(Senior) Counsel, Commercial Legal, Japan
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 and financial risks.
What you'll do
Airwallex is looking for an experienced Senior Lead Counsel who is fluent in Japanese to support our fast growing commercial legal team across APAC (with an emphasis on our new but fast-growing JP market). You will support a complex set of fintech products that will challenge your problem solving and critical thinking skills. You will support a wide variety of commercial legal matters supporting Airwallex’s growing Sales team, and help us build for scale. This is a strategic leadership position with executive visibility and you will be a key advisor to Airwallex’s APAC go-to-market leadership team and a senior leader on the legal team.
This position is based in Japan.
Responsibilities:
Drive complex deals. Personally lead negotiations on high-stakes enterprise commercial and strategic partnership deals across APAC (with a strong emphasis on our JP business), many with significant cross-border elements.
Build for scale. Develop and implement an innovative strategy for delivering efficient and effective commercial legal support. Drive the creation and maintenance of scalable templates, playbooks, and processes to support our rapidly growing business.
Be a strategic partner. Act as a key advisor to our dynamic, globally distributed commercial leadership. Partner with Sales, Partnerships, and Strategy teams to scale our go-to-market efforts and advance multi-product and multi-jurisdictional deal strategies.
Enhance Efficiency. Partner with our data and operations teams to leverage technology, automation, and data-driven insights to increase the efficiency and impact of the commercial legal function.
Collaborate Globally. Work closely and effectively with Airwallex’s global legal, compliance, and risk teams on deals and projects that involve multiple jurisdictions
Contribute to Culture. Make a positive contribution to the culture of the Airwallex legal team, the APAC leadership team, and the company as a whole.
Who you are
We're looking for people who meet the minimum qualifications for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.
Must-Haves:
Law degree from a top law school, 6+ years of post-qualification experience, and at least some experience at a top law firm.
Fluency in Japanese (both written and spoken) is essential due to the need to negotiate and review contracts and communicate with key stakeholders in Japan.
Excellent communication, drafting, negotiation, and writing skills.
The ability to explain complex legal concepts to various (often non-legal) audiences, and the ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects and deals.
High motivation and the ability to operate independently and pivot quickly within a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.
A learner’s mentality: you are consistently looking to take on new and diverse challenges and expand your knowledge beyond your current areas of expertise.
A collaborative and empathetic mindset, a good sense of humor, and a keen understanding of how to work effectively with colleagues from different teams and backgrounds.
Ability to translate complex legal and risk issues into clear, succinct, and actionable guidance.
High integrity, sound judgment, and an unflappable demeanor.
Nice-to-Haves:
Experience at a fintech or high-growth and/or globally distributed company.
Experience drafting and negotiating technology transactions, SaaS agreements, and other customer-facing services agreements.
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.