Founding Deployment Lead, Japan — AI Partnerships

Madrona Venture Labs; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Runway is seeking a Founding Deployment Lead to own strategic enterprise relationships in Japan, guiding deals from first conversation through close and ensuring post-launch growth across our platform. 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.

Quarterly travel to Japan is expected.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of customer-facing experience engaging C-level audiences with large global orgs in tech/finance/consulting
• Full professional bilingual fluency in Japanese and English
• Deep familiarity with Japanese enterprise culture, procurement, and relationship dynamics; able to travel quarterly to Japan
• Experience owning or contributing to P&L, forecasting, and pipeline management
• Proven track record leading complex Generative AI or ML implementations with measurable business outcomes
• Autonomous, resourceful, and able to thrive in ambiguity while delivering structured results
• Exceptional executive communication and presentation skills

Responsibilities

• Manage deep, trusted C-suite relationships with Runway's top partners in Japan
• Travel to Japan at least quarterly for in-person relationship building and deal advancement
• Represent Runway in Japan's enterprise ecosystem at events and partner summits
• Collaborate with Product, Creative, Sales, and Leadership to translate market signals into roadmap input and GTM strategy
• Deep-dive into partner organizations to design Runway solutions aligned with their workflows
• Pursue new opportunity categories within Japan and prototype quickly before scaling
• Onboard new partners to Runway's platform and API while supporting long-term adoption
• Analyze and report partnership performance using BI tools

Skills

Executive relationship management

Bilingual Japanese/English

Strategic partnerships

Sales/Go-to-market

Travel readiness

Tools

CRM (Salesforce)

BI tools

Job description

Runway is seeking a Founding Deployment Lead to own strategic enterprise relationships in Japan, guiding deals from first conversation through close and ensuring post-launch growth across our platform. 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.

Quarterly travel to Japan is expected.