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Exa is a $2.2B-valued AI search engine company (Series C, $250M led by a16z) building search infrastructure for the AI era. The company powers AI agents, Fortune 500s, and AI labs with a ~100-person team based primarily in SF.
You will be Exa's first senior marketing leader outside the US, leading marketing strategy and execution across Asia Pacific and Japan from Sydney. This is a player-coach role: you will own the regional marketing plan, set priorities across multiple markets (ANZ, Southeast Asia, India, Japan), and execute campaigns yourself while building the function.
Key responsibilities:
**Regional Strategy & Budget:** Translate Exa's global priorities into an APJ plan. Prioritize markets by opportunity and sales coverage. Own the APJ marketing budget focused on field events, conferences, developer events, and selective sponsorships. Success is measured by revenue growth.
**Go-to-Market by Market:** Build differentiated motions for priority markets (direct, partner-led, or channel-based). Decide which markets to prioritize based on product-led signal and sales readiness.
**Pipeline & Demand Generation:** Own APJ pipeline targets. Build account-based campaigns, executive dinners, trade shows, pipeline reactivation, and localized content. Measure success by pipeline creation and cost per opportunity.
**Sales Partnership:** Align with APJ Sales, SDRs, and regional partners on ICP, target accounts, and campaign priorities. Run regular operating rhythm. Measure success by lead-to-opportunity conversion and seller satisfaction.
**Product-Led Growth:** Ensure APJ developers and AI-native companies discover Exa, sign up, and build. Run developer events, hackathons, meetups, and sponsor developer communities. Coordinate with DevRel and Growth Marketing on inbound quality.
**Positioning & Storytelling:** Adapt Exa's global positioning for APJ buyers. Identify where local proof, language, or emphasis is needed. Bring customer and market insight into messaging and launches.
**Vendor & Partner Management:** Select and manage agencies, event vendors, and marketing partners across the region, including co-marketing with channel and cloud partners.
**Team Building:** Hire and lead the APJ marketing team as it grows, starting with a field events manager. Set standards and develop people.
You start as a team of one with meaningful budget for events and conferences. Your first hire (field events manager) is expected within months, with additional headcount as growth justifies.
The role is based in-person in Sydney with regular travel across APJ and periodic trips to SF HQ.
**Requirements:**
- 10+ years in B2B marketing at technology companies
- 3+ years leading marketing for APJ or a major part of it (ANZ plus at least one Asian market)
- Proven track record owning a regional pipeline number and budget, with ability to decide where to invest across markets
- Hands-on experience with both direct and partner-led go-to-market, ideally including Japan
- Strong sales partnership skills: built operating rhythms with Sales/SDRs, demonstrated ability to push back on seller requests
- Deep field and event craft: run conferences, executive dinners, developer events; can build and execute campaigns end-to-end
- Comfort with technical products and technical buyers; can discuss APIs, agents, and retrieval
- Experience building a region for a US-headquartered company, operating semi-autonomously across time zones
- Proven track record hiring and developing marketers
- Demonstrated AI builder mindset: shipped automations or internal tools with LLMs
**Nice to Have:**
- Experience at developer tools, API-first, cloud, or data infrastructure company
- Experience running product-led growth alongside enterprise sales
- Japanese, Mandarin, or another regional language
- Relationships with regional cloud providers, systems integrators, or developer communities
- Experience launching a region from zero at an early-stage company
