Associate Director, Operations Strategy

Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by a unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 250,000 businesses worldwide—including Brex, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN, and many more—with fully integrated solutions to manage business accounts, payments, spend management, treasury, and embedded finance at a global scale. Founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,300 innovators across 27 global offices. Valued at US$11 billion and backed by leading investors such as T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, and Sequoia, Airwallex is building the global payments and financial platform of the future.

Attributes We Value

• Founder-like energy with a drive for real impact, accelerated learning, and ownership
• Strong role-related expertise and sharp, mission-driven thinking
• Ability to move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles
• Humble, collaborative, and results-oriented—turning ideas into real products and driving end-to-end execution
• Leverages AI to work smarter and solve problems faster
• Thrives on complex, high-visibility challenges with exceptional teammates

About The Team

The Operations team at Airwallex sits at the intersection of strategy, execution, and customer experience. The Operations Strategy function drives process optimization, strategic initiatives, and cross-functional program delivery across Airwallex's global operations. We partner closely with Engineering, Product, Legal, Security, and Data teams to solve complex problems at scale, ensuring operational infrastructure keeps pace with rapid growth. This team offers direct exposure to senior leadership, high-impact programs, and ownership of ambiguous, cross-domain challenges.

Responsibilities

• Lead and oversee financial operations workstreams, including payment and deposit investigations, settlement exceptions, banking-partner escalations, recalls, wallet adjustments, and transaction exception handling across Americas platforms
• Drive client enablement by partnering with commercial teams to configure customer accounts, enable products and capabilities, manage non-standard pricing, and resolve operational onboarding issues that block revenue activation
• Own enterprise customer readiness by coordinating go-live checklists, operational readiness reviews, support model design, payment configuration, billing, pricing, and post-sale handoffs to ensure seamless launches for strategic accounts
• Improve operational processes and service quality by redesigning SOPs, increasing straight-through processing rates, enhancing customer experience, strengthening incident handling and escalation frameworks, managing partner migrations, and building operational controls across Americas platforms
• Work across functions (Product, Engineering, Financial Partnerships, Commercial, Customer Support) to ensure stakeholder alignment, map dependencies, and deliver strategic initiatives
• Lead, coach, and develop a team of operations professionals, setting clear objectives, running performance calibrations, and fostering a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and operational excellence

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in operations, strategy, or program management within a fast-growing technology, fintech, or payments company, or at a top-tier strategy/management consulting firm
• 2+ years of people management experience, with a demonstrated ability to build, lead, and develop high-performing teams
• Exceptional stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to align cross-functional partners (Engineering, Product, Commercial, Partnerships) around shared outcomes
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a data-driven approach to identifying root causes, measuring operational performance, and prioritizing improvements
• Excellent written and verbal communication and presentation skills, including the ability to synthesize complex operational issues for both technical and executive audiences
• Self-starter who can identify and prioritize opportunities in ambiguous environments, drive clarity, and deliver results independently

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in payments, financial services, or financial infrastructure, with familiarity navigating payment rails, settlement flows, banking-partner relationships, and regulatory requirements
• Track record of building scalable operational processes from the ground up, including designing SOPs, automation workflows, and operational controls that reduce manual effort and improve quality at scale
• Comfort operating in environments with high standards, fast iteration cycles, and evolving priorities, with a bias toward action and continuous improvement
• Curiosity to learn quickly, adapt fast, and grow through stretch opportunities, with genuine interest in how global financial infrastructure works end-to-end

Pay

Compensation range: $180,000 - $220,000