Head of Strategy and Operations

Glance AI · Tokyo

Reporting to the General Manager, Glance AI

About the Team

Glance AI is an AI commerce platform shaping the next wave of e-commerce with inspiration-led shopping, less about searching for what you want and more about discovering who you could be. Operating in 140 countries, Glance AI transforms every screen into a stage for instant, personal, and joyful discovery, where inspiration becomes something you can explore, feel, and shop in the moment.

Its proprietary models, seamlessly integrated with Google’s most advanced AI platforms, Gemini and Imagen on Vertex AI, deliver hyper-realistic, deeply personal shopping experiences across categories such as fashion, beauty, travel, accessories, home décor, pets, and more. Designed to seamlessly integrate into everyday consumer technology, Glance AI reimagines the future of e-commerce with inspiration-led discovery and shopping.

With an open architecture built for effortless adoption across hardware and software ecosystems, Glance AI is creating a platform that can become a staple in everyday consumer technology. It partners with the world’s leading smartphone makers, connected TV manufacturers, telecom providers, and global brands — meeting people where they are: on mobile, smart TVs, and brand websites.

Through Glance AI’s rich first-party data and unparalleled consumer access, it harnesses InMobi’s global scale, insights, and targeting capabilities to create high-impact, performance-driven shopping journeys for brands worldwide. Part of the InMobi Group (backed by Softbank), a global technology and advertising leader reaching over 2 billion devices and serving more than 30,000 enterprise brands worldwide, Glance AI is backed by Google, Jio Platforms, and Mithril Capital.

About the Role

The Head of Strategy and Operations is a Tokyo-based, individual contributor role designed to be the GM’s force multiplier on the ground in Japan. It exists to convert ambition into structured execution: framing the highest-leverage strategic problems, driving a portfolio of critical workstreams from problem-definition through closure, and stepping in as the GM’s proxy in partner and counterpart forums where the GM cannot personally be present.

This is a hands-on role involving problem structuring, drawing the materials, sitting in the partner meetings, and structuring the deals. Coordinating into Glance’s BD, product, commercial, and corporate development functions as the work requires, and aligning continuously with Glance and InMobi central strategy teams in Bangalore.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy Building

• Partner with the GM to develop, stress-test, and iterate the Glance AI strategy — product positioning, business model, monetization architecture, and the moat-building agenda against hyperscalers and regional incumbents.
• Lead the analytical work behind strategy reviews, board-prep materials, and the annual operating plan. Help ensure positions are backed by data and benchmarks.
• Run targeted deep dives on emerging strategic questions (for example: TV-as-second-surface, AI agent ecosystems, IP and character economy, points and wallet integration) and convert findings into decisions and roadmap commitments.
• Maintain an active two-way information flow with Glance and InMobi central strategy teams; ensure Japan strategy is consistent with group-level direction and that Japan learnings feed back into central thinking.

High-Impact Project Delivery

• Own and drive a portfolio of 3–5 cross-functional initiatives at any given time (for example: market entry launches, multi-quarter platform partnerships, organizational rewiring).
• Bring these to closure on tight timelines: set the structure, write the documents, run the cadence, unblock dependencies.
• Build and maintain the operating rhythm around the GM in Japan — partner reviews, decision logs, follow-through tracking.

External Alliances and Partnerships

• Architect the Japan partner landscape across Glance AI’s strategic vectors — device distribution (carriers, OEMs, retail), commerce destinations, developer ecosystem, AI agent surfaces, and platform partners (TV OS, content, IP holders).
• Serve as the local Tokyo-based point person who can take partner meetings, attend industry forums, and maintain warm relationships in-market on a cadence.
• Build and maintain a live point of view on inorganic options in Japan and the broader region: targets, JV structures, minority investments, acqui-hires.
• Represent the GM in CXO-level conversations with carriers, OEM leadership, platform GMs, regulators, and investor counterparts — either as the warm-up to the GM’s own engagement or in place of it when the GM cannot personally attend. Prepare the GM for their own top-to-tops: briefing memos, partner points of view, decision asks, anticipated objections.
• Build durable relationships at the COO, Head of Strategy, and Head of BD level at Glance AI’s 20–30 most important counterparts globally, with Japan-based partners as the primary focus.
• Partner closely with Glance and InMobi's central Strategy and Corporate Development teams across Bangalore and the US, while working alongside Glance AI Japan functional leaders to drive local market execution and business growth.Qualifications

Requirements:

• Minimum 7–10 years of total experience with a mix of: top-tier strategy consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Bain), investment banking M&A advisory; and an operating role at a high-growth technology, consumer-internet, or media company.
• Based in Tokyo, or willing to relocate to Tokyo, with the legal right to work in Japan (or eligibility to obtain it).
• Business-level Japanese language ability (spoken and written) sufficient to operate in partner meetings, navigate counterpart relationships, and engage with the local business community. Fluent English required.
• Strong written communication; can produce a board-ready memo or deck without heavy editing.
• Willingness to travel domestically within Japan, regionally across Asia-Pacific, and to Bangalore when needed.

Nice-to-have

• Comfort operating with ambiguity at the GM or CEO level.
• Track record of working in a matrixed environment across geographies and influencing without authority.
• Exposure to one or more of: AI / ML platforms, consumer mobile (carrier and OEM ecosystems), commerce and e-commerce, media or content businesses.
• MBA from a leading institution, or equivalent operating depth.
• Established personal network into telco, OEM, commerce/retail, and IP-holder CXO communities in Japan.
• Prior experience operating as the senior-most representative of a foreign-headquartered company inside the Japan market.