Senior Manager, Regulatory Operations, APAC

The role

You will build and run the engine that turns complex regulatory and partner obligations into tested controls across APAC-licensed entities and products. You will design, implement, and improve controls, documentation, and reporting to demonstrate meeting obligations.

What you will do

• Identify, interpret, and operationalize regulatory and partner obligations across APAC jurisdictions.
• Manage the end-to-end design of key regulatory and partner controls.
• Build and maintain regulator and partner-ready documentation.
• Engage with third parties such as regulators, auditors, and financial partners.
• Support regulatory exams, audits, inspections, RFIs, and related supervisory engagements in APAC.
• Support the governance process for material changes to controls.
• Contribute to the design and operation of regional regulatory reporting and obligations governance.
• Identify gaps, inconsistencies, or duplication in obligations, controls, and evidence.
• Use and contribute to the team's GRC tooling and compliance dashboards.

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in regulatory operations, regulatory compliance, internal audit, risk management, or a similar discipline within a fast-growing tech startup and/or financial services, payments
• Proven experience translating legal, regulatory, or partner requirements into operational controls, procedures, and testing or assurance activities.
• Direct involvement in supporting regulatory exams, audits, inspections, RFIs, or partner due-diligence reviews.
• Strong project management skills.
• Excellent analytical and writing skills.
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving, high-standards environment with evolving priorities.

Nice to have

• Experience with payments, e-money, card issuing or acquiring, treasury, embedded finance, or other multi-jurisdiction fintech business models.
• Prior exposure to APAC regulators or regulatory frameworks (for example MAS, HKMA, AUSTRAC, SFC, or local central banks) and to regional bank or card scheme partners.
• Experience building or enhancing obligations registers, controls libraries, regulatory reporting operating models, or similar second-line compliance infrastructure.
• Familiarity with GRC or similar tooling to manage obligations, controls, issues, and evidence at scale.
• Relevant professional certifications (such as CAMS, CRCM, CIA, CISA) or formal legal / compliance-related education.

About the company

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. It provides financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.