Brand Marketing Manager - Japan

About us

Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language.

Learning a language can change a life by opening doors to new cultures, careers, and communities. Two billion people around the world are actively trying to learn a language, but the best way to learn (one-on-one tutoring) is hard to access at scale and hasn’t been meaningfully improved in decades. Speak is building a human-level, AI-powered tutor in your pocket: a conversation-first experience that lets learners actually speak, get instant feedback, and progress through carefully designed lessons. The result is a complete path from beginner to confident speaker across multiple languages.

Speak first launched in South Korea in 2019, where Speak has now become the number one language learning app, and we now serve learners across many markets and 15+ languages. Speak is one of the world’s leading AI companies, with over $150m raised in venture investment from OpenAI, Accel, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and more, with a distributed team across San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.

スピークジャパンのチームは、謙虚さを大切にしながら、お互いを尊重し合い、協力して前に進む文化です。フラットで風通しの良い組織の中で、役職に関係なく率直に意見を交わし、良いアイデアはすぐに試してみるスピード感と柔軟さがあります。メンバーは自律的に動きながらもプロフェッショナル意識と高い成長意欲を持ち、少人数で大きな成果を目指しています。

スピークのマーケターは、単に数字を追いかけるだけの存在ではありません。数値に表れないユーザーの感情、ブランドへの愛着、行動パターンまで捉え、最適なマーケティング戦略を描いています。

クリエイティブ面でも、ブランドマネージャーやパフォーマンスマーケティングなど職種に関係なく、ターゲットやブランドへの深い理解をもとに、高い効果を発揮するマーケティングを実現しています。そして何より、プロダクトに強い愛情と誇りを持っています。

「言語学習から学び方の変革を導く」というミッションに共感し、自ら考え、行動に移せる方。スピード感があり、自由度の高いスタートアップ環境で、大きな挑戦に取り組みたい方、ぜひご応募ください。

About This Role

Speak is looking for a Brand & PR Manager to help shape our identity and expand our reach in Japan. This role is both strategic and hands-on - you’ll define the roadmap for how we earn attention and trust in one of our most important markets.

We’re not looking for someone to "coordinate." We're looking for someone to own the outcome: to lead, execute, and share back what we’re learning — so we get better, faster, together.

What you'll be doing

• Own and evolve Speak’s brand in Japan

• Build trust and awareness through Brand, PR/Media, and Owned Social

• Define clear messaging and creative direction

• Research, evaluate, and test channels with a data-first approach (e.g., TVCM, OOH, Digital)

• Engage media, journalists, and a PR agency to earn exposure

• Analyze brand performance and campaign impact using both qualitative and quantitative data

• Plan and test localized, high-impact social content

• Share findings and updates clearly with internal stakeholders

What we're looking for

• 5+ years of experience in brand marketing / PR, with a proven track record of delivering measurable impact

• Exceptional storytelling skills to shape brand narratives across multiple channels

• Strong data fluency to evaluate brand investments and extract actionable insights

• Demonstrated ability to manage media relationships and secure earned coverage

• Strong capabilities in content planning

• Operates independently, with urgency and ownership

• Native Japanese & Business English is mandatory

Nice to haves

• Start-up experience is strongly preferred

• App marketing experience

Why work at Speak

1. Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.

2. Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.

3. Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, and Tokyo, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.

4. Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.

Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.