Solana Foundation is hiring a Institutional Growth Lead- Japan in Business Development — Japan. The overview below is synthesized from the employer posting on jobs.ashbyhq.com: factual requirements and scope are preserved, but prose is rewritten with editorial context. Verify details and apply via the employer link.
Who We Are
The Solana Foundation is a non-profit based in Zug, Switzerland, dedicated to the adoption, decentralization, and security of the Solana network. Solana is a high performance blockchain that can deliver a fast and friendly user experience, without sacrificing security.
What We Do
The Growth team at Solana Foundation builds strategic partnerships with enterprises, financial institutions, regulators, and Web3 communities globally. We work across payments, tokenization, DeFi, and Web2 integrations to accelerate adoption of Solana’s high-performance blockchain.
The Opportunity
The listing frames the Institutional Growth Lead- Japan at Solana Foundation as a hands-on product role. You will direct Solana Foundation's engagement strategy in Japan, developing deep relationships with senior stakeholders at mega banks, regulators, and large payment companies, while also supporting Web3 builders and enterprise partners. This role requires a self-motivated leader who can work closely with the Japan Superteam to accelerate Solana’s growth in the region.
To be successful in this role
You will:
- Define and execute Solana’s BD strategy for Japan, aligned with global priorities.
- Build and maintain deep relationships with senior executives at mega banks, traditional finance institutions, regulators, and large payment companies.
- Support the Japan Superteam and ecosystem partners to build and scale impactful projects on Solana.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with global teams on tokenization, stablecoins, and institutional adoption initiatives.
- Represent the Solana Foundation externally at industry events, conferences, and regulatory forums in Japan.
You ideally have:
- 7–12 years of experience in business development, partnerships, or strategy within fintech, enterprise, financial services, or blockchain.
- Proven ability to engage and influence senior leaders at financial institutions and regulators.
- Established executive-level network in Japan across finance, government, or technology sectors—or ability to build these quickly.
- Fluency in Japanese and business-level fluency in English.
- A strong understanding of blockchain, digital assets, and regulatory dynamics in Japan.
- Comfort driving initiatives independently while collaborating with global teams.
Build a standout application
For the Institutional Growth Lead- Japan at Solana Foundation, reviewers look for concise evidence over buzzwords. Mirror the language of the posting sparingly, quantify support or delivery outcomes, and show how you handled ambiguity, time-zone collaboration and user empathy. Keep your resume to impact, keep your cover note to one page, and link to artifacts — tickets resolved, docs shipped, dashboards owned — that prove you can operate in a fast-moving Web3 team. Prepare to discuss a time you turned a confusing user report into a clear fix and how you measure quality in support and operations.
Web3 hiring values reliability: on-time follow-through, clear writing, and a track record of improving runbooks and tooling. Treat the application as a work sample. For interviews, be ready to walk through how you prioritize across time zones, handle a difficult user, and decide when to escalate versus resolve directly. Show how you document decisions so the next teammate benefits.
In a distributed Web3 org, trust builds through written clarity. Use the cover note to demonstrate it.