Lead Counsel, Data Privacy

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.

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

The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal and compliance minds and risk management experts. We’re passionate about safeguarding Airwallex’s operations, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct, and ensuring we navigate the global financial landscape with integrity. We provide expert guidance and support to all areas of the business, proactively identifying, mitigating, and managing legal and financial risks.

Within LRC, the Data & Privacy team provides specialist guidance on data protection, data privacy, data governance and AI, partnering closely with other LRC teams as well as Product, Engineering, Information Security, Operations, and other business units across all regions. We support a global financial platform handling large volumes of customer and end‑user data under financial‑services regulation and data protection laws worldwide.

Strong data protection practices are therefore essential for regulatory and customer trust and for our brand.

What you’ll do

You will join as Senior Lead Counsel, Data & Privacy, with primary responsibility for data and privacy legal and regulatory matters across the US and broader Americas. You will be a key partner to senior stakeholders on topics spanning data protection, AI, cybersecurity, cross‑border data access, and US financial privacy regulation. You’ll help shape and execute Airwallex’s data and privacy strategy in the Americas region, design scalable compliance approaches for complex fintech and AI‑driven products, and translate fast‑moving regulatory requirements into pragmatic solutions that enable growth.

This hybrid role is based in San Francisco or New York City.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as lead data and privacy counsel for the US and Americas region, providing risk‑based, business‑oriented advice on US, Canada, and South American, data protection, AI and cybersecurity issues (including cross‑border access and national‑security‑adjacent topics), grounded in global data protection regulation and frameworks.
• Spearhead AI governance development and implementation globally, providing guidance on relevant global and US AI frameworks and executing a fit‑for‑purpose AI governance approach at Airwallex, including developing and implementing AI policies, procedures, privacy‑related AI mitigations, and accountability frameworks.
• Develop and help execute privacy and data protection compliance programs for the Americas,…