Associate Director, Operations Strategy

Job description

ABOUT AIRWALLEX Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our 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 everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale. Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,300 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 27 offices around the globe. Valued at US$11 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us. ATTRIBUTES WE VALUE We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles https://www.airwallex.com/us/operating-principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor. You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next. 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 that our operational infrastructure keeps pace with Airwallex's rapid growth. This is a team where you will have direct exposure to senior leadership, work on high-impact programs that shape how the company operates, and grow through ownership of ambiguous, cross-domain challenges. WHAT YOU'LL DO As the Associate Director, Operations Strategy, you will own and scale the operational backbone of Airwallex's Americas business, spanning financial operations, client enablement, enterprise customer readiness, and process improvement. You will lead a team responsible for resolving complex payment and settlement exceptions, enabling commercial teams to configure and launch customers at speed, and ensuring enterprise clients move from signed contract to live-in-production with minimal friction. The work is cross-functional by nature: you will partner daily with Solution Engineers, Commercial teams, Financial Partnerships, Product, and Engineering to remove operational bottlenecks and build scalable processes that support Airwallex's rapid growth across the region. This role reports to the Head of Operations, US and offers significant scope to shape how operations scales in the Americas. This role is based in San Francisco. 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 desired outcomes on strategic initiatives. - Lead, coach, and develop a team of operations professionals, setting clear objectives, running performance calibrations, and building a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and operational excellence. WHO YOU ARE We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory. 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 and communicate them clearly to both technical and executive audiences. - Self-starter who can identify and prioritize opportunities in ambiguous environments, drive clarity where none exists, 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. APPLICANT SAFETY POLICY: FRAUD AND THIRD-PARTY RECRUITERS To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com http://airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com http://careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page. Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.