Channel Partner Sales Executive, Japan

Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. The company is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries and very few office-based roles. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in interesting locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.

The company is founder-led, profitable, and growing.

Canonical is growing its channel sales team to capitalize on rapidly growing demand from channel partners, leveraging their expertise and connections to bring open source technology to organizations across a multitude of industries.  

The Channel Partner Sales Executive, Japan role reports to the Director, APAC Channel Sales and requires a mix of both farming and hunting capabilities. The successful candidate will be responsible for achieving assigned annual growth quotas. 

They should be able to identify, prospect, and engage reseller and distributor partners to build and maintain relationships and grow Canonical’s business within the assigned territory.

The successful candidate must be comfortable owning and leading initiatives in an unstructured, startup-like environment.  This individual must be able to sell open source, cloud, virtualization, and technical software solutions.

Although the role is focused primarily on reseller and distributor channel partners, the successful candidate must be capable of and comfortable with initial customer discovery calls and presentations as appropriate.  

Location: Japan

The Role Entails

• Develop and execute channel strategy for distributors and resellers within the assigned territory
• Increase awareness of Canonical as a lead player in Open Source and Cloud (Private, Hybrid, Multi, and Public models) 
• Identify and recruit new potential partners in assigned territory
• Leverage personal network and prospecting skills to engage new partners and build on Canonical’s already-successful relationships
• Guide partners through onboarding and enablement 
• Develop mutually beneficial go-to-market plans and commitments with partners
• Arrange and execute sales and pre sales trainings to these resellers
• Drive and manage channel pipeline through recurring partner interactions
• Support partner’s satisfaction and act as trusted advisor and point of contact
• Maintain a regularity/frequency of contact with priority resellers and distributors.  

What we are looking for in you

• Bachelor's level degree, preferably in a technology field
• Experience in software or t