Senior Payments Partnership Manager, Japan

Since we opened our doors in 2009, the world of commerce has evolved immensely, and so has Square. After enabling anyone to take payments and never miss a sale, we saw sellers stymied by disparate, outmoded products and tools that wouldn’t work together.

So we expanded into software and started building integrated, omnichannel solutions – to help sellers sell online, manage inventory, offer buy now, pay later functionality,  book appointments, engage loyal buyers, and hire and pay staff. Across it all, we’ve embedded financial services tools at the point of sale, so merchants can access a business loan and manage their cash flow in one place. Afterpay furthers our goal to provide omnichannel tools that unlock meaningful value and growth, enabling sellers to capture the next generation shopper, increase order sizes, and compete at a larger scale.

Today, we are a partner to sellers of all sizes – large, enterprise-scale businesses with complex operations, sellers just starting, as well as merchants who began selling with Square and have grown larger over time. As our sellers grow, so do our solutions. There is a massive opportunity in front of us. We’re building a significant, meaningful, and lasting business, and we are helping sellers worldwide do the same.

The Role

The Square Payments team is responsible for every dollar that moves through our bank partners, card networks, and Square's internal platforms. The team's mission is to make our customer’s experience taking payments, closing the sale, and getting paid "remarkable", efficient, and cost-effective. To that objective, Square must operate against a complex backdrop of industry partners to encourage flexibility, new standards, and openness to Square's innovation, products and services. The team plays an integral role in crafting a diverse spectrum of solutions and capabilities for our customers, overseeing foundational industry and regulatory relationships and also the daily operations for incoming and outgoing payments.  

Reporting to the Head of Industry Relations & Operations for Asia Pacific,  you will be responsible for key payment and banking partner relationship oversight and building on our global payments strategy. You will be a recognised emerging leader in the industry with a strong track record of success and collaboration, responsible for key industry relationship oversight and coverage, building on our global payments strategy. This is an important role for Square's industry relationship engagement strategy, representing Square to industry influencers who are foundational to Square's success.

You Will

• Build and manage strategic relationships with payment industry partners (acquirers, banks, card networks and industry bodies) in Japan
• Define a comprehensive payments strategy for the payment partners you manage,  in the rapidly evolving mobile payments and card acceptance space.
• Oversee, negotiate and create partnership opportunities and commercial discussions to enable our financial capabilities in Japan
• Understand Square's competitive position and implement programs to further and improve payments products, services and strategic goals
• Lead management for Square’s strategic industry initiatives in Japan, including enabling the partner engagement required to promote new products and platforms
• Maximize current partnerships through detailed and proactive account management, working with key industry partners, suppliers, and industry associations to define, iterate and enable new products in Japan.
• Collaborate with your functional and cross functional colleagues, while indirectly leading  individuals with a focus on developing their careers and overall effectiveness at Square.

You Have

• Written and verbal communication and presentation skills in English
• A native or business level Japanese language proficiency to work with Japanese based industry partners (verbal and written)
• Minimum 8 years experience with solid understanding of the payment industry and its current evolution across Japan
• Experience leading cross-functional projects and collaborating at all levels across diverse roles including engineers, business partners and executive leadership
• Top-notch cross-functional skills to collaborate with your peers, internal and external partners to achieve strategic results.
• Strong relationship management skills and the demonstrated ability to negotiate complex commercial agreements, coupled with the ability to develop consensus.
• The ability to deal with ambiguity, strategy and analytics surrounding business, product, and technical challenges. 
• Drive to make an impact and entrepreneurial spirit.
• Experience working with globally distributed teams

Nice to Have:

• Experience working with key regulators in Japan (including METI)
• Understanding of the Payment Facilitator and Acquiring models

We’re working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is a proud equal opportunity employer. We work hard to evaluate all employees and job applicants consistently, based solely on the core competencies required of the role at hand, and without regard to any legally protected class. We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we’re doing to build an inclusive workplace? Check out our Inclusion & Diversity page