Director, Ecosystem Partnerships

Why This Role Matters

Verana Health has built the industry's most formidable specialty-focused Real-World Data (RWD) engine, spanning Oncology, Ophthalmology, Urology, and Neurology. As we scale the ecosystem through which we reach the market is becoming as important as the data itself — and our existing partnerships leadership needs more bandwidth to capture the opportunity in front of us. This is a growth hire: a second senior leader added to Verana's Ecosystem Partnerships function, reporting directly to the COO and working side-by-side with our current partnerships leader. Together, you will divide and expand coverage of the partner landscape — by therapeutic area, partner type, or region so Verana can run more high-value CRO, consulting, data and technology relationships in parallel, extract more value from existing partners, and pursue more deals, bookings, and revenue than a single leader can drive alone.

What You Get To Do

• Partner with Current Leadership to Set Ecosystem Strategy
  • Segment & Prioritize the Partner Landscape: Work alongside Verana's current partnerships leader to develop a shared framework that stratifies and prioritizes the partner ecosystem (CROs, consulting firms, data aggregators, and technology platforms) by strategic value, therapeutic fit, and revenue potential, and translate it into a multi-year ecosystem roadmap with clear ownership across the expanded team.
  • Divide & Expand Coverage: Help define how the partnerships team splits and scales coverage — by therapeutic area, partner type, or region — so Verana can pursue more relationships, deals, and bookings in parallel rather than sequentially through a single leader.
  • Architect the Ecosystem: Advance the company's partner programs to the next level, shaping a high-performance channel strategy that leverages Verana's full therapeutic breadth.
  • Establish Partner GTM Strategies: Drive new partner technology and data strategies, collaborating closely with Product, Data and Operations teams to fuel future revenue growth and inform the product roadmap.
• Build the Operating Model
  • Design Partner Processes: Co-establish repeatable processes, governance, and working norms for partner onboarding, enablement, and ongoing relationship management — reducing time-to-productivity for new partners and creating a consistent cadence for pipeline building with key accounts across the growing team.
  • Enable Partner Success: Act as a co-evangelist (alongside the current partnerships leader) for Verana's data assets, creating "Partner-in-a-Box" resources and training programs that empower partners to sell Verana effectively.
  • Manage and Maintain: Own a dedicated portfolio of partner relationships, maintaining (and renewing) agreements as the business and its therapeutic priorities evolve, while ensuring consistent handoffs and coverage with the rest of the team.
• Drive Incremental Bookings Through the Ecosystem
  • Recruit & Manage High-Value Partners: Identify, recruit, and manage your own portfolio of high-value partners that expand Verana's reach and add incremental company- and partner-sourced bookings on top of the existing book of business.
  • Extract More Value from Existing Partners: Work with the current partnerships leader to identify underleveraged relationships in the existing portfolio and build plans to deepen them — more deal flow, broader data usage, and expanded scope.
  • Navigate Complex Deals: Lead negotiations for data-sharing, white-labeling, and integrated service agreements with top-tier global CROs and data aggregators.
  • Collaborate Across the Business: Work closely with Product, Marketing, and Legal to ensure partners are trained on Verana's latest RWD assets, co-promote materials to life sciences customers, and maintain contractual relationships.
  • Monitor & Optimize: Track channel and partner performance metrics and pipeline health, providing the COO, SVP of Sales and executive leadership with clear visibility into ecosystem-led growth across the full partnerships team.

Skills And Experience That Will Help You Succeed

• The Builder Mentality: You are comfortable in a fast-paced, scaling environment and have a "builder" mentality — you've stood up a partner program or operating model from scratch, not just run an existing one.
• Collaborative Leadership: You've operated as a peer to another senior partnerships leader — dividing territory or coverage, aligning on strategy, and avoiding duplicated effort — without needing sole ownership of the function to be effective.
• Therapeutic Fluency: You have a deep understanding of the RWD landscape, with specific familiarity in Oncology and at least one other Verana specialty (Ophthalmology, Urology, or Neurology).
• The Rolodex: You bring existing, high-level relationships within the “Big 5” CROs and major Life Science consulting firms and data companies (e.g., ZS Associates, IQVIA, Komodo, AWS, Aetion/DataVant).
• Technical Savvy: You understand the “plumbing” of health data — specifically tokenization, de-identification (HIPAA), and how data flows through clean rooms and APIs.
• Strategic Storytelling: You can take complex, curated datasets and turn them into a compelling commercial narrative that resonates with executive-level stakeholders.
• Program & Process Design: You have designed the scaffolding behind a partner ecosystem — segmentation models, onboarding playbooks, partner scorecards, or governance cadences — and can point to the operational discipline you put in place.

Essential Requirements

• Professional Tenure: 12+ years of experience in Business Development, Strategic Partnerships/Alliances, or Channel Strategy within the HealthTech or Life Sciences data sectors, including experience operating at a senior/executive-facing level.
• Proven Track Record: A demonstrated history of building and scaling partner ecosystems that deliver measurable company-sourced and partner-sourced bookings growth.
• Industry Knowledge: Deep expertise in Real-World Data (RWD) & Real-World Evidence (RWE) and how it is utilized across the drug development lifecycle (from feasibility to post-market surveillance).
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Business, Life Sciences, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree strongly preferred given the strategic scope of this role.
• Travel: Ability to travel as needed (approx. 10-20%) to partner sites and industry conferences to represent the Verana Health brand and differentiated capabilities.

Salary Range

$176,000 - $220,000 (A geographic premium may be applied to base salary)