Head of VIP - Asia

Building the Future of Open Finance

Payward - the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system.

The team

Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions across the globe. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services, with products built for both individual investors and institutional clients.

Kraken and Payward VIP team supports the firm’s highest-value private clients: high-net-worth individuals who expect a premium, secure, and deeply tailored experience. We ensure Kraken remains the exchange of choice for VIPs through white-glove relationship management, personalized trading enablement, and high-impact benefits.

We are looking for a Head of VIP, Asia to lead and grow Payward VIP presence across the region. This is a player-coach role: you will build and lead a small, high-performing team while personally owning strategic client relationships, originating new business, and shaping the regional growth playbook.

You will set the standard for how Kraken serves, retains, and grows its most valuable private clients in Asia. You will be equally comfortable in a senior client meeting, building an introducer network, coaching a relationship manager, hosting a VIP event, and partnering internally to remove the product or operational barriers that cost us high-value business.

Payward VIP program is unique, and we intend to keep it that way. We don’t copy what other exchanges and desks do. You’ll take what makes our program different and adapt it to how Asia’s VIP clients actually trade, network, and build trust. That means testing new ideas, learning fast, dropping what doesn’t work, and scaling what does. If you’re bold, comfortable with ambiguity, and humble enough to fail fast and move on, this is your seat.

The opportunity

• Lead, coach, and develop VIP relationship managers in Asia; establish clear standards for client coverage, pipeline management, service quality, and commercial performance.

• Build the operating model for VIP growth across Asia, including territory coverage, account segmentation, referral strategy, events, and performance reporting.

• Own regional AOP growth, net deposits, client assets, trading volume, retention, and revenue performance.

• Build a repeatable pipeline of qualified high-value clients through direct outreach, referrals, introducers, family offices, proprietary trading firms, OTC desks, miners, project treasuries, and high-volume traders.

• Represent the voice of Asia’s VIP client base internally: identify competitive threats, regional market dynamics, product gaps, and opportunities that influence where private-client capital trades.

Personally own strategic client relationships

• Own and grow Kraken's most strategically important private client relationships across Asia, bringing our full VIP offering - ranging from trading and asset management to other services - to market locally, within Kraken's compliance and risk framework.

• Serve as the senior relationship owner for Kraken’s largest and most strategically important private clients across Asia.

• Bring Kraken’s VIP and private-client offering to market locally, including spot, margin, futures, OTC execution, earn and yield opportunities, lending, and tailored benefits.

• Build trusted, durable relationships while ensuring every client interaction and commercial initiative operates within Kraken’s licensing, compliance, and risk framework.

Build regional presence and partnerships

• Develop Kraken’s presence in Asia’s VIP trading and investor communities, including private trading groups, investor clubs, KOL and trader networks, and closed-door investor circles.

• Design and lead high-quality regional programming, including VIP dinners, trader meetups, conference-adjacent events, and partner activations, in collaboration with Marketing and Regional teams.

• Build and manage introducer and referral partnerships that create a durable source of qualified VIP opportunities.

• Partner with Product, Marketing, Compliance, Banking, Client Service, and Operations to launch regional growth initiatives and improve the client experience.

What you bring

• 7+ years of experience in VIP relationship management, private banking, brokerage, private-client sales, account management, or business development, including meaningful experience in crypto or digital assets.

• Demonstrated people leadership experience, with the judgment and practical coaching ability to lead a small team while remaining hands-on with strategic clients and revenue opportunities.

• A strong personal network among Asia’s crypto HNWIs, traders, family offices, OTC desks, funds, or trading communities. Experience across Greater China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Singapore is especially valuable.

• A proven record of personally originating and converting new business, not solely servicing an existing client book.

• Deep knowledge of crypto market structure and trading solutions, including spot, margin, futures, OTC, lending, tokenized equities, and yield/earn products.

• Strong commercial judgment and comfort managing KPIs including assets on platform, net deposits, revenue, trading volume, retention, pipeline conversion, and client portfolio growth.

• Native or near-native Mandarin and fluent English.

• Comfort operating across multiple regulated Asian jurisdictions, with sound judgment on when to engage Compliance and Risk partners early.

• Willingness to travel up to 30% across the region for strategic client meetings, events, and conferences.

Unless a specific application deadline is stated in the job posting, applications are accepted on an ongoing basis.

Please note, applicants are permitted to redact or remove information on their resume that identifies age, date of birth, or dates of attendance at or graduation from an educational institution.

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment on our team, assessing candidates in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Our commitment

Payward is powered by people from around the world and we celebrate the diverse talents, backgrounds, contributions, and unique perspectives that everyone brings to the table. We hire based on merit, seeking out people with the right abilities, knowledge, and skills for the job. We encourage you to apply for roles where you don't fully meet the listed requirements, especially if you're passionate or knowledgeable about crypto.

We may ask candidates to complete job-related skills or work-style assessments as part of our hiring process. These assessments evaluate competencies relevant to the role and are applied consistently across candidates for similar positions. Results are considered alongside experience and interviews, and are not the sole basis for any employment decision.

As an equal opportunity employer, we don't tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind, whether based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws.

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