Head of Financial Operations, Japan
Leads Square Japan’s financial operations strategy, payment and banking partner relationships, operational resilience, controls, and regulatory coordination. Requires 15+ years in payments or financial services, deep expertise in Japan’s payments ecosystem, strong commercial judgment, and fluent English and Japanese communication.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Lead Square Japan’s Financial Operations priorities and translate regional and global strategy into measurable market outcomes.
- Own operational performance for incoming and outgoing payments, including reliability, settlement, incident management, controls, cost efficiency, and seller experience.
- Build and manage senior relationships with banks, acquirers, card networks, payment providers, industry bodies, regulators, and strategic partners.
- Lead commercial and operational negotiations with payment and banking partners.
- Represent Square Japan in partner, industry, regulatory, and public forums.
- Partner with Product, Engineering, Risk, Compliance, Legal, Policy, Finance, Marketing, and Operations teams.
- Improve authorization performance, settlement reliability, reconciliation, payment costs, dispute outcomes, vendor performance, and operational controls.
- Monitor regulatory, network, partner, and industry changes in Japan and coordinate responses.
- Establish governance, reporting, operating rhythms, and escalation paths.
Requirements
- 15+ years of experience in fintech, payments, banking, card networks, acquiring, issuing, payment operations, or related financial services.
- Deep expertise in Japan’s payments ecosystem, including card networks, acquirers, issuers, processors, banks, regulators, government bodies, and industry associations.
- Track record of building and influencing senior relationships with partners, financial institutions, regulators, industry bodies, and market stakeholders.
- Strong commercial judgment and experience negotiating complex agreements while balancing cost, risk, compliance, customer experience, product outcomes, and growth.
- Experience representing a company externally with senior partners, regulators, government stakeholders, industry bodies, or public audiences.
- Ability to lead through ambiguity, translate complexity into clear plans, and deliver measurable outcomes across business, product, operational, regulatory, and technical challenges.
- Experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives.
- Executive-level communication and presentation skills in English.
- Native or business-level Japanese proficiency, including negotiation and stakeholder influence.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience working directly with Japanese regulators or government bodies, including METI or JFSA.
- Understanding of Payment Facilitator, acquiring, issuing, settlement, clearing, reconciliation, and card network operating models.
- Experience at a US-headquartered fintech, technology, payments, or financial services company.
- Media training or experience as an external spokesperson, industry representative, or senior market leader.
Compensation and benefits
- Benefits include remote work, medical insurance, flexible time off, retirement savings plans, and modern family planning.
Skills
Financial Operations, Payments, Banking, Card Networks, Payment Operations, Settlement, Reconciliation, Payment Facilitation, Acquiring, Issuing, Regulatory Compliance, Commercial Negotiation, Incident Management, Payment Processing
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