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Airwallex is a regulated financial operating system serving over 675,000 businesses globally, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok. The company operates as the infrastructure backbone for global payments across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, with 2,300+ employees across 27 offices.
As Director of Sanctions, you will lead Airwallex's global sanctions compliance programme across multiple jurisdictions and payment rails. This is a second-line leadership role providing independent oversight, challenge, and transformation to keep the programme effective, defensible, and future-ready.
Key responsibilities include:
- Owning and elevating the global sanctions strategy, policy framework, and second-line governance across all operating jurisdictions (OFAC, EU, UK OFSI, UN, MAS, HKMA, AUSTRAC, and local regimes).
- Providing independent oversight and challenge of first-line customer, payment, and counterparty screening operations, setting global standards for investigative quality and risk-based decision-making.
- Serving as the global escalation point for complex sanctions determinations, potential hits, voluntary self-disclosures, asset freezing, and high-risk deal approvals.
- Partnering with Data, Product, and Engineering to design and validate fuzzy logic, name and transaction screening algorithms, geographic blocking mechanisms, and AI/ML-driven alert reduction systems.
- Leading the modernisation roadmap for sanctions screening through AI-assisted workflows, graph analysis, automated detection, and real-time capabilities for cross-border payment rails.
- Managing regulatory examinations, supervisory inquiries, and complex due diligence reviews, maintaining audit-ready systems and decision trails.
- Monitoring geopolitical developments, sanctions evasion typologies, and enforcement trends, translating changes into platform requirements ahead of regulatory deadlines.
- Reporting sanctions programme health, residual risk, KPIs, and emerging trends to executive leadership, risk committees, and the board.
- Leading, inspiring, and scaling a high-performing team of sanctions managers and subject matter experts across multiple regions.
You will work from the London office three days per week.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 12+ years of dedicated experience in sanctions compliance and financial crime risk management.
- Executive leadership experience managing cross-regional teams in a second-line-of-defence or global policy capacity.
- Deep expertise in global cross-border payments, multi-currency account structures, foreign exchange, platform or embedded finance, or digital asset ecosystems.
- Expert knowledge of global sanctions regimes (OFAC, EU, UK OFSI, UN, MAS, HKMA, AUSTRAC) and trade restrictions, export controls, and sanctions evasion techniques.
- Experience providing independent oversight of customer, payment, and counterparty screening operations.
- Track record of evaluating, tuning, or deploying modern sanctions technology, including AI/NLP-assisted screening tools, graph databases, and automated alert disposition frameworks.
- Experience partnering with Product and Engineering teams to operationalise complex regulatory requirements in automated payment infrastructure.
- Hands-on experience leading regulatory examinations, managing voluntary disclosures, and presenting screening architectures to regulators and institutional banking partners.
- Exceptional communication skills to influence cross-functional leaders, defend risk positions to regulators, and present complex sanctions topics to executive leadership.
- Bachelor's degree.
PREFERRED:
- Certified Sanctions Specialist (CGSS), CAMS, or equivalent professional designation.
- Advanced degree (Juris Doctor, master's degree, or degree in technical/quantitative discipline).
