Senior Compliance Manager & MLRO, Mexico
Airwallex
Location
MX - Mexico City
Employment Type
Full time
Location Type
Hybrid
Department
Legal, Risk & Compliance
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
The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal 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, compliance and financial risks.
What you'll do
As the Senior Compliance Manager & MLRO for Mexico, you will serve as the statutory Compliance Officer (Oficial de Cumplimiento) for our Mexican entity. You will be responsible for the design, implementation, and oversight of our Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) program, ensuring full compliance with the Fintech Law (Ley Fintech) and general provisions issued by the CNBV.
You will act as the primary liaison with Mexican regulators—specifically the Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV), the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (SHCP), and the Banco de México (Banxico). You will partner closely with the Americas leadership team, Product, and Operations to ensuring our controls are robust, scalable, and enable Airwallex to capture the massive opportunity in the Mexican market.
This role is based in Mexico.
Responsibilities:
Statutory Role: Serve as the appointed Oficial de Cumplimiento before the CNBV, ensuring all personal certification requirements are maintained.
Program Leadership: Manage the local PLD/FT (AML/CFT) manual and framework, ensuring alignment with the Ley para Regular las Instituciones de Tecnología Financiera (Ley Fintech) and the Disposiciones de Carácter General.
Regulatory Liaison: Manage all interactions with the CNBV and SHCP. This includes overseeing regulatory reporting through the SITI PLD/FT portal (e.g., relevant, unusual, and worrisome operations reports) and managing regulatory inspections.
Operational Oversight: Oversee the end-to-end execution of financial crime controls in Mexico, including KYC/KYB, transactional monitoring, and sanctions screening against local and international lists.
Advisory: Partner with the Commercial and Product teams to support the rollout of new payment and card products in Mexico, providing "compliance by design" guidance that balances regulatory obligations with user experience.
Governance & Reporting: Act as the Secretary of the Communication and Control Committee (Comité de Comunicación y Control), preparing monthly reports on the effectiveness of the compliance program.
Audit Management: Coordinate the annual external PLD audit and internal compliance reviews, ensuring findings are tracked and remediated effectively.
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:
Experience: 8+ years of experience in financial crime compliance, risk management, or internal control within the Mexican financial sector (Fintech, Bank, or SOFIPO)
Certification: You MUST currently hold the CNBV Anti-Money Laundering Certification (Certificación en materia de PLD/FT expedida por la CNBV)
Regulatory Knowledge: Deep mastery of Mexican PLD/FT regulations, the Ley Fintech, and the General Provisions applicable to Electronic Payment Funds Institutions (IFPEs)
Communication: Native-level fluency in Spanish and professional fluency in English are mandatory. You must be comfortable navigating complex regulatory discussions in Spanish and reporting to global management in English
Stakeholder Management: Strong ability to influence senior internal stakeholders and manage external regulatory relationships with credibility
Preferred qualifications:
Fintech Experience: Prior experience acting as a Compliance Officer for an Institution of Electronic Payment Funds (IFPE)
Industry Background: Experience in cross-border payments, merchant acquiring, or card issuance
Additional Certification: International certifications such as CAMS or ICA are a plus, though not a substitute for the CNBV certification
Leadership: Experience building and managing a local compliance team
*Note: All applications must be submitted in English for consideration.
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.