Head of Partnerships - Japan

As Head of Partnerships, Japan, reporting into the GM and President, you will be responsible for building and scaling Cognition’s strategic ecosystem across the Japanese market. This includes identifying, structuring, and activating partnerships with leading enterprises, system integrators, cloud providers, and government aligned organisations to accelerate adoption of Devin. You will play a critical role in establishing Cognition’s presence in Japan, acting as both a market builder and a strategic operator. This is a highly cross functional role, working closely with product, engineering, and go to market leadership to ensure our partnerships directly translate into revenue, product insight, and long term market positioning. This role requires a blend of commercial instinct, technical fluency, and deep understanding of how to navigate and influence complex organisations in Japan.

Responsibilities

Build and own Cognition’s partnerships strategy in Japan, identifying high leverage partners across enterprise, SI, cloud, and public sector ecosystems; Source, structure, and close strategic partnership agreements that drive revenue, distribution, and product adoption at scale; Develop joint go to market motions with partners, including co selling, co building, and embedded deployment of Devin within partner ecosystems; Act as the senior relationship owner across key partners, engaging C suite, innovation leaders, and technical stakeholders; Navigate complex, multi layered organisations across enterprise and government aligned institutions in Japan; Translate partner and market feedback into product insight, working closely with engineering and product teams to refine Devin’s use cases; Identify and unlock new market opportunities, including industry specific use cases and strategic expansion pathways; Work closely with international leadership to shape Cognition’s broader APAC strategy and ensure strong alignment with global priorities; Drive measurable outcomes, including partner sourced pipeline, revenue contribution, and ecosystem expansion

Requirements

Proven track record of building and scaling strategic partnerships in Japan, ideally within enterprise software, AI, or deep tech environments; Strong experience working with large enterprises, system integrators, and/or cloud ecosystems in Japan; Ability to navigate Japanese business culture and decision making structures, with credibility at executive level; High level of technical fluency, with the ability to understand and position complex AI and software engineering solutions; Demonstrated ability to structure and close complex, multi party commercial agreements; Thrive in ambiguous, high growth environments, with the ability to operate autonomously and move quickly; Exceptional stakeholder management skills across both local and global teams; Fluent in Japanese and English

Nice to have

Have built or scaled a partnerships or alliances function from zero to one in Japan; Have experience working with or within top tier Japanese enterprises, consultancies, or technology providers; Have a background in technical roles (engineering, solutions, or forward deployed) and moved into commercial or partnership leadership; Have successfully driven co sell or ecosystem led growth motions in high growth SaaS or AI companies; Are highly ambitious, competitive, and thrive in high intensity, build mode environments