Sales Lead (Japan)

Location: Tokyo, Japan. Reports to: Chief Revenue Officer, as part of Genspark's global GTM leadership team. As our Asia Pacific organization scales, the role will sit within regional APJ revenue leadership. ABOUT GENSPARK Genspark is an AI-native platform used by millions of people to get real work done: research, documents, slides, agents and automations in one horizontal system that works across every leading model. We are moving from a product people discover on their own to one that enterprises adopt as a platform, and Japan is where that shift is furthest along. It is our largest market by usage, our deepest partner ecosystem, and our clearest enterprise opportunity. ABOUT THE ROLE We are hiring a Head of Sales, Japan to lead the Japan sales organization and be held to its number. You will execute the Japan regional plan, lead and grow the sales team, build the playbook and operating rhythm that make new sellers productive quickly, and act as the cross-functional leader who keeps every resource in the region aligned behind the business plan and its priorities. This is a sales leadership seat, not a general manager seat, and not a player-coach seat. Marketing, customer success, solutions engineering, partnerships and operations have their own owners; you do not run their functions, but you are accountable for how they come together in Japan: tight alignment, clear priorities, and a regional team that moves as one. Partnerships are part of how Japan sells. The indirect and co-selling motion, resellers, cloud partners, systems integrators and services partners are in your remit as a sales leader, working with our global partnerships team. You are a hands-on sales professional with executive credibility. You are in the room on the deals that matter: shaping structure, leading negotiation, and serving as executive sponsor to customers and partners, while the team carries the quota. WHAT YOU WILL DO OWN THE NUMBER AND EXECUTE THE PLAN - Own the Japan revenue target, pipeline and forecast, and report on them to global GTM leadership with accuracy and rigor. - Execute the Japan regional plan and guide it to the outcome: read the data, show where to double down and where to pull back, propose improvements, and balance the needs of the region against resourcing and headcount. - Bring what you see winning and losing in market back into the plan: input on pricing, packaging, deal structures, target industries and account prioritization, in partnership with global GTM leadership. - Represent the business plan and the company's priorities to the Japan team so that everyone in the region understands the plan, their part in it, and why it matters. LEAD AND GROW THE TEAM - Lead, coach and grow the Japan sales team: hiring bar, onboarding, pipeline reviews, deal inspection and quota management. - Build sellers into stronger sellers and, over time, into leaders; make performance calls quickly and fairly. - Build the Japan sales playbook, enablement materials and ramp plan so new hires reach productivity fast; run pipeline reviews, deal inspection and call coaching as a discipline, not an event. - Set the standard for performance, integrity and speed on the Japan team, and be the cultural anchor for how Genspark sells in Japan. LEAD CROSS-FUNCTIONALLY - Be the cross-functional leader for Japan: align sales, customer success, solutions engineering, marketing and partnerships behind one plan and one set of priorities, and coordinate the people and resources in the region without direct authority over all of them. - Be the voice of the Japanese market inside Genspark: customer requirements, regulatory realities, competitive dynamics in the AI and LLM space, and product gaps, translated into clear input for product and leadership. WIN WITH CUSTOMERS AND PARTNERS - Lead from the front on our largest enterprise deals and executive relationships: consultative executive meetings, deal structure, negotiation, Japanese enterprise procurement, and executive sponsorship of the accounts that define the region. - Position Genspark's AI agents and platform as a transformation partner for Japanese enterprises, not a tool purchase: connect what we do to the customer's business goals. - Build and grow the indirect motion with reseller, cloud, integration and services partners alongside our global partnerships team. MAKE JAPAN PREDICTABLE - Establish the sales process, CRM discipline, forecasting cadence and metrics (coverage, conversion, cycle length, ACV, win rate, efficiency against resourcing) that make Japan measurable and predictable, and use them to run the business. WHO YOU ARE - A senior enterprise sales leader with 12 or more years in B2B enterprise technology sales in Japan, including at least 5 years leading sales teams and carrying a team number. - You have managed 8 to 10 sellers directly and have demonstrated the ability to lead others cross-functionally. Second-line leadership experience, managing managers, is a plus. - You have been held to a regional number and hit it; you know how to guide a plan toward its outcome rather than wait for it to arrive. - You are hands-on where it counts: you have personally structured and negotiated complex enterprise agreements and served as the executive sponsor customers call. - You have led in a startup or high-growth environment without a large support organization behind you, and you drive results through ambiguity. Optimistic, driven, and energized by building. Experience as an early sales leader or founding team member of a foreign technology company's Japan business is strongly preferred. - You are analytical: you run your business from the data, define the metrics that matter, and change course when the numbers say so. - You have executive presence and credibility with C-level customers and partners, and you build relationships that outlast a deal cycle. - You are a builder of people: you develop talent, give direct feedback with respect, and leave teams stronger than you found them. - You are AI-forward: you use AI tools in your own work, you can speak credibly about how AI changes how enterprises operate, and you want to sell a product you would use yourself. - You understand horizontal platform selling: landing a broad product on a specific use case, expanding across teams and departments, and building the account story that follows. - You are fluent in both enterprise and commercial motions. You know how SMB and mid-market businesses buy and how product-led adoption becomes sales-led revenue, and you can run the bridge between them. - Cross-functional and collaborative by instinct; you win by aligning people, not by controlling them. - Winning mindset: you compete to win, you hold yourself and your team to the number, and you are honest about what is not working. - Native-level Japanese and fluent English. English fluency is a must; you will work daily with global leadership. WHAT WE OFFER - Competitive base salary and a performance bonus tied to team results against goal and to regional efficiency against resourcing. - Meaningful equity in a fast-growing AI company. - Ownership of sales in our largest market and a seat on Genspark's revenue leadership team. - Tokyo office and flexible work, with comprehensive benefits.