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Flywire · 1 day ago

SVP, Global Head of Risk

Boston, MA

Full-time

Hybrid

Director/Executive

$290K/yr - $350K/yr

20+ years exp

Flywire is a global payments enablement and software company on a mission to deliver complex payments across various industries. They are seeking an SVP, Global Head of Risk to lead the company's risk management function, ensuring alignment with business objectives and regulatory obligations while fostering a risk-aware culture throughout the organization.

Financial ServicesFinTechPaymentsService IndustrySoftware

Growth Opportunities

Responsibilities

Risk Identification & Assessment: Spotting and evaluating strategic, financial, compliance, operational, and reputational threats

Strategy Integration: Embedding risk considerations into major decisions (M&A, new products, investments)

Risk Mitigation: Developing plans to manage and reduce risks, ensuring they stay within acceptable levels

Global InfoSec: leverage best in class technical expertise to oversee the company’s global information security program, including cybersecurity architecture, security operations, incident response, vulnerability management, and data security

Reporting: Creating and sharing risk analyses with leadership

Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring adherence to laws like Sarbanes-Oxley

Crisis Management: Leading the response to unexpected events and crises

Build and continuously evolve an enterprise risk management framework across strategic, financial, operational, legal, reputational, and technology risks

Develop and lead the enterprise risk management (ERM) framework across all risk types: operational, financial, compliance, strategic, reputational, technology, and third-party

Integrating insights across the organization and anticipate future threats and strengthen enterprise resilience

Chair the Enterprise Risk Committee; serve as key liaison to the Board’s Audit and/or Risk Committee

Establish risk appetite statements and ensure alignment with corporate strategy and capital allocation decisions

Oversee the risk register and facilitate periodic enterprise risk assessments

Define and operationalize risk appetite statements aligned with business strategy and growth plans

Partner with the executive team and board to ensure risk-informed decision-making across all major investments and initiatives

Implement global risk monitoring, reporting, and escalation protocols

Ensure risk coverage across all jurisdictions (e.g., NA, EMEA, APAC, LATAM)

Maintain a centralized risk register and coordinate business continuity planning

Drive a culture of risk awareness and accountability at all levels

Align first-line (business ownership), second-line (risk/compliance), and third-line (audit) responsibilities

Lead internal education on governance, controls, and incident response

Work with the Fraud and Credit Risk Leader to design and lead a global fraud risk program tailored for a complex payments and cross-border transaction environment – And lead the development of credit risk strategy, including credit policy design, underwriting frameworks, exposure monitoring, and loss mitigation

Build real-time fraud detection, prevention, and response protocols using data-driven techniques and internal tooling

Partner with Product, Engineering, and Operations to continuously improve fraud analytics, rules-based systems, and behavioral models

Establish governance for external fraud (customer-facing) and internal fraud (employee/vendor-related), including escalation frameworks and incident post-mortems

Lead the development of credit risk strategy, including credit policy design, underwriting frameworks, exposure monitoring, and loss mitigation

Oversee merchant and counterparty credit evaluation, particularly for embedded finance or working capital programs

Collaborate with Finance and Treasury to assess credit provisioning, stress-testing scenarios, and capital adequacy related to credit exposure

Work with the Compliance leadership to ensure compliance with global regulatory frameworks across all jurisdictions, including financial services licensing, AML/KYC, sanctions, data privacy, consumer protection, and ESG disclosures

Build scalable compliance monitoring programs and lead preparation for regulatory exams and audits

Partner with Legal, Product, and Operations teams to ensure controls are embedded into business workflows and product designs

Track and assess regulatory changes (e.g., SEC, OCC, FCA, MAS, GDPR) with timely impact analysis and implementation plans

Work with the CISO organization to oversee the company’s global information security program, including cybersecurity architecture, security operations, incident response, vulnerability management, and data security

Lead a technically sophisticated InfoSec team and partner with Engineering to continuously evolve cloud infrastructure security, encryption, DevSecOps practices, and SOC monitoring

Ensure security-by-design is embedded into new product development, and align with privacy, data residency, and data governance standards (e.g., GDPR, SOC2, ISO 27001)

Lead internal security awareness and education programs across all staff

Prepare the company for security audits, certifications, and board-level security reviews

Lead and align all second-line risk and compliance functions across the company, including InfoSec risk, vendor risk, model risk, and incident response

Drive a “centralized but dedicated” support model: central governance, tools, and policy ownership, but embedded support and accountability for each business unit and function

Represent the company in board discussions, investor relations, and external engagements on risk posture and governance

Qualification

Enterprise Risk ManagementRegulatory ComplianceFraud Risk ManagementInformation SecurityTechnical ExpertiseData AnalyticsRisk AssessmentCrisis ManagementRisk MitigationStrategic PlanningCybersecurityCompliance MonitoringRisk Culture DevelopmentTalent ManagementLeadershipCommunicationCollaboration

Required

20+ years in enterprise risk, compliance, audit, or fraud/credit risk leadership in globally complex public fintech, banking, payments, or SaaS environments

Proven experience operating at C-suite or Board level with accountability across multiple jurisdictions and complex business models

Deep subject matter expertise in at least two of the following: fraud, credit, regulatory compliance, operational risk

Excellent executive presence and proven ability to influence across functions and geographies, from senior leadership to overall larger organization and employees

Strong technical skills combined with regulatory and compliance expertise

Strong understanding of global risk and compliance regulations and emerging risks (e.g., crypto, AI, cybersecurity)

Strong leadership and talent management of scale global teams

Ability to stay calm under pressure

Critical to have a collaborative mindset working with all internal functions and leaders

Excellent communicator, able to distill complex risk concepts for varied audiences—Board, internal teams, regulators, and external stakeholders

Experience in building risk infrastructure, data dashboards, and analytics/reporting frameworks

Bachelor's in Business, Law, Finance, or Risk-related field