Head of Industry Relations & Operations, 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 through Afterpay, 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 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.  

You will be key to our success in Square Japan's market expansion strategy. You will be a recognised 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's Japan business to regulators and industry influencers who are foundational to Square's success. You will be based in Tokyo through a hybrid of in-office and remote working, and report to the Global Head of Industry Relations and Operations, based in California.

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 Square 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

• Lead a team of 4, mentoring individuals and developing leaders.  Define the team’s operating model, goals and norms aligned with Square’s principles, mission and overarching strategy

• Experience working with multinational teams, ideally with some experience working with a US HQ company and a Fintech organization

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)
  12 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 team, 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.

• People management experience

• 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

Perks

We want you to be well and thrive. Our global benefits package includes:

• Healthcare coverage
• Retirement Plans
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Wellness perks
• Paid parental leave
• Paid time off
• Learning and Development resources

Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) is a global technology company with a focus on financial services. Made up of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD, we build tools to help more people access the economy. Square helps sellers run and grow their businesses with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services. With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend, or invest their money in stocks or Bitcoin. Spiral (formerly Square Crypto) builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects. Artists use TIDAL to help them succeed as entrepreneurs and connect more deeply with fans. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution.