Director, Sanctions

Airwallex; London (KY); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 253,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex, a global AI-native financial platform, seeks a senior sanctions leader to scale and govern a multi-jurisdictional program. You will drive the strategy, governance, and second-line oversight across regions, partnering with Data, Product, and Engineering to implement AI-assisted screening and robust risk controls.

You will lead regulatory examinations, engage with regulators, and mentor a high-performing team, delivering a defensible, scalable sanctions architecture for cross-border

Qualifications

• 12+ years of dedicated experience in sanctions compliance and financial crime risk management.
• Executive leadership experience managing cross-regional teams in a second-line or global policy capacity.
• Deep expertise in global cross-border payments, multi-currency accounts, foreign exchange, platform or embedded finance.
• Expert knowledge of OFAC, EU, UK OFSI, UN, MAS, HKMA, AUSTRAC, and trade restrictions and evasion techniques.
• Experience providing independent oversight of customer, payment, and counterparty screening operations.
• Hands-on experience leading regulatory examinations and presenting screening architectures to regulators.
• Bachelor's degree.

Responsibilities

• Lead the sanctions program governance across jurisdictions.
• Partner with Data, Product, and Engineering to design AI-assisted screening and risk controls.
• Monitor regulatory developments and translate them into platform requirements.
• Report program health, residual risk, and KPIs to executive leadership and risk committees.
• Lead, inspire, and scale a high-performing team of sanctions managers across regions.
• Prepare for regulatory examinations and manage disclosures with regulators and partners.

Skills

Sanctions compliance

Executive leadership

Cross-border payments

Regulatory knowledge

AI/NLP screening

Regulatory exams

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Graph databases

AI/NLP screening

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.

How you'll make impact

Airwallex is scaling a global sanctions programme across multiple jurisdictions, payment rails, and regulatory expectations. You'll provide the second-line leadership, challenge, and transformation needed to keep the programme effective, defensible, and ready for what comes next.

• Own and continuously elevate Airwallex's global sanctions strategy, policy framework, and second-line governance across all operating jurisdictions, including OFAC, the EU, UK OFSI, the UN, MAS, HKMA, AUSTRAC, and local regimes.
• Provide independent second-line oversight and challenge of first-line customer, payment, and counterparty screening operations, setting global standards for investigative quality, threshold tuning, and risk-based decision-making.
• Act as the global second-line escalation point for complex sanctions nexus determinations, potential hits, voluntary self-disclosures, asset freezing, and high-risk commercial deal approvals.
• Partner with Data, Product, and Engineering to co-design and validate fuzzy logic, name and transaction screening algorithms, geographic blocking mechanisms, and AI/ML-driven alert reduction systems, ensuring model defensibility and explainability.
• Lead the roadmap to modernise sanctions screening through AI-assisted workflows, graph analysis, automated detection, and real-time capabilities for cross-border payment rails.
• Lead regulatory examinations, supervisory inquiries, and complex due diligence reviews from global banking partners, keeping systems and decision trails audit-ready by design.
• Monitor geopolitical developments, sanctions evasion typologies, trade controls, and enforcement trends, translating changes into platform requirements ahead of regulatory deadlines.
• Report sanctions programme health, residual risk, key performance indicators, and emerging risk trends to executive leadership, risk committees, and the board.
• Lead, inspire, and scale a high-performing team of sanctions managers and subject matter experts across multiple regions.

You’ll work from our London office three days a week.

What we're looking for

Essentials

• 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, including OFAC, the EU, UK OFSI, the UN, MAS, HKMA, and AUSTRAC, as well as trade restrictions, export controls, and sanctions evasion techniques.
• Experience providing independent oversight of customer, payment, and counterparty screening operations.
• A 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, with the ability to influence cross-functional leaders, defend risk positions to regulators, and present complex sanctions topics clearly to executive leadership.
• A bachelor's degree.

Preferred

• Certified Sanctions Specialist (CGSS), CAMS, or equivalent professional designation.
• An advanced degree, such as a Juris Doctor, master’s degree, or degree in a technical or quantitative discipline.

You’ll thrive here if

• You're comfortable owning the roadmap yourself.
• You're comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and moving quickly anyway.
• You communicate clearly and directly across cultures, and you're thoughtful about how context shifts meaning across borders.
• You simplify complexity rather than hiding behind it.
• You can advocate hard for a position, then fully support the team's direction once a call is made.

Learn more about your team

Regulatory & Compliance is where we build the trust, discipline, and operational resilience required to scale a generational financial platform.

As Airwallex grows across 30+ markets, this team turns regulatory complexity into strategic control. You'll lead compliance, enterprise risk, and regulatory engagement in a way that protects the business while letting it move with conviction. Our ambition goes beyond meeting expectations: we're building a risk posture that acts as a competitive moat, grounded in ownership, proactive regulatory partnerships, and frameworks that scale globally while respecting local nuance.

It's a team for strategic operators with sharp judgment, high standards, and the confidence to execute at pace in a high-stakes environment. You'll thrive here if you can balance rigor with progress and influence across functions.

If you want to architect the benchmark for trust and resilience in global finance, your work here will have a massive impact.

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 email address.

Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters 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.