APAC Merchant Risk Operations Leader

Airwallex; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex, the unified payments and financial platform, is seeking an experienced Risk Operations Leader for APAC. You will scale risk operations, own end-to-end performance, and partner with legal, risk, product, and engineering to implement control changes and advanced tooling including AI/LLMs.

You will drive automation, manage cross-location teams, and communicate strategy at board level while maintaining strong risk controls and a focus on operational excellence across a fast‑growing

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in payments/fintech/acquiring.
• 3+ years of people management experience.
• Deep expertise in merchant risk: credit and fraud risk.
• Proven track record managing senior ICs in multi-location teams.
• Ability to operate fast in ambiguity, set clear priorities, and drive outcomes.
• Strong desire to learn about new payment trends and technologies.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead APAC Merchant Risk Operations team for Payments.
• Own end-to-end operational performance for APAC merchant risk operations, including SLAs, quality, loss metrics, and customer impact.
• Oversee design and execution of merchant monitoring, investigation and escalation workflows across APAC region.
• Partner with global legal, risk and compliance to implement new policies and control changes efficiently into operations.
• Work with Product and Engineering to evolve risk tooling (rules engines, case management, AI/LLM-based workflows, analytics surfaces) for higher accuracy and efficiency.
• Champion automation and AI to reduce manual work, speed up decisions, and improve reviewer effectiveness while maintaining strong control standards.
• Drive KPIs (fraud ratio, chargeback ratio, etc) in MRM team to meet company OKR.
• Proactive stakeholder management including risk, compliance, commercial, product etc.
• Always challenge the status quo and strive for operational excellence.

Skills

Risk operations leadership

People management

Data analysis

Stakeholder management

Ambiguity handling

Learning about payments trends

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

AI/LLMs in operations

Job description

Airwallex, the unified payments and financial platform, is seeking an experienced Risk Operations Leader for APAC. You will scale risk operations, own end-to-end performance, and partner with legal, risk, product, and engineering to implement control changes and advanced tooling including AI/LLMs.

You will drive automation, manage cross-location teams, and communicate strategy at board level while maintaining strong risk controls and a focus on operational excellence across a fast‑growing