Director, Partnerships, Greater China Remote

Shopify · Hong Kong

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Shopify has no office in mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan. This role is what we have instead.

Chinese merchants are building some of the fastest growing direct-to-consumer brands in the world, and they are building them for customers outside China. Greater China export is a top global priority, with product, infrastructure, and go-to-market investment landing behind it now. None of it reaches merchants without partners, and no partner in this market commits to a platform they have not met in person.

You are the face of Shopify partnerships in Greater China. In market, in the room, at the dinner, on the stage. You build the relationships that turn into merchants, and you find the opportunities nobody has written down yet.

You build on an ecosystem of more than a thousand active agencies, system integrators, developers, and technology partners, alongside the domestic commerce platforms that hundreds of thousands of Chinese merchants already sell on. Uniquely across Asia Pacific, technology partners here outnumber agencies, which changes what the ecosystem can do and how you build it. You own it end to end, and you are accountable for what it produces: merchants launched, merchants that survive and grow, and a partner base that gets measurably better at Shopify every quarter.

The work is genuinely unfinished. Partner capability is uneven, merchant success after launch is low, and the operating model is still being built. You will be making calls with incomplete data, in a market that moves faster than most, on one of the biggest openings Shopify has.

  What you'll own

Agency and SI partnerships across mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, including the managed partner portfolio and the team that runs it.

Technology partnerships, including export-focused partners and the global platform relationships that matter most here.

The import motion, currently run centrally and transitioning to you.

Platform and joint venture relationships, including the domestic commerce platforms that are our most scalable route into the merchant long tail.

A growing in-market team, including a Partner Solutions Engineer and a Partner Marketing Manager, both new roles.

Be in market constantly. Partner offices, factory floors, merchant warehouses, industry events, dinners. Deals here get made in person, by people who keep showing up.

Build a personal network at the top of the ecosystem: agency founders, platform executives, trade association leaders, and the category leaders in the export verticals that matter. Be the call they take.

Create opportunities that are not on anyone's plan. Invent the pilot, the coalition, the program, the event. Test it with a handful of partners in weeks and scale what works.

Move at the speed of the market. A good idea executed this month beats a better idea next quarter.

Carry Shopify's story publicly: stage, press, WeChat, industry forums, partner communities. Be the reason a Chinese founder has heard of us.

Own the Greater China partner strategy

Set the partner strategy for mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan: which partners we recruit, which we invest in, which we scale, and which we let go. Reason from first principles rather than the orthodox answer, and defend those calls with evidence.

Build the partner base against where merchant demand is actually going: cross-border D2C, brand building in Western markets, and enterprise migration off local and legacy platforms.

Drive launches, merchant success, and partner capability

Own the volume and the quality of partner-led merchant launches. Chinese agency partners already launch hundreds of stores every quarter. Far too few of those merchants go on to succeed.

Hold partners accountable for what happens after launch, not just at it: traffic, conversion, and merchant survival. This is the number that matters most in this market.

Own partner-sourced pipeline and the commercial relationship with the Greater China sales, solutions engineering, and marketing teams, and lift partner-led merchants into higher value plans.

Most Chinese sellers compete on price and product rather than brand, and lack the fundamentals of Western direct-to-consumer commerce. Build the enablement model that makes partners genuinely good at teaching this, in market and in language, and take them from selling Shopify to architecting and delivering on it.

Localize Shopify product launches and roadmap changes so partners can act on them in weeks rather than quarters.

Build a scaled motion into the long tail

The long tail of Chinese export merchants is the largest opportunity here and the most expensive to serve directly. Design the motion that reaches it: partner-delivered, platform-delivered, and product-delivered rather than headcount-delivered.

Own the relationships with domestic commerce platforms that can acquire and train merchants at scale on our behalf, including train-the-trainer models that use their existing sales and operations teams. Prove the unit economics before we scale, and kill what does not work.

Build and lead the team

Lead and grow a distributed, in-market team with clear ownership, high standards, and a high pace. Onboard new roles as they land, absorb the responsibilities currently held centrally, and build the team through addition and subtraction.

Coach the craft yourself. You will be in partner meetings, on deal reviews, and in the detail, not managing from a dashboard.

Be the credible internal voice for Greater China with Shopify's global partnerships, product, and commercial leadership. Surface problems early, with a solution attached.

Multiply the market's impact with AI

Merchant willingness to pay for professional services here is very low. AI is the most credible way to serve a long tail that will not pay for people, so push AI adoption i

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