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 200,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Rippling, 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 2,000 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 26 offices around the globe. Valued at US$8 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. 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
Airwallex’s Regulatory Legal team is a high‑impact, collaborative group that plays a central role in enabling our expansion and success across the regions we’re present in. We support Airwallex’s continued growth by providing expert legal guidance on regulatory matters, partnering closely with Product Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Financial Crime Compliance, and other teams to deliver innovative financial products compliantly and at scale.
This is a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment where you’ll work alongside committed colleagues, engage in strategic projects with global reach, and have direct influence on business-critical decisions. We value curiosity, ownership, and the ambition to drive outcomes in a complex, ever-evolving regulatory landscape.
What you’ll do
You will be primarily responsible for regulatory matters across Latin America, including key markets such as Brazil, Mexico and other priority jurisdictions in the region. This role will have a strong focus on advising on complex regulatory issues regionally, including licensing, payments and financial services regulations, and cross‑border product launches.
As a Senior Regulatory Counsel, you will act as a senior member of the Regulatory Legal team for LATAM, providing strategic advice to senior stakeholders, owning complex regulatory workstreams.
You will be a valuable member of the global legal and compliance team and will have the opportunity to support a rapidly growing business and the management team to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. This dynamic role is ideal for someone who enjoys wearing multiple hats and solving complex issues and blockers for our clients, is detail‑oriented, willing to take on challenges and changes, obsessively curious and intellectually honest, thrives on taking actions and delivering impactful results, and aims to inspire and be inspired.
This hybrid role is based in São Paulo or Mexico City.
Responsibilities:
Be responsible for handling regulatory legal issues relating to our business across Latin America, and for providing strategic advice to cross‑functional stakeholders relating to our existing licenses/registrations and potential future license applications in the region, to ensure Airwallex can successfully scale in LATAM markets.
Monitor, report, and influence trends and developments in payments and financial services regulation across key LATAM jurisdictions (including Brazil & Mexico), actively identifying and anticipating changes that may impact business operations or strategic objectives.
Partner closely with Product Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk and Financial Crime Compliance teams to ensure robust compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and to embed regulatory requirements into product and process design.
Support local and global Product, Strategy, and Management teams and regional Commercial teams on new market entry and expansion of regulatory licence(s), including providing regulatory mapping and licensing advice across LATAM.
Liaise with senior Airwallex stakeholders globally, providing timely, pragmatic regulatory legal advice and risk assessments on various business initiatives with LATAM impact.
Manage external legal counsel and consultants across LATAM markets, ensuring high-quality, cost-effective support aligned with Airwallex’s business drivers and risk appetite.
Provide legal advice on Airwallex’s regulatory compliance obligations with respect to ongoing regulatory compliance and submission of regulatory reports and filings in relevant LATAM jurisdictions, partnering with the Regulatory Compliance team to ensure timely and accurate filings.
Support government relations outreach to legislators and regulatory agencies in key LATAM markets (e.g. central banks, financial supervisory authorities), helping to shape policy and regulatory approaches relevant to the business.
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:
Qualified lawyer with around 10 years of relevant post‑qualification experience).
Strong regulatory experience gained in the fintech industry, reputable law firms and/or financial institutions, with a focus on payments, e‑money, FX, remittances and/or card issuing in Latin American markets.
Deep experience and demonstrated success advising on regulatory matters and handling regulatory submissions, filings and regulatory strategy for financial services or payments businesses, ideally including direct engagement with regulators in Brazil, Mexico and other LATAM markets.
Deep knowledge of the financial services regulatory environment in Latin America, particularly as relates to payments, remittance, FX, issuing and digital financial services in Brazil, Mexico and other key markets (experience dealing with central banks and financial supervisory authorities in the region is especially valuable).
Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work cross‑functionally and build trust with business, legal, compliance and external counsel stakeholders across multiple jurisdictions.
Proactive, results‑driven, and ownership‑oriented, with a clear track record of managing multiple priorities and deadlines in a fast‑paced environment.
Fluent in English and another business language in LATAM eg. Portuguese, Spanish, with a strong ability to draft and negotiate documents in both languages.
Ability to influence, explain complex legal topics to non‑lawyers, and frame business‑relevant, risk‑balanced solutions.
Collaborative team player, comfortable managing ambiguity, and thriving in fast‑paced, evolving environments.
Preferred qualifications:
A mix of private practice and in‑house experience.
Experience supporting expansion into new markets and launching new regulatory licences in the fintech, payments, or financial services sectors.
Experience using, deploying or developing RegTech, LegalTech or AI tools to enhance the legal function.
Please submit your resume in English.
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 email address. Please apply only through 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.
