About the role

As a Transaction Principal for Japan at Anthropic, you'll drive the commercial sourcing and transaction execution process for our Japanese data center capacity deals. You'll lead RFP processes, negotiate term sheets, and serve as the central leader ensuring seamless stakeholder alignment from initial sourcing through lease execution.

This role is critical to securing the infrastructure that powers Anthropic's frontier AI systems in Japan — you'll bridge commercial negotiations with complex internal coordination across legal, finance, engineering, and network teams, and partner closely with our Compute Markets and Policy teams who own the Japan market strategy and government relationships. This is not an established leasing org; you'll be building process alongside execution in a market with unique regulatory, permitting, and power infrastructure dynamics.

Japan presents a distinctive data center landscape: tight land availability in key metros, evolving grid infrastructure, significant government interest in domestic AI infrastructure, and a business culture that places high value on relationship-driven deal-making and long-term developer partnerships. You'll need to navigate these market-specific realities while executing at the pace Anthropic requires.

Responsibilities

• Lead the RFP and commercial sourcing process for Japanese data center deals, managing developer outreach, proposal evaluation, and competitive selection across the country of Japan

• Drive the market to deliver on timeframes faster than the market provides through creative delivery models, smart regional selection, etc.

• Negotiate term sheets and manage the LOI process, structuring commercial terms that meet Anthropic's technical and business requirements while maintaining strong developer partnerships — including navigating Japan-specific contractual norms and negotiation styles

• Create the bridge from LOI to executed transaction, ensuring all commercial, technical, and legal requirements are satisfied for deal closure

• Serve as project manager for cross-functional stakeholder engagement — coordinating due diligence teams, internal and external legal counsel, network organization, platform engineers, and finance to ensure alignment prior to lease execution

• Act as the single point of contact for auxiliary organizations including networks, deployments, and government relations, providing regular updates on transaction progress and leasing status

• Develop and maintain transaction timelines, tracking critical-path items and proactively identifying risks that could impact deal closure

• Ensure all stakeholder requirements are captured and addressed in commercial agreements, translating technical and operational needs into contractual terms

• Manage complex digital infrastructure development activities to a construction-ready state, through a developer or directly

• Marry the right projects, capital stacks, and developers at the right stages — including understanding the role of Japanese developers, REITs, trading companies, and sogo shosha in data center financing and development

• Navigate Japan-specific permitting, grid connection, and regulatory requirements — including coordination with utilities and relevant government ministries on infrastructure approvals

• Document and refine transaction processes and playbooks to enable scalable deal execution as Anthropic expands its infrastructure footprint in Japan

• Partner with the Compute Markets and Policy Managers to prioritize markets, sites, and counterparties, and feed deal learnings back into Japan market strategy

You may be a good fit if you

• Have 10+ years of experience in transaction management, commercial real estate, data center leasing, or infrastructure procurement in Japan

• Possess a proven track record of managing complex, multi-stakeholder transactions from sourcing through execution

• Have strong negotiation skills with experience structuring term sheets, LOIs, and commercial agreements

• Excel at project management and can coordinate across legal, technical, finance, and operational teams simultaneously

• Have experience with RFP processes and competitive sourcing for large-scale infrastructure or real estate transactions

• Have experience working in or across Japanese markets, with knowledge of the local data center and real estate development landscape

• Are comfortable navigating Japanese business culture, including consensus-building (nemawashi), formal stakeholder alignment processes, and relationship-driven deal dynamics

• Can operate effectively in fast-paced, ambiguous environments where processes are being built alongside execution

• Are highly organized with strong attention to detail while maintaining focus on strategic deal objectives

• Demonstrate exceptional communication skills and can coordinate effectively across time zones with US-based HQ teams and Japanese developer and government partners

It's a bonus if you

• Have experience with data center or hyperscale infrastructure transactions specifically in Japan or broader APAC

• Come from the development side of the industry rather than traditional brokerage/leasing — you understand how DC development works and how value is created (yield-on-cost, cap rates, development fees)

• Understand technical requirements for AI/ML workloads including power density, cooling, and network connectivity

• Have worked with legal teams on complex lease negotiations or infrastructure agreements under Japanese law

• Understand utility coordination, power procurement, or energy considerations in the Japanese context — including grid constraints, utility interconnection processes, and renewable energy procurement (FIT/FIP schemes, corporate PPAs)

• Have familiarity with Japanese government initiatives around domestic AI and digital infrastructure (e.g., METI's data center promotion policies, the government's semiconductor and digital strategy)

• Have relationships within the Japanese data center developer, operator, and broker ecosystem — including domestic players and international operators with Japan presence

• Are proficient in Japanese (business level or above) — not required, but a meaningful advantage for stakeholder engagement and developer relationships

• Have a background in corporate development, strategic partnerships, or infrastructure investment

• Have experience in high-growth technology companies managing infrastructure expansion in Japan or APAC