Business Development Manager (Japan)

About Startale

Startale is building infrastructure and products that accelerate the adoption of on-chain finance and applications. We partner with ecosystems, enterprises, and institutions to bring real-world usage on-chain.

Role overview

This is a frontline outbound business development role focused on originating and closing new commercial and strategic opportunities in Japan. You will own target account/partner mapping, outreach, discovery, pitching, negotiation, and execution, working cross-functionally with product and leadership to close deals and expand key relationships.

What you’ll do

• Own end-to-end BD in Japan

• Build and manage a pipeline of partners/customers across blockchain infrastructure, fintech, and relevant enterprises

• Identify high-leverage use cases and craft compelling value propositions and pitches

• Lead partner conversations, align stakeholders, and drive deals to decision

• Coordinate internally with product/engineering to shape solutions and unblock deal execution

• Represent Startale at industry events and ecosystem meetings in Japan

• Track and report pipeline metrics (weekly), forecasting, and key deal risks

Who you are

• 2–6 years of professional experience in Sales, Business Development, or General Operations within one or more of:
  Blockchain infrastructure, Fintech, Traditional Finance, or Management Consulting

• Demonstrated hunting capability: outbound sourcing, cold outreach, converting to meetings, and progressing deals

• Extreme work ethic; high ownership; thrives in fast-paced hypergrowth environments

• Outgoing, energetic, and highly competitive; motivated to grow quickly

• Strong structured thinking and communication—able to sell to both business and technical stakeholders

Requirements

• Native Japanese

• Business-level English

• Strong relationship-building and stakeholder management

• Comfort with ambiguity and moving fast with incomplete information

Nice to have

• Experience selling infrastructure/platform products (APIs, developer tools, SaaS, or fintech rails)

• Existing Japan network in web3/fintech/finance

• Experience running partnerships (ecosystems, exchanges, wallets, payment providers, institutions)