Senior Manager, Partner Sales - Apj

DeepL DeepL · AI Frontier · Tokyo, Japan · Sales

DeepL is seeking a Senior Manager, Partner Sales for the APJ region to lead and scale the company's indirect business through VARs, Distributors, and SI partners. The role involves driving revenue growth, building new partnerships, developing channel strategies, and enabling partners to sell DeepL's AI-powered productivity solutions.

What you'd actually do

  1. Drive accelerated revenue growth for DeepL through the recruitment and management of channel partnerships that represent DeepL’s next phase of growth beyond translation — into productivity, AI, and enterprise workflow solutions.
  2. Win new high-value partnerships through strategic relationship-building and commercial negotiations. Identify, recruit, and onboard partners with the reach and expertise to drive DeepL’s market expansion in Japan, Korea, and the wider APJ region.
  3. Develop and own the APJ Channel Partner Plan that sets direction for all partner engagement, GTM priorities, and revenue planning, with quarterly business reviews and performance alignment with both partner and internal executives.
  4. Build and scale programs for onboarding, enablement, co-marketing, and incentives that help partners accelerate pipeline creation and close rates.
  5. Drive partner enablement in close collaboration with DeepL’s Enablement and Marketing teams to ensure partner sellers and engineers are trained and certified on DeepL solutions.

Skills

Required

  • Channel or partner sales experience
  • SaaS, AI, or cloud technology sales
  • Building and scaling reseller and distribution ecosystems in APJ
  • Managing strategic partnerships in Japan and Korea
  • Partner GTM motions (sell-to, sell-with, sell-through)
  • Building scalable partner programs
  • Negotiation and relationship management skills
  • Engaging senior executives
  • Salesforce and partner management tools (Crossbeam, Tackle.io, PRM systems)
  • Native or bilingual level Japanese
  • Business level English

Nice to have

  • Knowledge of AI, productivity, or enterprise software markets

What the JD emphasized

  • 8+ years of experience in channel or partner sales within SaaS, AI, or cloud technology companies, with a proven record of building and scaling reseller and distribution ecosystems in APJ.
  • Track record of managing strategic partnerships in Japan and Korea, ideally with established relationships across leading resellers, distributors, or telcos.