Partnerships Manager, Japan
WhatnotTokyo, JapanPosted 9 March 2026
Job Description
Partnerships Manager, Japan
🚀 JOIN THE FUTURE OF COMMERCE WITH WHATNOT!
Whatnot is the largest live shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. We’re re-defining e-commerce by blending community, shopping, and entertainment into a community just for you. As a remote co-located team, we’re inspired by innovation and anchored in our values https://www.whatnot.com/careers. With hubs in the US, UK, Germany, Ireland, Poland, and Australia, we’re building the future of online marketplaces –together.
From fashion, beauty, and electronics to collectibles like trading cards, comic books, and even live plants, our live auctions have something for everyone.
And we’re just getting started! As one of the fastest growing marketplaces https://a16z.com/marketplace-100/, we’re looking for bold, forward-thinking problem solvers across all functional areas. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news https://blog.teamwhatnot.com/ and engineering https://medium.com/whatnot-engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business, and bring people together through commerce.
💻 ROLE
As a Partnerships Manager, you’ll focus on growing the seller communities as we launch into Japan.
- Build our seller community
- Source and reach out to sellers to convince them to join and grow their business on Whatnot. Leverage social media, outbound channels, and in-person events
- Partner with top sellers and strategic partners to build big businesses on Whatnot
- Be the go-to advisor for our sellers, educating and coaching them on ways to grow their businesses on Whatnot. Create the next generation of top sellers in your category
- Stay close to sellers and buyers in the ecosystem to understand user needs and provide the product team with key user insights and problems to solve.
- Create community-defining moments
- Spearhead diverse marketing initiatives, such as influencer partnerships, to boost brand awareness and attract more buyers
- Organize and execute on-app events connected to the most exciting products, moments, and fandoms related to your category
- Use data and strategic thinking to propel your category forward
- Utilize large sets of data efficiently in order to inform category & country plans, as well as track and report on outcomes
- Be able to jump in, ramp up quickly, and independently drive strategic projects both in your own category and across partnerships when needed
👋 YOU
Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that low ego, a growth mindset, and leaning into action and high impact goes a long way here.
As our next Partnerships Manager, you should have:
- 6+ years of mixed experience working in a fast-paced, client-facing role in high output environments, such as: Strategy Consulting, Private Equity, or partnerships at a fast-paced tech company
- Experience working in a business development or partner-facing role
- You are scrappy and flexible enough to work in an ambiguous environment with limited guidance
- You are a problem solver with strong project management skills and the ability to fully own strategy and execution on both sides of an emerging marketplace
- You have business acumen, are deeply analytical, and comfortable understanding and manipulating data to gain and take action on business insights
- You speak fluent English and native Japanese
We offer flexibility to work from home or from one of our global office hubs, and we value in-person time for planning, problem-solving, and connection. Team members in this role must live within commuting distance of our Tokyo hub.
🙏 NICE TO HAVE
- Experience at a high-growth startup, marketplace, or creator-focused platform
- An existing network of sellers, creators, and influencers within a Whatnot product category.
- Proficiency in SQL
- Passion for creator communities and/or expertise in existing Whatnot product categories (e.g. vintage clothing, collectibles ... (truncated, view full listing at source)
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