Compliance & Fund Operations Associate

Airtree Ventures · Sydney

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About Airtree

Airtree is the reference investor for the iconic technology companies emerging from Australia and New Zealand. Our venture and growth portfolios comprise 145+ startups and include some of the most valuable private technology companies in the region — Canva, Airwallex, Employment Hero, Linktree, Go1, Mitti, Immutable and many more.

We manage over $2bn across five fund vintages. About two-thirds of our most recent $650m raise came from tier-one global institutional investors, many backing Australian venture for the first time.

We are committed to building a world-class VC platform for Australia and New Zealand startups with global ambitions. This is an opportunity to help shape Airtree and make an impact on our region's tech ecosystem.

The Opportunity

This is a new role, and it's the engine room of a $2bn fund manager. You will run the operations that keep Airtree compliant, secure and working well, and build the systems that make it run better.

We're a team of 40 managing an unusually complex business: nine funds, 145 portfolio companies, institutional investors across three continents, and a regulator that expects a 40-person firm to meet the same standard as a 400-person one. You will make sure every obligation is met on time, every investor is onboarded cleanly, every tool we buy is safe, and every provider we rely on is doing what we pay them for.

You will report to and collaborate with our Compliance & Operations Lead, who owns the framework and will teach you the regulatory side if you don't already know it. You'll manage the relationships with our IT and security providers and spend real time on projects: we build a lot of our own tooling, including an in-house operations platform that has replaced several off-the-shelf products, and we use AI wherever it makes the firm run better. You won't just operate these systems. You'll help shape them.

It's a generalist role, and we mean that. Compliance, risk, investor operations, vendors, security, projects. One week you're running sanctions screening for a new investor, the next you're moving a workflow onto the platform or holding a provider to its service levels. If you want to see how a venture firm actually works from the inside, and build the skills to run operations anywhere, this is a rare seat.

We're open on background. You might come from fund operations or compliance and want more scope. Or you might be a sharp business or technology graduate with a few years of operational work who learns fast and wants to own something. We'll train the parts you don't have.

What You Will Do

Keep the firm compliant

• Run the compliance calendar so every lodgement, report and licence condition lands on time, across our AFSL, AML/CTF and fund obligations.
• Manage our investment operations process so every investment meets our fund obligations before it closes.
• Operate our AML/CTF program day to day: due diligence, screening, monitoring, and record keeping.
• Run our compliance controls and keep our obligations register and conduct records current and audit-ready.

Run investor and investment operations

• Onboard new investors, from subscription documents to KYC, working with our legal, finance and investor relations teams.
• Coordinate our responses to investor due diligence and keep the DDQ library current.
• Support the investment close process and keep investor records accurate across our systems.

Own our providers and tools

• Be the day-to-day owner of our IT and security providers: raise the tickets, run the monthly reviews, chase findings to closure.
• Run vendor due diligence on new tools and AI assistants before we adopt them, and keep our SaaS and AI registers current.
• Run access reviews and joiner and leaver provisioning with our Office Manager, and hold the few security controls we keep in-house.

Make Airtree run better

• Scope and deliver operations projects: new processes, system moves, automations.
• Bring workflows onto our in-house operations platform and improve the ones already there.
• Find the friction in how we work, fix it, and measure whether it worked.
• Document how things run so nothing depends on one person.

Requirements

You've spent ~2 years in fund operations, compliance or operational risk at a fund manager, AFSL holder, fund administrator or professional services firm, and you want a seat with more scope.

Or you're a business, finance or technology graduate with ~2 years of operational work, you learn fast, and you're ready to own something end to end. The regulatory knowledge is trainable; the aptitude and attitude are not.

Must haves

• A track record of running a process or a project end to end and being the person it depended on.
• Very organised, with the kind of follow-through that means deadlines don't slip and loose ends get closed.
• Comfortable with technology. You can read a security report, push back on a vendor and learn a new system quickly.
• Clear, plain-English writing, and the confidence to raise a problem with senior people before it grows.
• Sound judgement with sensitive information.
  

Nice to have

• Working knowledge of an Australian fund manager's obligations: AFSL, AML/CTF, ESVCLP/VCLP.
• Experience with investor onboarding or operational due diligence.
• Exposure to a technology risk framework such as the Essential Eight, ISO 27001 or SOC 2.
• Experience using AI tools or no-code platforms to build or improve a workflow.
• Study in compliance, governance or AML, or the appetite to do it. We'll support it.
  

Mindset and approach

• You're practical. You'd rather fix a process than write a policy nobody reads.
• You stay calm under deadline pressure. Regulatory deadlines don't move.
• You like building as much as running, and you're curious about what tools and AI can do for operations.
• You raise issues early and own outcomes, not tasks.

Benefits

Location, Flexibility & Support

Airtree's headquarters are based in Sydney, and this role will be required to be in-office on average three days a week.

We also offer:

• 5 weeks of leave: 4 weeks annual leave plus 1 bonus week of lifestyle and wellbeing leave.
• 16 weeks of paid parental leave, plus a flexible return to work program.
• An annual budget for your training & self-development.
• A range of health and wellness benefits including EAP, mental health first aid training, skin checks, flu vaccines and more.

Diversity & Inclusion

We celebrate and value diversity and are committed to being equitable and inclusive in the way we hire and work together.

We strongly encourage you to apply even if you're not sure you fit all of the criteria we've mentioned above. All of our roles involve a range of skill sets and we recognise that everyone has different strengths and experiences that can add value to our team.

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