Global Lead, Commercial Risk Strategy

ABOUT AIRWALLEX

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles https://www.airwallex.com/en-us/operating-principles to see it in full.

About the team

The Commercial Risk Control team sits in the first line of defence within the Commercial organisation and partners directly with Sales, Partnerships, Account Management, Revenue Strategy & Operations and other Legal, Risk and Compliance teams across Airwallex. Our mandate is to embed risk discipline into how we originate, structure and grow our commercial book so that revenue is sustainable and commensurate with the risk we take. We help the business win the right customers faster, avoid the wrong ones earlier, and build a culture where every commercial leader thinks like an owner of our risk profile. You will join at a moment where we are formalising our first line commercial risk function globally, with strong sponsorship from our Chief Revenue Officer (“CRO”), Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer (“CRCO”) and senior commercial leadership.

What you'll do

Reporting directly to the Chief Revenue Officer, you will build and lead the first line commercial risk function for Airwallex. You will define the commercial risk strategy, own the supportability frameworks that govern which customers and use cases we back, and be the primary interface between the commercial organisation, the CRO and second and third line risk teams. You will combine strategic design with hands‑on deal support, portfolio monitoring and incident management so that risk becomes a core commercial capability, not an afterthought.

This hybrid role is based in San Francisco.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

- Pre-Deal Risk & Supportability: Define and manage the 1st LoD commercial risk strategy and supportability frameworks. Serve as the primary checkpoint and provide structured high quality guidance for complex or high-risk merchant use cases to unlock new revenue streams, reviewing and signing off on deal documentation before 2nd line escalation

- Commercial Guardrails & Culture: Translate complex 2nd line risk appetite and policies into clear, actionable commercial playbooks. Embed risk ownership into daily operations by actively participating in major deal reviews, pipeline calls, and quarterly business reviews.

- Capability Building & Conduct: Partner with enablement teams to design practical training and tools for front-office staff. Act as the primary point of accountability for commercial conduct risk, identifying misaligned sales practices or incentive structures and partnering with Revenue Operations to redesign them.

- Always-On Portfolio Monitoring: Design and execute a continuous portfolio monitoring framework alongside Data and Regional RevOps teams. Proactively track metrics like GP-to-risk ratios, customer risk tiers, fraud/loss rates, and revenue concentration to mitigate emerging risks.

- Incident Management & Governance: Lead structured post-mortems on commercial-induced incidents, driving root-cause analysis and 1st LoD remediation. Enforce 2nd line decisions (such as offboarding or enhanced monitoring) and represent the commercial risk perspective in internal governance forums, regulatory engagements, and audits.

- Cross-Functional Leadership: Act as the strategic interface between GTM teams, the CRO, and 2nd/3rd line compliance functions. Over time, recruit and develop a high-impact team to scale coverage globally.

REQUIREMENTS

Minimum Qualifications

- 10–12 years of risk management experience within financial services, with significant time spent in 1st line or business-aligned roles directly interfacing with front-office or Sales teams.

- Deep expertise in at least two of the following areas: credit and portfolio risk, payments or merchant risk, operational and conduct risk, or enterprise risk.

- Proven track record of designing and implementing practical risk frameworks that materially influence commercial strategy within a Three Lines of Defense (3LoD) model.

- Strong analytical data literacy with the ability to define KPIs, interrogate dashboards, and balance quantitative metrics with qualitative business judgment.

- Exceptional communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to translate complex risk concepts into clear commercial language and navigate tough "risk vs. revenue" discussions with senior stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience in high-growth, product-led fintech environments (e.g., payments, issuing, FX, or modern banking).

- Familiarity with global regulatory and scheme frameworks relevant to B2B fintech, including KYC/AML, sanctions, card network rules, and data privacy.

- Experience designing portfolio early-warning indicators, concentration limits, and stress testing.

APPLICANT SAFETY POLICY: FRAUD AND THIRD-PARTY RECRUITERS

To 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 http://airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com http://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 OPPORTUNITY

Airwallex 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.