Regional Business Development Lead

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Japan.

📋 Description

• Take charge of early business development initiatives in Japan.

• Identify and map relevant opportunities with customers, partners, and operators in vending, convenience retail, payments, automation, and self-service commerce.

• Establish and nurture relationships with operators, retailers, technology partners, payment providers, distributors, automation firms, and strategic commercial partners.

• Discover pilot opportunities within vending, convenience-style automation, and other unattended retail environments.

• Collaborate directly with the founder on local market development, partner strategy, positioning, and gathering customer feedback.

• Tailor the company's product narrative to cater to Japanese customers, partners, and technical stakeholders.

• Lead local meetings, demonstrations, partner follow-ups, and commercial discussions conducted in Japanese.

• Convert customer and partner feedback into actionable product, integration, and deployment requirements.

• Assist in the planning of pilots, integrations, field testing, support expectations, and local operational needs.

• Help define the necessary elements for the company to operate credibly within Japan.

• Lay the groundwork for a future Japan team encompassing sales, operations, partnerships, field deployment, and customer success.

⛳️ Requirements

• Direct experience in at least one of the following areas is essential:

• The Japanese vending machine sector

• The Japanese convenience store sector

• Automation within convenience stores

• Payments, cashless payments, merchant acquiring, or POS systems in Japan

• Retail automation

• Unattended retail

• Self-service kiosks

• Automated food, beverage, or retail machines

• Robotics or machine automation in commercial settings

• Partnerships involving consumer hardware or industrial hardware in Japan

• **Fluency in Japanese is mandatory.**

• Proficiency in professional English is required.

• A solid understanding of Japanese business culture, enterprise sales processes, partner management, and relationship building.

• Ability to communicate effectively with Japanese commercial partners, payment firms, technical teams, and executives.

• Capacity to engage in both commercial and technical discussions related to machines, payments, services, inventory, operations, and customer experience.

• Willingness to travel frequently within Japan and occasionally abroad.

• Comfort in working within an early-stage startup environment that requires high autonomy and minimal structure.

• Strong follow-through, attention to detail, and the ability to convert meetings into organized action items.

• Preferred experience includes:

• Working with Japanese vending companies, convenience store groups, payment providers, POS companies, retail automation vendors, or similar operators.

• Experience with cashless payments, loyalty programs, mobile wallets, POS systems, vending telemetry, or self-service retail infrastructures.

• Launching pilots or forming new technology partnerships with large Japanese corporations.

• Familiarity with robotics, IoT, machine automation, smart retail, or industrial technologies.

• Bridging Japanese firms with US or European startups.

• Establishing a local country operation or strategic partnership function from the ground up.

🏝️ Benefits

• Health insurance

• Opportunities for professional development