Overview

A Strategic Partnerships Director is responsible for leading competitive efforts and strategies to help obtain new and high-value partnerships with financial institutions. This individual will lead all efforts from prospecting to building and cultivating mutually beneficial partner relationships with responsibilities including assessing market-based opportunities, creating term sheets, developing legal contracts, leading sales and negotiation efforts with prospects, as well as influencing the organization to make important investment decisions on strategic partnerships helping to expand revenue and exceed growth goals through new verticals and other partner-related growth opportunities.

This role requires extensive cross-functional internal partnership and will work closely with Demand Generation, Product Marketing, Legal, On-boarding, and Product & Engineering to build new GTM playbooks specifically for strategic financial institution partnerships and propel short and long-term growth.

What you'll do:

• Build, implement, and own the strategic plans addressing potential financial institution partnerships as well as identify new prospects in the market
• Conduct new business development outreach to prospective financial institution partners and create new opportunities, effectively tracking and prioritizing based on size and impact
• Own and manage large, complex negotiations over extended periods of time (12+ months) for multifaceted financial institution partnerships, encompassing both financial term sheets and legal agreements, negotiating all items and leading through the signature and closing process
• Engage with senior C-level executives routinely, internally and externally, and understand key business drivers for growth, aligning the partner and the company towards a mutual win
• Develop and own high-impact financial institution relationships to the point they can productively align and deeply grow the relationship while maximizing the sales opportunities for
• Strategically partner with Marketing, Demand Generation and the sales team to help develop growth plans and help guide Alliance & Sales teams' engagement with partners around these financial institution opportunities

What we're looking for:

• Experience building new strategic partnerships
• Strong enterprise sales, alliance management, marketing, business acumen, and analytical skills
• Highly skilled at building relationships with partners and C-suite level decision makers
• Strong financial acumen and experience developing complex financial models inclusive of topics such as net interchange share, transaction / software fees, customer acquisition models, etc.
• Able to effectively manage time resulting in maximized productivity
• Effectively able to lead and coordinate cross-functional business reviews to include partners, sales, product, marketing, delivery onboarding, etc.
• Excellent communication skills to effectively present to a wide range of audiences, including an ability to communicate business and technical concepts clearly, effectively and convincingly through presentations
• Expert ability to interpret critical business challenges and translate to optimal business process recommendations – multi-level and organizational opportunities
• Expert at assessing partner and channel market opportunities within the financial institution landscape (banks, credit unions, and other financial services providers) and building strategies to expand our leadership presence
• Expert ability to utilize a solutions-selling approach to advance new partners through their decision-making process resulting in the purchase by partner customers of the solutions that match their needs
• University Degree or equivalent experience and minimum 7+ years prior relevant Sales experience; master's degree in business preferred
• Technically capable of using and demonstrating solutions
• 3+ years of partner/business development, enterprise sales, financial institution partnerships, and/or program/product management experience
• Highly effective in creating a compelling reason to buy through defined marketing messaging and the presentation of value propositions
• Strong hunting mindset – sense of urgency, ownership, and bias for action
• Ability to understand strategic priorities, business needs, pain points, and opportunities to leverage solutions to potential financial institution partners