Senior Manager, Regulatory Operations, APAC

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

Job summary

Airwallex is seeking a Senior Manager, Regulatory Operations, APAC, to lead the design and execution of regulatory controls across APAC licensed entities. You will translate complex rules into practical governance, collaborate with product, operations, engineering, risk, and regulatory teams, and ensure regulator-ready evidence packages.

Based in Singapore, you will own end-to-end control design, documentation, and reporting, supporting regulatory exams, audits, and ongoing compliance in a

Qualifications

• 10+ years in regulatory operations, regulatory compliance, internal audit, risk management, or similar in fintech/tech startups.
• Experience translating legal or regulatory requirements into operational controls and testing activities.
• Involvement in regulatory exams, audits or RFIs with ownership of planning and documentation.
• Strong project management for cross-functional control or reporting initiatives.
• Excellent analytical and writing skills to create clear control requirements and exam-ready materials.
• Comfortable in fast-moving, high-standards environments with evolving priorities.

Responsibilities

• Identify and operationalize regulatory obligations across APAC jurisdictions and entities.
• Design and implement key regulatory controls with product, operations, engineering, risk, and compliance.
• Create regulator-ready documentation including mappings, control descriptions, RACIs, testing approaches, and evidence standards.
• Engage regulators, auditors, and financial partners; explain obligations and control architecture.
• Support regulatory exams, audits, inspections, RFIs, and supervisory engagements with coordinated evidence packages.
• Lead governance for changes to controls and update the obligations register accordingly.
• Contribute to regional regulatory reporting governance and evidence management.
• Identify gaps in obligations, controls, or evidence and drive remediation plans.
• Utilize and develop in GRC tooling for obligations, controls, and evidence.

Skills

Regulatory operations

Regulatory compliance

Internal audit

Risk management

Cross-functional coordination

Policy translation

Regulatory reporting

Tools

GRC tooling

Job description

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 2,700 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 to see it in full.

About the team

The Regulatory & Compliance team helps Airwallex grow responsibly as a global financial platform. We work at the intersection of law, regulation, risk, and business execution, partnering closely with teams across the company to navigate complexity, enable growth, and protect the trust our customers, partners, and regulators place in us. It’s a team for people who are thoughtful, practical, and energized by solving hard problems in a fast-moving, highly regulated environment.

What you’ll do

As Senior Manager, Regulatory Operations, APAC, you will build and run the engine that turns complex regulatory and partner obligations into real, tested, and well‑evidenced controls across our APAC‑licensed entities and products. You will sit within Regulatory Legal & Compliance and work closely with Regulatory Compliance, Regulatory Legal, Risk, Product, Operations, Finance, and external financial partners to strengthen a control environment that is practical, scalable, and regulator‑ready. This role is hands‑on and execution‑focused: you will not just interpret rules, you will design, implement, and continuously improve the controls, documentation, and reporting that demonstrate we are meeting our obligations day‑to‑day.

This role is based in Singapore.

Responsibilities

• Identify, interpret, and operationalize regulatory and partner obligations across APAC jurisdictions, products, and licensed entities, and translate those obligations into clear governance, controls, and execution requirements.
• Manage the end‑to‑end design of key regulatory and partner controls through implementation, partnering with Product, Operations, Engineering, Risk, and Regulatory Compliance to embed controls into real workflows and systems.
• Build and maintain regulator and partner‑ready documentation for your control scope, including obligation mappings, control descriptions, RACIs, testing approaches, evidence standards, and remediation tracking.
• Engage with third parties such as regulators, auditors, and financial partners in connection with inquiries relating to controls, confidently explaining our obligations, our control architecture, and how specific controls operate in practice.
• Support regulatory exams, audits, inspections, RFIs, and related supervisory engagements in APAC by coordinating responses, curating consistent evidence packages, maintaining “exam‑ready” documentation, and partnering with Regulatory Compliance and Regulatory Legal.
• Support the governance process for material changes to controls, ensuring that relevant obligation owners and stakeholders across Product, Operations, Engineering and Compliance are notified and aligned before changes to shared controls are implemented, and that the obligations register reflects the updated control design.
• Contribute to the design and operation of regional regulatory reporting and obligations governance, ensuring that what must be reported, by whom, when, and from which systems is clearly defined and appropriately controlled.
• Identify gaps, inconsistencies, or duplication in obligations, controls, and evidence across APAC, and drive pragmatic remediation or uplift plans that balance regulatory expectations, partner requirements, and business impact.
• Use and contribute to the team's GRC tooling and compliance dashboards, maintaining accurate and current records of APAC obligations, controls, evidence and open issues within the central system, and supporting the transition towards an AI Native GRC tooling.

Who you are

We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.

Minimum qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in regulatory operations, regulatory compliance, internal audit, risk management, or a similar discipline within a fast‑growing tech startup and/or financial services, payments, or fintech company.
• Proven experience translating legal, regulatory, or partner requirements into operational controls, procedures, and testing or assurance activities, not just policy drafting.
• Direct involvement in supporting regulatory exams, audits, inspections, RFIs, or partner due‑diligence reviews, with clear personal ownership for planning, coordination, documentation, or remediation workstreams.
• Strong project management skills, with a track record of driving cross‑functional control or reporting initiatives to completion across Product, Operations, Engineering, Legal, Compliance, and Risk.
• Excellent analytical and writing skills, with the ability to turn complex regulatory concepts into clear, concise control requirements and exam‑ready materials.
• Comfort operating in a fast‑moving, high‑standards environment with evolving priorities and meaningful cross‑functional ownership, consistent with Airwallex’s broader operating model.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with payments, e‑money, card issuing or acquiring, treasury, embedded finance, or other multi‑jurisdiction fintech business models.
• Prior exposure to APAC regulators or regulatory frameworks (for example MAS, HKMA, AUSTRAC, SFC, or local central banks) and to regional bank or card scheme partners on control or reporting topics.
• Experience building or enhancing obligations registers, controls libraries, regulatory reporting operating models, or similar second‑line compliance infrastructure.
• Familiarity with GRC or similar tooling to manage obligations, controls, issues, and evidence at scale.
• Relevant professional certifications (such as CAMS, CRCM, CIA, CISA) or formal legal / compliance‑related education.

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.