Senior Compliance Director & MLRO, US (Fintech)

Location: New York, United States

Company

Airwallex provides a unified payments and financial platform for global businesses, including business accounts, payments, spend management, treasury, and embedded finance.

What you will do

• Lead, mentor, and scale the AMER regional compliance team across active jurisdictions and states.
• Manage regulatory relationships, inquiries, examinations, and licensing audits with authorities including FinCEN, NYDFS, state regulators, and FINTRAC.
• Oversee regional financial crime operations and reporting workflows where local mandates require second-line activity.
• Monitor BSA/AML, USA PATRIOT Act, sanctions, and other financial crime regulatory developments.
• Provide formal compliance sign-off on high-risk decisions and complex escalations to the Governance and Risk Committee.
• Advise on product requirements, acceptable-use policies, customer use cases, state money transmitter licenses, and regional training programs.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Law, Criminology, Public Policy, Finance, Business Administration, or a related analytical field.
• CAMS certification or an equivalent globally recognized compliance credential.
• 12–15+ years of experience in AML, sanctions, and financial crime compliance within financial services, fintech, payments, or banking.
• At least 5+ years of senior leadership experience managing multi-jurisdictional compliance teams or serving as a BSA/AML Officer or MLRO in the US or Canada.
• Direct experience with AMER regulators and complex regulatory examinations and state licensing audits.
• Experience advising on product launches, US state money transmitter licensing, and complex corporate customer use cases.

Nice to have

• Juris Doctor or master’s degree in regulatory compliance, law, or financial crime.
• Advanced designations such as CAMS-Audit, CGSS, or CAMS-RM.
• Deep experience with US money transmission, EMIs, virtual accounts, multi-currency wallets, and cross-border payments.
• Experience partnering with Product, Risk, and Commercial teams on feature launches and corporate onboarding.
• Strong data literacy and experience with GRC systems, operational metrics, and risk dashboards.

Culture & Benefits

• Work within a global Financial Crime Compliance function using a Three Lines of Defense model.
• Collaborate with global FCC leadership, product executives, and regional business heads.
• Operate in a high-ownership environment focused on complex, high-impact financial crime risks.
• Build compliance foundations supporting expansion into new markets and engagement with global regulators.