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Director, Sanctions

Airwallex· Regulatory & Compliance
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UK - LondonFull-timePosted 5d ago

About the role

Airwallex is scaling a global sanctions programme. The Director, Sanctions leads second-line governance, strategy, and execution across multiple jurisdictions, partnering with Product, Data, and Engineering to modernise sanctions screening and oversee regulatory engagements.

Responsibilities

  • Own and continuously elevate Airwallex’s global sanctions strategy, policy framework, and second-line governance across all operating jurisdictions, including OFAC, the EU, UK OFSI, the UN, MAS, HKMA, AUSTRAC, and local regimes.
  • Provide independent second-line oversight and challenge of first-line customer, payment, and counterparty screening operations, setting global standards for investigative quality, threshold tuning, and risk-based decision-making.
  • Act as the global second-line escalation point for complex sanctions nexus determinations, potential hits, voluntary self-disclosures, asset freezing, and high-risk commercial deal approvals.
  • Partner with Data, Product, and Engineering to co-design and validate fuzzy logic, name and transaction screening algorithms, geographic blocking mechanisms, and AI/ML-driven alert reduction systems, ensuring model defensibility and explainability.
  • Lead the roadmap to modernise sanctions screening through AI-assisted workflows, graph analysis, automated detection, and real-time capabilities for cross-border payment rails.
  • Lead regulatory examinations, supervisory inquiries, and complex due diligence reviews from global banking partners, keeping systems and decision trails audit-ready by design.
  • Monitor geopolitical developments, sanctions evasion typologies, trade controls, and enforcement trends, translating changes into platform requirements ahead of regulatory deadlines.
  • Report sanctions programme health, residual risk, key performance indicators, and emerging risk trends to executive leadership, risk committees, and the board.
  • Lead, inspire, and scale a high-performing team of sanctions managers and subject matter experts across multiple regions.

Qualifications

  • 12+ years of dedicated experience in sanctions compliance and financial crime risk management.
  • Executive leadership experience managing cross-regional teams in a second-line-of-defence or global policy capacity.
  • Deep expertise in global cross-border payments, multi-currency account structures, foreign exchange, platform or embedded finance, or digital asset ecosystems.
  • Expert knowledge of global sanctions regimes, including OFAC, the EU, UK OFSI, the UN, MAS, HKMA, and AUSTRAC, as well as trade restrictions, export controls, and sanctions evasion techniques.
  • Experience providing independent oversight of customer, payment, and counterparty screening operations.
  • A track record of evaluating, tuning, or deploying modern sanctions technology, including AI/NLP-assisted screening tools, graph databases, and automated alert disposition frameworks.
  • Experience partnering with Product and Engineering teams to operationalise complex regulatory requirements in automated payment infrastructure.
  • Hands-on experience leading regulatory examinations, managing voluntary disclosures, and presenting screening architectures to regulators and institutional banking partners.
  • Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional leaders, defend risk positions to regulators, and present complex sanctions topics clearly to executive leadership.
  • A bachelor’s degree.

Skills

Required:Sanctions compliance and financial crime risk managementExecutive leadershipGlobal sanctions regimesRegulatory examinations and disclosuresAI/NLP-assisted screening toolsProduct & Engineering collaborationRegulatory communication
Last updated Oct 22, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Airwallex

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