Director of Sales, SME & Growth, Malaysia

About the role

This position involves establishing and leading the sales organization for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and growth accounts in Malaysia. You will be responsible for the entire go-to-market strategy, focusing on achieving new business and gross profit targets. A key aspect is developing and expanding an integrated operational model for channel partnership managers and inbound sales representatives.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Build and manage the Malaysian SME & Growth sales team, including hiring, training, performance reviews, and career advancement for Channel Partnership Managers (CPMs) and Inbound Sales Representatives (ISRs).
• Design and scale the CPM and ISR team structure, defining ownership, service level agreements, lead routing, and transitions to Mid-book and Account Management teams.
• Take ownership of new business and gross profit goals for SME & Growth in Malaysia, setting pipeline and activity targets, and ensuring strong sales practices, forecasting, and performance reviews across all sales channels.
• Create and implement a channel partnerships strategy for Malaysia, identifying, acquiring, and growing key partners such as corporate secretaries, accounting firms, and digital platforms.
• Collaborate with Marketing and GTM Partnerships on campaigns, events, and partner-driven initiatives to generate inbound leads and referrals, ensuring effective lead routing, conversion, and reporting for CPM and ISR teams.
• Work with Product, Payments, Operations, and regional leadership to equip the sales team with product knowledge, improve CRM and data quality, integrate AI-powered sales tools, and provide local market insights for regional planning and Southeast Asia expansion.

Requirements

• Over 10 years of experience in sales and business development within fast-growing environments, including managing complex B2B deals from start to finish.
• At least 5 years of experience leading sales teams or sales managers, with a preference for experience in inside or inbound sales, and channel or partnership sales.
• Demonstrated success in building and leading high-performing sales teams and commercial operations that consistently meet or exceed revenue and gross profit targets.
• Experience designing lead routing, handover, and shared KPI models across CPM, ISR, Account Executive, and Account Manager teams.
• Strong understanding of payments and financial technology, including Payment Service Provider (PSP) and merchant acquiring models, and the ability to articulate complex products to SMEs and platforms.
• Experience managing a data-driven sales organization using CRM and commercial tools like Salesforce for pipeline management, forecasting, territory management, and performance tracking.
• Experience using or piloting AI-enabled sales and productivity tools.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities, fluent in English, and strong knowledge of the Malaysian business landscape.
• Confidence to engage with local SMEs, partners, and, when necessary, regulators.

Nice to have

• Direct experience with a PSP, payment gateway, acquirer, or payments-focused fintech, or in a rapidly growing technology company selling to SMEs or enterprise clients in Southeast Asia.
• Experience building or scaling a new market or country P&L, including headcount planning and go-to-market strategy and execution across inbound, outbound, and partnerships.
• Hands-on experience with channel partner programs in ecosystems such as accounting or ERP platforms, e-commerce platforms, payment orchestrators, or corporate service providers, including revenue-share models and partner performance management.
• Familiarity with high-velocity sales environments, including CPM, ISR, and AM pod models, service-level-agreement-driven handovers, and structured performance management.
• Ability to establish structure and culture within scaling teams.

Skills & tools

• Salesforce
• CRM
• AI-enabled sales tools

Practical notes

Airwallex will not request bank details, sensitive ID numbers, or payment during the application process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com email address. Apply only through careers.airwallex.com or the official LinkedIn page. Unsolicited resumes from recruiters are not accepted without a prior agreement for specific open positions.