Sales Development Leader - Tokyo

ABOUT THE TEAM OpenAI’s Enterprise Go-To-Market organization helps the world’s largest companies adopt and scale our AI platform across their business—from ChatGPT Enterprise to our developer platform and APIs. In Japan, we partner with leading organizations across industries including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Life Sciences, Retail, and Technology to build new AI-powered customer experiences, transform operations, and reimagine how work gets done. As adoption accelerates through pilots, experimentation, and developer-led use cases, the GTM team turns that momentum into durable, enterprise-wide deployments. Sales Development sits at the front of this motion—where technical curiosity becomes executive engagement and OpenAI’s enterprise relationships begin. ABOUT THE ROLE We are hiring a Sales Development Manager, Japan to lead and develop a team of SDRs supporting our enterprise business in Japan. Reporting into Sales Development leadership, this role will be responsible for coaching and developing a high-performing team focused on generating qualified pipeline and creating strategic opportunities across some of Japan’s largest and most influential organizations. This is a foundational front-line leadership role within OpenAI’s Japan GTM organization. You will help define how we engage prospective customers in the Japanese market, convert product and developer interest into enterprise conversations, and build repeatable outbound and inbound motions that reflect the unique dynamics of enterprise selling in Japan. You will partner closely with Japan Sales leadership, Account Directors, Marketing, Solutions Engineering, Partnerships, and Strategy & Operations, while connecting our Japan go-to-market motion with OpenAI’s broader regional and global strategy. IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL - Lead, coach, and develop a team of SDRs supporting Large Enterprise, Strategic Accounts, and key industry verticals across Japan - Drive high-quality pipeline generation through outbound prospecting, inbound qualification, account-based motions, and product-led signals - Build an SDR motion tailored to the Japanese enterprise market, including thoughtful account mapping, stakeholder engagement, and long-term relationship development - Establish strong operational rigor around activity metrics, conversion rates, pipeline quality, and execution consistency - Partner closely with Account Directors and Japan sales leadership on territory planning, account prioritization, and strategic opportunity development - Help define scalable SDR playbooks across outbound, inbound, ABM, partner-sourced, and product-led motions - Coach SDRs on executive communication, discovery, account research, strategic prospecting, and engaging senior stakeholders within large Japanese enterprises - Build a high-performance, collaborative, and low-ego team culture focused on continuous improvement - Work cross-functionally with Marketing, Partnerships, Solutions Engineering, and Strategy & Operations to optimize pipeline generation efforts in Japan - Support the hiring, onboarding, and development of SDR talent as the Japan organization continues to scale - Bring insights from customers, prospects, and the Japanese market back into the broader APAC and global GTM organization YOU MAY THRIVE IN THIS ROLE IF YOU - Have 6–10+ years of experience in sales, business development, or GTM roles, with significant experience in the Japanese market - Bring experience managing SDRs, BDRs, or business development teams in enterprise SaaS, cloud, platform, or other technology businesses - Have a strong understanding of enterprise prospecting, pipeline generation, and outbound strategy in Japan - Understand how large Japanese enterprises evaluate and adopt new technologies, and can navigate complex organizations with multiple stakeholders and long decision-making processes - Are highly operational and data-driven, with experience managing metr