Overview
- Role: General Manager, Southeast & East Asia
- Location: Singapore (Hybrid)
- Equity: Competitive Initial Equity Package + refreshers
- Experience: 10+ Years
About Pillar
Pillar is building the next-generation commodity risk management stack for the $10T physical economy. We combine real-time market data with AI-powered exposure modeling and automated trade generation to arm operators with precise protection from volatility. From instant execution to continuous monitoring, alerts, and recommendations, Pillar turns complex market risk into a fully managed, always-on hedging engine.
We were founded in 2023 by the youngest macro market-maker at Barclays and a trading systems engineer at Coinbase, and have raised over $20M in capital from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Crucible Capital, Neo, DST Global and more.
The Opportunity
Southeast and East Asia represent one of the most compelling growth frontiers for commodity risk management. The region is home to some of the world's largest commodity producers, processors, and trading houses,yet most businesses here still manage price risk through intuition, relationships, and reactive decisions rather than structured hedging programs.
We're looking for a General Manager to lead Pillar's expansion across the region. This is a senior, entrepreneurial role: you'll be the first dedicated leadership hire in Asia, responsible for building the market from the ground up, establishing Pillar's presence, landing and growing clients, and building a local team. You'll have significant ownership over regional strategy and the backing of a well-capitalized platform.
What You'll Do
Regional Strategy & Market Development
- Define Pillar's go-to-market strategy across Southeast and East Asia, identifying the highest-value verticals, geographies, and client segments
- Build Pillar's presence and brand in the region,through client relationships, industry events, partnerships, and thought leadership
- Track competitive dynamics, regulatory considerations, and market structure across key markets (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, and others)
Client Acquisition & Revenue
- Own the full commercial cycle: sourcing, qualifying, pitching, closing, and expanding enterprise relationships
- Run consultative sales conversations with operators, CFOs, procurement teams, and treasury leads,helping them understand their commodity exposures and how Pillar solves them
- Build and manage a pipeline of opportunities across key regional verticals (energy, agriculture, metals, industrials, and others)
- Personally close the first wave of regional clients while developing a repeatable playbook for scale
Client Success & Expansion
- Ensure newly onboarded clients realize tangible value from Pillar's platform
- Identify expansion opportunities within existing accounts and deepen relationships over time
- Serve as the senior point of escalation for client issues in the region
Team & Operational Build-Out
- Hire and develop the initial regional team as client volume and pipeline justify headcount
- Establish operational infrastructure for the region: legal entity setup, local processes, and compliance requirements
- Represent Pillar's interests and culture as the company's senior leader in Asia
Headquarters Partnership
- Serve as the regional voice to the executive team,surfacing product gaps, client feedback, and market insights that shape Pillar's roadmap
- Collaborate with the global team on pricing, deal structuring, and risk policy for regional clients
What We're Looking For
- 10+ years of experience in enterprise sales, business development, financial services, or a related field,with exposure to commodity markets, risk management, or the physical economy preferred
- Demonstrated track record of commercial success,building client relationships, generating revenue, or building a business from the ground up
- Domain credibility: able to hold a substantive conversation about price risk, hedging strategy, and financial exposure with operators, CFOs, and procurement teams
- Commercially driven,you've carried a number, know what a healthy pipeline looks like, and know how to close
- Regional fluency: you understand how business gets done across Southeast and East Asia,the cultural dynamics, decision-making structures, and relationship norms
- Scrappy and self-directed; comfortable building process from scratch and able to solve ambiguous problems with minimal guidance
- Builder mentality,excited to grow a team, develop people, and maintain high standards as the organization scales
Nice to Have
- Prior experience at a fintech, financial infrastructure, or risk management company
- Existing network across commodity-exposed industries in the region
- Professional-level competency in one or more regional languages (Mandarin, Bahasa, Japanese, Korean, etc.)
Benefits
- 💰 Competitive Salary & Equity
- ⚕️ Health, Dental, Vision and Life Insurance
- ⌚ Unlimited PTO and Flexible Hours
- 🍣 Paid lunch, coffee, snacks (and dinner if you're staying late)
- 🏋️ Monthly Gym Stipend
- 🌄 Regular Team Off-Sites
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