Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships

Airwallex; New York (NY); On-site; USD 250,000 - 330,000; Full time

Job summary

Airwallex, the AI-native financial operating system, is seeking a Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, Americas, to drive growth by identifying, developing, and managing pivotal partnerships globally. The role requires cross-functional collaboration across legal, product, operations, sales, and marketing, with executive-level relationship management.

Based in San Francisco or New York, you will lead strategic commercial and product integrations to accelerate user adoption and revenue

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Minimum 12 years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, product or related roles.
• Proven track record of managing a lean yet high-performing team across time zones.
• Ability to think strategically and manage complex dynamics and motivations.
• Ability to earn trust in a cross-cultural, global environment across teams and time zones.
• Strong executive presence and excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to craft product integrations and understand product or commercial nuances.
• Strategic thinker with ability to translate strategy into actionable plans and handle ambiguity.
• Quantitative capacity to measure partnership ROI and performance metrics.

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, own, refine, and implement a partnerships strategy aligned with the business vision.
• Manage strategically important partnership opportunities in the region and maintain executive relationships.
• Understand the competitive landscape and present recommendations to executive management.
• Serve as the main contact for the Americas region and ensure implementation of key initiatives.
• Coordinate due diligence with prospective partners and manage internal stakeholders across commercial, product and systems assessment.
• Position yourself as an industry expert and establish relationships with potential partners and decision-makers.
• Act as a region expert while aligning with the global footprint.

Skills

Strategic partnerships

Cross-cultural leadership

Executive communication

ROI measurement

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Job description

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.

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 Strategic Partnerships team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of dealmakers and relationship builders, passionate about forging strategic alliances that accelerate Airwallex's growth. We leverage our deep industry knowledge and financial acumen to identify and nurture win-win partnerships with leading companies, fintech innovators, and financial institutions. Together, we share a vision of unlocking opportunities for global businesses, working closely with internal stakeholders to ensure seamless integrations and maximize value for both Airwallex and our partners.

What You'll Do

The Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, Americas, will play a critical role in driving business growth by identifying, developing, and managing the most pivotal and complex partnerships globally for Airwallex. Highly cross‑functional, this role will work across key teams, including legal, product, operations, sales, marketing and more, quarterbacking impactful strategic commercial and product integrations to accelerate Airwallex’s growth. This individual will be responsible for forming and nurturing key relationships with partners that align with the company’s business objectives, creating synergies that result in significant user adoption and revenue growth. This role is based in San Francisco or New York.

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, own, refine, and implement a partnerships strategy that aligns with and supports our overall business vision
• Manage our most strategically important partnership opportunities in the region, both existing and new, and own executive level relationships
• Understand the competitive landscape to ensure that Airwallex remains a ‘partner‑of‑choice’ and proactively present recommendations to executive management
• Be the main point of contact in the partnerships organization for our Americas region and ensure the team are executing strategically important partnership initiatives, aligned with the regional commercial objectives
• Coordinate due diligence processes with prospective partners and project‑manage internal stakeholders through commercial, product and systems assessment
• Position yourself as an industry expert and establish relationships with potential partners and key decision‑makers in the industry
• You will serve as a region expert while keeping in mind our global footprint

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

• Bachelor’s degree
• Minimum 12 years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, product or related roles
• A proven track record effectively managing a lean yet high‑performing team across different time zones
• Proven track record of being able to think strategically and manage complex dynamics and motivations
• Ability to earn trust and work effectively in a cross‑cultural, global environment across teams and time‑zones
• Strong executive presence, including excellent communication and presentation skills
• Ability to craft product integrations, think through product or commercial nuances
• Strategic thinker with the ability to translate strategy into actionable plans, and deal with significant ambiguity
• Quantitative capacity to measure partnership ROI, understand performance metrics and optimization levers

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior fintech and payments experience
• A strong understanding of and fascination with the global financial ecosystem, embedded finance landscape, and globalization of enterprises

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 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. Compensation Range: $250K - $330K