Founding Growth & Deployment Lead, Japan
About the role
We are looking for a Founding Growth & Deployment Lead to own Runway’s most strategic enterprise relationships in Japan – end to end. You will guide deals from first conversation through close, then ensure those partners thrive and expand on our platform after launch.
This role requires full professional bilingual fluency in Japanese and English, deep familiarity with Japanese enterprise culture, and the commercial chops to own a book of business and close complex deals. Quarterly travel to Japan is expected.
Responsibilities
- Own the full commercial lifecycle for Japan book of business – from sourcing and qualifying opportunities to negotiating and closing enterprise deals, through to renewal, upsell, and long-term expansion
- Travel to Japan at least once per quarter for in-person relationship building, deal advancement, and partner support
- Represent Runway in Japan's creative and enterprise ecosystem – at events, industry forums, and partner summits
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Creative, Sales, and Leadership to translate Japan-specific market signals into roadmap input and go-to-market strategy – you are the voice of the Japanese market internally
- Identify and pursue new categories of opportunity within Japan – new verticals, new use cases, new partner types – and prototype quickly to validate before scaling
- Hands-on in quickly onboarding new partners to our platform and/or API while also supporting their long-term expansion and technical understanding of how to leverage Runway
- Analyze, track, and report on the performance of existing partnerships leveraging BI tools and data
Requirements
7+ years of overall experience in customer-facing roles, engaging C-level audiences with complex global organizations ideally within tech, finance, or consulting
Full professional bilingual fluency in Japanese and English
Deep familiarity with Japanese enterprise culture, procurement, and relationship dynamics; able to travel to Japan at least quarterly
Proven track record leading complex Generative AI or ML implementations with measurable business outcomes
Highly resourceful, autonomous, and action-oriented – thrives in ambiguity, creates structure, and manages competing priorities without losing sight of what matters
Exceptional executive communication and presentation skills
Qualifications
Existing relationships in Japan's media, entertainment, advertising, or enterprise tech sectors
SF-based preferred
Benefits
Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide.
In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range.
Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates.
Pay
Not specified
Schedule
Not specified