---
title: 'Deal Desk Manager - Korea at Speak'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/deal-desk-manager-korea-speak-seoul-hwg8eend9byq'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-25'
---

# Deal Desk Manager - Korea at Speak

- **Company:** Speak
- **Location:** Seoul, South Korea
- **Employment:** contract
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-23
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-25
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/speak/ba5f2ba5-9672-45a4-8b94-b0c1c5fb5d6f

## Job description

## About us

Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language. Learning a language can change a life by opening doors to new cultures, careers, and communities. Two billion people around the world are actively trying to learn a language, but the best way to learn (one-on-one tutoring) is hard to access at scale and hasn’t been meaningfully improved in decades. Speak is building a human-level, AI-powered tutor in your pocket: a conversation-first experience that lets learners actually speak, get instant feedback, and progress through carefully designed lessons. The result is a complete path from beginner to confident speaker across multiple languages. Speak first launched in South Korea in 2019, where Speak has now become the number one language learning app, and we now serve learners across many markets and 15+ languages. Speak is one of the world’s leading AI companies, with over $150m raised in venture investment from OpenAI, Accel, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and more, with a distributed team across San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.

## About This Role

Every month, more than a hundred B2B deals close across Speak's APAC business. There’s meaningful room to improve how we invoice, how we set deals, and how we proactively set what’s best for our customers and for our business. We're looking for a contract Deal Desk Manager based in Seoul to kick off these improvements: advising on deal structure while deals are still moving, and writing down the standard that keeps them clean. You'll be the first deal desk working APAC hours. Part of the job is the daily work: advising deal owners, checking order forms and evidence, and reconciling Closed Won deals against contracts and provisioned seats. The bigger part is making that work shrink. Our deal structuring standard exists today in decided cases. You'll extract it into a written standard, draft the pricing bands and tier definitions for sign-off, and spec the CRM checks that enforce it. This is a 12-month, full-time contract role based in Seoul, reporting into the local APAC Finance Manager, with room to extend based on performance and business needs.

## What you'll be doing

- Own deal structure advice before signature: term, billing shape, seat and enrollment basis, and what our paper and systems can actually carry
- Apply our deal tiers and billing standards before signature, keeping Tier 3 and 4 (SMB deals) on standard paper with only pre-approved redlines, routing exceptions early so deals still close, and surfacing Tier 1 and 2 (mid-market to enterprise) key terms to Rev Ops and Legal early
- Build our written deal structuring standard from existing precedent, and draft the discount bands, price bands and tier definitions for sign-off by the sales leader, Rev Ops and Legal
- Review deals and order forms before they move: required fields, approval routing, pricing inside the tier table, signature authority, and the evidence pack
- Reconcile every Closed Won deal against the contract, the evidence and the seats provisioned, and send mismatches back to the deal owner until they are fixed
- Track recurring errors to their root cause and fix them at the source, whether that means a clearer standard, a conversation with Sales, or a CRM check with Sales Ops, so the same correction is never needed twice

## What we're looking for

- 4+ years in deal desk, deal operations, or pre-signature commercial review for B2B, advising sales teams on how to structure deals, not only checking them
- Track record enforcing a pricing, discount, or contract policy with sales reps, including holding the line on deals under close pressure, while knowing what can flex and what needs approval
- Precision reading a signed contract against a CRM record line by line: amount, TCV, line items, dates and billing fields
- Experience turning precedent or informal practice into a written standard, guideline, or approval matrix that stakeholders signed off on
- Business-level Korean, including reading contracts, price tables and business registration certificates in Korean
- Fluency in business English; communicating with the global team at Speak on a daily level should not be a blocker to get things done

While it's not required, it's an added plus if you also have:

- Hands-on experience with Salesforce or HubSpot quote-to-cash
- Experience writing CRM field and validation requirements for a systems team
- Exposure to multi-market APAC deals or Korean tax invoice mechanics

## Why work at Speak

- Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets. You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.
- Do your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better. We hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.
- Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, Tokyo, and Taipei, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.
- Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.

Speak does not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

## About Speak

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Speak is an AI-powered language learning app that focuses on teaching conversational fluency through real-time speaking practice and instant feedback, without needing a human tutor.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C; $1B valuation as of December 2024)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA (with offices in Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana)
- **Founded**: 2016
- **Founders**: Connor Zwick (CEO) and Andrew Hsu (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Industry**: Language learning / EdTech
- **Target Customers**: B2C (individual language learners) and B2B (Speak for Business – over 200 enterprise customers)
- **Mission/Purpose**: “To reinvent the way people learn, starting with language.” The goal is to make conversational practice radically accessible so that hundreds of millions of people can gain fluency.

