Senior Manager, Operations Strategy (Market Insights/User Research)

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
We're building a brand-new Customer Insights function within Operations Strategy. As an early, foundational hire, you'll help establish a global insights capability that partners with Product, Sales, Marketing, Commercial, Strategy, and Executive leadership to make Airwallex a truly customer-obsessed company.
What you'll do
As Senior Manager, Operations Strategy (Market Insights/User Research), you'll roll up your sleeves to interview customers, run surveys, analyze data, and deliver clear, executive-ready recommendations. You'll help define the insights strategy that serves as the company's source of truth for customer and competitive intelligence. You'll partner with senior stakeholders to answer the company's most important questions and shape product, go-to-market, and investment decisions - while helping lay the foundations for a high-performing insights team.
This role is based in San Francisco, CA.
Responsibilities:

• Design and implement best-in-class user research methodologies, including customer interviews, surveys, and VoC programs.
• Conduct qualitative and quantitative research to capture the full spectrum of customer experience and competitive dynamics.
• Lead customer segmentation, persona mapping, and win/loss analysis to understand why customers choose, expand with, or leave Airwallex.
• Analyze and synthesize customer and market feedback, identifying key trends and actionable insights to inform product and business strategy.
• Help establish governance, metrics, and repeatable processes for a trusted customer intelligence function.
• Build and maintain dashboards and reporting tools to monitor key customer experience and competitive metrics.
• Own executive-ready outputs including regular briefings and quarterly insights reports for leadership.
• Present findings and recommendations to senior management in a clear, compelling manner.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams across Product, Engineering, Commercial, and GTM to ensure customer insights are integrated into product and service improvements.
• Support the hiring and development of analysts and researchers as the team scales.

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.
Minimum qualifications:

• 8+ years of relevant experience in customer insights, user research, market research, or a management consulting,
• Experience in fintech, payments, or B2B SaaS; top consulting firms also considered.
• Proven expertise in designing and executing research methodologies, including customer interviews, surveys, and data analysis.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to synthesize qualitative and quantitative signals into clear business recommendations.
• Experience standing up new processes or programs in fast-moving, ambiguous environments.
• Strong stakeholder management skills; comfortable partnering with Product, Sales, Marketing, Ops, and senior leaders.
• Proficiency with research and analytics tools such as Qualtrics or Typeform, and familiarity with BI platforms like Looker or Databricks.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience managing or mentoring researchers or analysts.
• Deep familiarity with payments or fintech customer journeys and market dynamics.
• Track record producing C-suite or investor-facing deliverables such as win/loss reports or market narratives.
• Familiarity with CRM systems and sentiment mining tools.
• Knowledge of regulatory issues such as KYC/AML.

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.
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