Strategic Partner Manager, Xbox Japan

Organization: Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. You can help us achieve our mission.  

As Team Xbox, we are on a mission to bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet. We deliver on that vision by putting players at the center, enabling you to play the games you want, with the people you want, anywhere you want. We work with gaming publishers, developers, platform, and technology partners from around the world to bring Xbox and Windows games and services (e.g., Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming) to Microsoft’s customers.  

Position: The Xbox Asia Partnership team is looking for a motivated individual to help drive content partnerships for Xbox. You will have the opportunity to work across various teams at Xbox and Microsoft. We are chartered to partner with Japan based global partners to develop games for the Xbox ecosystem across Console, PC, Cloud, Mobile, and Game Pass platforms, and empower them to grow their business through building further engagement with their community of players.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities:  In this role, you will serve as a key team member on the Asia Partnership team and be responsible for driving partnership engagement, deal negotiations, and execution success for a variety of initiatives and engagements with partners while representing the partner voice for internal stakeholders, as well as leading cross organizational and international v-teams. This role is positioned between Strategic Partner Associate and Senior Strategic Partner Manager, and will be responsible for some of the more complex operational tasks as well as managing partners, with expectation to grow into a role that manages more complex and strategic level partners and initiatives. The ideal candidate will have partner management experience and possess excellent collaboration and analytical capabilities with a passion for gaming and consumer technology.  

• Build and manage strong relationships and engagement with partners, ensuring alignment with Xbox vision, strategy and priorities. 
• Collaborate with your manager and the Asia team to define success for Japan as well as create impact within the peers across Asia peers across a core team built to support partners and our engagement with them, consisting of internal teams across marketing, business development, developer support, and release management, as well as work across internal stakeholders such as legal, finance, e-commerceengineering, platform and various other teams across the organization. 
• Consistently engage with partners to develop a productive relationship and deep understanding of their business. 
• Evangelize and execute Xbox initiatives and strategy with partners by gaining deep understanding of our wholistic approach and long term strategy and direction and develop the ability to speak to it.  
• Understand the needs of the partners and facilitate strategic communication, pitches and negotiation that delivers win-win solutions for the partner and for Xbox.  
• Manage expectations and escalations across key internal stakeholders. Troubleshoots issues in a timely manner with appropriate recommendations to course correct. 
• Lead and own important team initiatives that drive effectiveness, such as complex operational tasks, data analysis, event execution, etc that involves internal and external stakeholders. 

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in business or related field or equivalent alternative education, skills, and/or practical experience. 
• Native level Japanese and English 
• Minimum of 5 years of experience in partner relationship, account management, or business development position with Japanese partners in Japan 
• Demonstrated experience and knowledge in gaming or interactive media & entertainment business 
• Experience working with and across variety of teams and partners globally across different timezone and cultures. 
• Strong project management skills and attention to detail 
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills and ability to generate alignment and develop deep professional relationships with both partners and internal teams, with the ability to grasp new concepts, understand complex situations and gain clarity in ambiguous environments. 

The position is based in Japan, with hybrid (remote and onsite) work, and will require international and domestic travel. This description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this position. The actual duties, responsibilities, and qualifications may vary based on assignment or group.  

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.