People Operations Lead
About the role
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 Role We're looking for an exceptional People Operations Lead to join our London office and lead people operations excellence across the EMEA region. This is a high-impact role where you'll manage the small EMEA People Operations team while serving as a subject matter expert to the Global People Ops organisation. You'll be hands-on – you’re not afraid to roll up your sleeves—one moment you're resolving a critical employee escalation, the next you're designing processes that will scale across the region. Your expertise in operationalising European employment law combined with your drive to leverage AI and automation will position you as the go-to leader for operational excellence across the organisation. This role requires someone comfortable managing through ambiguity, building foundational processes while addressing daily escalations, and effectively collaborating across all levels of leadership. You'll balance strategic thinking with tactical execution. What You’ll Do Lead the People Ops Team: Directly manage and develop the EMEA-based People Operations team, fostering a culture of care, empathy, and high performance. Serve as a hands-on mentor and advisor to People Operations team members globally, sharing best practices, providing guidance on complex issues, and elevating operational standards across all regions. Create an environment of psychological safety where teams feel empowered to ask curious questions and continuously improve Serve as the UK and EU Expert: Act as a subject matter expert on operationalising employment law and compliance across European jurisdictions (UK, Netherlands, France, and beyond). Translate complex legal