Vice President, AI Deployment & Strategy (Japan)

About SaxeCap
SaxeCap is the premier AI transformation and investment platform in private equity. We pioneered the concept of buying out traditional businesses and transforming them with AI in 2018, and today we are the go-to AI transformation partner for 70+ PE firms globally, including 9 of the 10 largest by AUM as well as the world's leading sovereign wealth funds. We've transformed 200+ businesses across healthcare services, business services, financial services, software, consumer, and more, driving billions of dollars of enterprise value expansion along the way.
We operate at the intersection of three businesses: (1) a private equity investment arm, (2) an in-house AI transformation firm that designs and deploys bespoke GenAI, ML, and automation solutions, and (3) a suite of proprietary software products. Our team comes from places like Google, Palantir, Meta, Surge AI, Blackstone, TPG, Cerberus, Millennium, Balyasny, McKinsey, Bain, Oliver Wyman, MIT, Stanford, IIT, GSB, HBS, and Wharton. We were early investors in OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, SpaceX, Neuralink, Mercor, Lambda Labs, etc. But what makes our team exceptional isn't where they came from or what they've invested in, it's what they ship. We are builders.
With established teams across North America, South America, India, and the United Kingdom, we are now expanding across Asia and continental Europe. This role is our first hire in Japan, and you will be the foundation of the team we build there.
About the Role
We are hiring a Vice President, AI Strategy & Deployment to join our AI transformation team and establish our presence in Japan, working with Japanese and global sponsors and the portfolio companies they own across the country. This is not a traditional consulting or investment role. You will own the full lifecycle of AI-driven value creation across our PE partner portfolio, from first engagement with a sponsor, through deep technical and strategic analysis, to managing our engineers and data scientists as they build and deploy solutions that move EBITDA.
You will operate across a range of workstreams simultaneously: evaluating AI opportunities for PE sponsors under deal timelines, designing comprehensive transformation roadmaps for portfolio companies, managing technical teams through production AI deployments, supporting investment underwriting for SaxeCap's own PE vehicle, and leading business development with new partners. The common thread: you are the person who connects AI's technical potential to measurable business value, and you own the outcome end to end.
In Japan specifically, you will be our lead on the ground. Global sponsors have been among the most active buyers of Japanese businesses in recent years, and many of those companies combine strong operating franchises with significant room for AI-driven improvement in back-office, sales, and service operations. You will translate SaxeCap's playbook into that context: earning the trust of Japanese management teams, navigating consensus-driven decision processes, and building the working relationships that make a transformation stick. You will also help us recruit and develop the engineers and operators who come after you.
About You
You are a hybrid: part technologist, part strategist, part operator. You are equally comfortable whiteboarding a model architecture with an ML engineer, presenting an AI transformation roadmap to a private equity partner, and pressure-testing an LBO model. You move fast, you think in structures, and you obsess over shipped outcomes rather than theoretical potential. Specifically:
5 to 10 years of experience spanning two or more of: private equity, AI/ML product management, strategy consulting (MBB or comparable preferred), investment banking, or engineering
You have managed teams of 5+ people (engineers, data scientists, consultants, or analysts) and held them accountable to ambitious timelines
You have managed executive and C-suite stakeholder relationships, ideally in a PE or PE-adjacent context
You have real AI/ML fluency: you can discuss model architectures, data pipelines, and build-vs-buy trade-offs with technical teams, not just at a buzzword level. Hands-on experience with Python, SQL, and data science tools is expected. Experience shipping ML products, managing RLHF programs, or building GenAI solutions is a strong differentiator.
You have experience quantifying enterprise value and EBITDA impact of technology or transformation initiatives; not just tracking KPIs, but tying technical outcomes to P&L
You have product management instincts: understanding user pain points, scoping technical solutions, and managing the build through deployment
You have operated in fast-paced, ambiguous environments where the scope, stakeholders, and approach shift rapidly, and you thrive in that context rather than resist it
You have business-level fluency in Japanese and English, and can present to a Japanese board and to a global sponsor's investment committee with equal credibility
You understand how Japanese corporate decision-making works in practice (nemawashi, ringi, the role of the middle layer) and how to move initiatives through it without losing speed
You are familiar with the Japanese regulatory and data environment, including the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) and sector-specific requirements, and can design AI deployments that respect them
You are authorized to work in Japan or are eligible for sponsorship
Bachelor's and/or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field from a top-tier institution
What Sets the Best Candidates Apart
The people who excel at SaxeCap share a specific profile. They are not pure technologists and not pure dealmakers, they are the rare operators who can do both. The strongest signals we look for:
Shipped AI, not just studied it. You have built or managed the build of AI/ML solutions that went to production and drove measurable business outcomes. "Led AI strategy" without specifics doesn't move the needle. "Shipped an ML model that reduced X by Y%, managing a team of Z engineers" does.
PE-grade rigor under time pressure. You can form accurate conviction on an AI opportunity from limited information and present that conviction to a PE partner with confidence. If you've worked on a live deal, you know what this feels like.
Builder DNA. You don't just recommend, you build. Side projects, open-source contributions, 0-to-1 products, or intrapreneurial ventures all signal the instinct we're looking for.
Structured synthesis at scale. You can process massive amounts of qualitative and quantitative information and distill it into a prioritized plan that senior executives can act on. This is the hardest skill to find and the one we value most.
Bridge-builder between two operating cultures. You have worked inside both Japanese organizations and global firms and can translate not just language but expectations, pace, and ways of working in both directions. People who have done this well in a PE, consulting, or operating context tend to excel here.
Compensation & Growth
SaxeCap offers highly competitive compensation, and you will work directly with our senior leadership from day one, with significant client exposure and rapid professional development. The team is lean by design, there are no layers between you and impact. As our first hire in Japan, you will have a direct hand in shaping how SaxeCap grows across the country and the wider region.

Work arrangement
Yes