About us

Our mission is to reinvent the way people learn, starting with language. We begin by teaching the next billion people English, Spanish, and French.

English is the global language of business, culture, and communication, and over 1.5 billion people around the world are actively trying to learn right now. Others dream of communicating with the half-billion native Spanish speakers across the globe. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to learn to speak a language without constant access to a speaking partner. Grammar and vocab apps don't really help – you need to actually converse with someone.

Speak is on a journey to fix this. We're creating an AI-powered experience that replicates the flow of a conversation, without needing a human on the other end. The goal is to make it radically more accessible to be able to have conversations in a foreign language and eventually help hundreds of millions of people gain fluency who otherwise wouldn't be able to.

We started on this journey over five years ago and we've still got a long ways to go. We're thoughtfully adding new team members only when we think they can truly play a big role in our mission.

Speak launched first in South Korea where we have quickly grown to become the top grossing education app in the country. We have now delivered this winning product to more than 40 countries globally and are continuing to expand to more markets in the coming months. The company is well funded, and as of December 2024, we've reached a $1B valuation with our Series C round, through key partners like Accel, OpenAI, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, Lachy Groom, Josh Buckley, and more. We’re a team of more than 90 based throughout San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Ljubljana.

About This Role

We’re looking for a Head of Growth (Korea) to lead Speak’s next stage of growth in its most important market. Based in Seoul, this person will be fully responsible for driving sustainable user acquisition, revenue expansion, and long-term retention in Korea—setting the vision, building the systems, and leading a high-performing team to deliver bold business outcomes.

As a key member of both the Korea leadership team and Speak’s global Growth team, you’ll oversee all aspects of our local growth strategy—including paid media, lifecycle marketing, funnel optimization, and new growth experiments. You’ll also act as a key advisor to brand and product teams to ensure our broader consumer business in Korea is set up for long-term success.

What you’ll be doing

• Own and deliver Korea’s growth targets—growing our subscriber base while improving LTV:CAC through data-driven acquisition and retention strategies

• Lead and scale our performance marketing efforts, managing >$00M+ annual budget with high creative output, experimentation, and media efficiency

• Identify, validate, and scale new growth channels (e.g. product-led growth loops, alternative paid media, pricing/packaging innovation)

• Manage and mentor a multidisciplinary growth team across paid UA, CRM and more

• Build and optimize reporting systems for daily/weekly visibility across paid marketing, CRM, funnel performance, and product usage

• Collaborate with product, brand, and central growth teams to align roadmaps with local market opportunities

• Contribute to Korea’s brand positioning and comms strategy in service of broader market growth

What we’re looking for

• Proven growth leadership: 7+ years in high-growth tech or consumer startups, with ownership of $10M+ annual marketing budgets across both web and app

• Full-stack growth expertise: Deep hands-on experience in performance marketing, funnel optimization, and experimentation

• Builder mentality: Comfortable building systems, dashboards, and processes from scratch—while operating at both strategic and executional levels

• Strong operator: Ability to synthesize performance signals and drive cross-functional execution across marketing, product, and brand

• Team leader & coach: Track record of building, mentoring, and managing high-performing growth and marketing teams

• Local fluency, global mindset: Deep understanding of Korean consumer behavior with the ability to adapt and apply global best practices

• Business fluency in English: Capable of leading collaboration with global stakeholders and aligning local efforts to global goals

Why work at Speak

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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, and Tokyo, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.

4. 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.