Senior Manager, Regulatory Compliance, New Zealand

About the company

Airwallex is a global unified payments and financial technology platform built for businesses operating across borders. Its infrastructure and software help more than 200,000 companies worldwide manage business accounts, payments, spend controls, treasury, and embedded finance in one connected system. The company was founded in Melbourne and now has more than 2,200 employees across 26 offices. It is valued at US$8 billion and supported by investors such as T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital.

About the team

The Legal, Risk & Compliance function is a cross-disciplinary team focused on protecting the business, supporting ethical conduct, and managing legal, compliance, and financial risk across the company. The Global Regulatory Compliance team sits within the second line of defence and works as an advisory and oversight partner to help the business grow while staying compliant. The team is collaborative, outcome-oriented, and committed to continuous improvement, transparency, empowerment, and high standards.

This is a newly created position focused on the New Zealand business. The role is based in Auckland and reports to the Director, Regulatory Compliance, ANZ in Sydney.

Role overview

In this role, you will own regulatory engagement and support licensing obligations for the regulated financial services entity in New Zealand. You will work with internal teams, external stakeholders, and regulators to ensure obligations are understood, translated into practical controls, and embedded into day-to-day operations. The position also contributes to the broader global compliance framework and helps strengthen second-line controls, customer-facing processes, and internal back-office capabilities.

Key responsibilities

• Serve as the primary contact for the Financial Markets Authority in New Zealand.
• Execute the regional regulatory engagement plan.
• Support expansion activities by handling the compliance aspects of licence authorisation efforts.
• Coordinate licence applications, business plan updates, and information requests with regulators.
• Maintain regulatory compliance, risk reporting, and breach reporting obligations across regional entities.
• Help organise and manage on-site reviews, examinations, and inspections alongside other compliance colleagues.
• Advise the business on regulatory changes and how to manage the compliance impact of new laws and rules.
• Create policies, procedures, and guidance relating to regulatory risk responsibilities in the first line of defence.
• Oversee regulatory compliance risk within the enterprise risk framework and escalation pathway, including the Group Risk Committee.
• Provide input on conduct risk and ethics matters connected to financial services licences.
• Run the compliance monitoring program, including targeted and thematic reviews.
• Deliver compliance training for employees and provide tailored sessions to specific business groups when needed.
• Lead proactive projects to resolve operational or business issues and help the company move faster toward strategic goals.

What we're looking for

• A bachelor’s or master’s degree in law from a recognised university, or equivalent compliance qualifications and experience.
• At least 10 years of experience in regulatory compliance within a regulated financial institution, fintech, law firm, consulting firm, or a combination of these environments.
• Strong knowledge of financial regulatory laws, regulations, and best practices across ANZ, with particular depth in New Zealand.
• Hands-on experience working with regulators such as the FMA, DIA, and other financial services authorities in the region.
• Strong comfort with data and the ability to use it to support strategic decisions.
• Excellent time management, presentation, and relationship-building skills.
• The ability to balance the big picture with detailed execution.
• Creative and strategic problem-solving ability for complex compliance challenges.
• Experience building or managing a compliance program, ideally in a payments-related financial institution.
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment with multiple priorities and tight deadlines.
• Exposure to licensing work, regulatory expansion, and technology-enabled compliance tools or RegTech.
• Solid understanding of financial products and services, including conduct risk, ethics, and controls.

Additional information

Applicant safety: To reduce the risk of fraud, the company will not request bank details, sensitive identification numbers such as passport information, or any payment during the hiring process. Official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Applications should be submitted through the company’s official careers channel.

Recruiter policy: Unsolicited resumes from search firms or recruiters are not accepted. Unless a specific written agreement exists for a role, no fee will be paid for an unsolicited submission.

Equal opportunity: The company considers candidates based on merit, qualifications, competence, and talent. Hiring decisions are made without regard to protected characteristics such as colour, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status. Accommodation is available for candidates with a disability or special need.