## Products & Services
- **Speak App**: A subscription-based mobile and web application (iOS, Android, Web) that uses a proprietary “Speak Method” – learn useful phrases, practice them out loud with AI-driven drills, then apply them in simulated real-world conversations. Supports English learning from eight source languages; plans to add Spanish and French.
- **Speak for Business**: A B2B tier for companies that want to provide English conversation training to their employees, currently serving 200+ corporate clients.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: $1 billion (December 2024, Series C led by Accel)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $171.3 million across six rounds; annual revenue estimated at $7.0 million (LinkedIn data)
- **Notable Investors**: Accel, OpenAI Startup Fund, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, Lachy Groom, Buckley Ventures; individual angels include Sam Altman and Peter Thiel.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - 10M+ app downloads, #1 English learning app in South Korea
  - Available in over 30 countries
  - Headcount grew 30.9% YoY to 166 employees (LinkedIn, May 2026)
  - B2B segment has 200+ customers
  - Average user engagement of 10–20 minutes per day

## Competitive Advantages
- **Conversation-first approach**: Unlike grammar/vocab apps, Speak teaches by making users speak out loud, using proprietary speech recognition and generative AI to provide immediate feedback.
- **AI tutor that scales**: Replicates natural conversation without needing a live human, making high-quality practice affordable ($20/month or $99/year).
- **Deep OpenAI partnership**: Early access to the latest speech AI from OpenAI (also an investor), giving a technological edge in voice interaction.
- **Strong product-market fit in Asia**: Proven adoption in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and expanding to other markets.

## Strategic Focus
- Expand target languages (Spanish and French are next)
- Scale Speak for Business globally
- Develop a standardized, accurate English fluency assessment (an AI-powered test)
- Continue to invest in AI research and engineering to improve tutoring effectiveness

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Mission-driven team passionate about language learning and AI; values efficacy over gamification.
- **Team & talent**: 166 people from companies like Meta, Google, DoorDash, Block, Dropbox, and Duolingo. Engineering office in Ljubljana, product and design hubs in San Francisco, operations in Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei.
- **Flexibility**: Hybrid/office-based across locations; employees encouraged to travel between offices; annual company offsite.
- **Perks**: Competitive salary and equity, comprehensive medical/dental/vision, unlimited PTO, parental leave, 401(k), monthly wellness and language learning stipends, pet-friendly office (official company dog).
- **Growth**: Rapidly scaling headcount (+30% YoY) with active roles in engineering, product, marketing, sales, and design.

## Sources
1. [speak.com/careers](https://www.speak.com/careers)
2. [speak.com](https://speak.com/)
3. [linkedin.com/company/usespeak](https://www.linkedin.com/company/usespeak)
4. [TechCrunch: OpenAI-backed Speak raises $78M at $1B valuation](https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/10/openai-backed-speak-raises-78m-at-1b-valuation-to-help-users-learn-languages-by-talking-out-loud/)
5. [Y Combinator: Speak](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/speak)

## Other roles at Speak

- [CX Agent, Taiwan](https://feeny.ai/job/cx-agent-taiwan-speak-seoul-17z2x3becbj1) — Seoul, South Korea
- [B2B Growth Marketer](https://feeny.ai/job/b2b-growth-marketer-speak-seoul-kvzvjhqpapxr) — Seoul, South Korea
- [Growth Marketing Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketing-intern-speak-seoul-abmxhdk06x77) — Seoul, South Korea
- [Product Manager, Learning Outcomes](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-learning-outcomes-speak-san-francisco-9j87kjxjh2ra) — San Francisco, CA
- [Head of Korea](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-korea-speak-seoul-jpabryr55fhe) — Seoul, South Korea
- [Account Executive - Korea](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-korea-speak-seoul-4qbv37jexvh8) — Seoul, South Korea
- [Product Manager - AI Content Generation](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-ai-content-generation-speak-san-francisco-7r9ptvgskqe4) — San Francisco, CA
- [Customer Success Manager - Korea](https://feeny.ai/job/customer-success-manager-korea-speak-seoul-fwc1wpea34yk) — Seoul, South Korea
- [Product Lead, Enterprise](https://feeny.ai/job/product-lead-enterprise-speak-san-francisco-pv45a3bsw3js) — San Francisco, CA
- [Content Localization Specialist (Chinese - Traditional / Japanese)](https://feeny.ai/job/content-localization-specialist-chinese-traditional-japanese-speak-south-korea-9c7ckjwm39cd) — South Korea