Compliance, Global Expansion & Licensing, and regional product legal leads on product launches, GRC escalations, and regulatory exam responses.
- Serving as the U.S.-based point person for Embedded Finance, owning the Lending portfolio, and providing secondary support for Issuing.
- Supporting Product Legal Readiness for prioritized launches across Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the UAE.
- Engaging in customer-facing legal-to-legal discussions and bringing deep fintech regulatory credibility to complex commercial opportunities.
You'll work from the San Francisco or New York office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
REQUIREMENTS:
- JD or equivalent law degree with active bar membership in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
- 10+ years of legal experience in payments, fintech, financial services, or closely related regulated industry, including substantial in-house experience.
- Deep expertise in U.S. payments and financial services regulation (money transmission, AML/BSA, Reg E, UDAAP, card network rules, state licensing, bank-partner/BaaS requirements).
- Strong fintech lens with ability to make sound decisions when regulations are evolving, fact patterns are novel, and information is incomplete.
- Experience serving as embedded legal partner to Product and Engineering teams from ideation through launch in fast-moving fintech or financial services environment.
- Track record of structuring and negotiating complex agreements with banks, payment processors, card networks, or other financial partners.
- Strong drafting skills in financial partnership agreements, platform terms and conditions, consumer terms, and related product documentation.
- Ability to translate complex technical and regulatory matters into clear, practical advice for business partners and senior stakeholders.
- Experience leading, mentoring, or developing lawyers or other legal professionals, with judgment to balance people leadership and hands-on product counseling.
- Collaborative, commercially minded approach to partnering with Sales, Product, Financial Partnerships, Risk, Compliance, Engineering, and cross-functional teams.
PREFERRED:
- Experience at top-tier law firm combined with in-house experience at fintech, payments, or technology company offering regulated financial products.
- Experience with multi-jurisdictional product launches, including European payments regulation (PSD2, e-money frameworks).
- Experience with Visa or Mastercard rules, issuing programs, consumer financial products, regulatory exams, or bank-partner audits.
- Track record of building legal playbooks, scalable frameworks, or internal knowledge resources.
- Experience supporting embedded finance, Payments for Platforms, Lending, or Issuing products.
- Comfort using legal technology or AI tools to improve legal workflows.
