Director, Strategic Partnerships

About the role

Hiive is redefining how private companies and their shareholders access liquidity. Through its institutional-grade platform, Hiive brings together buyers, sellers, and issuers to facilitate secondary transactions in venture-backed, pre-IPO companies, introducing efficiency, transparency, and standardization to an otherwise opaque asset class. Recognized as one of Canada’s fastest-growing companies and backed by leading U.S. investors, Hiive is profitable, well-capitalized, and building a high-performance team to meet growing demand and pursue new market opportunities. As Director, Strategic Partnerships, you will own partner-led growth at Hiive, from first conversation to signed, producing partnerships. You will be the first dedicated hire in a function with an active pipeline and direct sponsorship from the CEO, and you will build the team underneath you as the practice scales. In any given week, you might open a conversation with a partner you've prioritized, structure a pitch around Hiive’s unique capabilities, and negotiate terms with a counterparty's leadership, all while managing production across live partners.

Responsibilities

• Map and prioritize prospective partners across financial institutions, infrastructure providers, and platforms.
• Run proactive outbound and qualify inbound interest, maintaining a disciplined pipeline from first conversation through signature.
• Codify Hiive's capabilities into partnership constructs, so that Hiive's value is clear to every prospective partner.
• Tailor partnership offerings from the full breadth of Hiive's platform, including sourcing, liquidity, investment products, fund infrastructure, market intelligence, and execution.
• Structure proposals and negotiate terms across economics, commitments, and performance conditions.
• Own agreements from redlines to signature, engaging business leaders and working in close partnership with cross-functional stakeholders.
• Support national account relationships with wirehouses and wealth management firms, from diligence through firm-level agreements and platform placement.
• Build the operating infrastructure of the partnership function, including diligence, contracting, onboarding, supply packaging, and flow into Hiive's sales and execution teams, hiring dedicated support as the practice scales.
• Grow live partnerships into durable, producing relationships through regular reviews, shared performance visibility, and expansion into new areas of collaboration.

Required Skills

• 3-6+ years in partnerships, business development, or commercial roles at a fintech, financial infrastructure provider, or financial institution, with deals you personally sourced, negotiated, and signed, and a track record of carrying them with minimal supervision.
• Fluency in structuring commercial terms, including economics, commitments, and performance conditions, and in managing redlines with counsel.
• Executive presence and precise written communication with senior counterparties.
• Comfort operating close to senior leadership in a fast-moving environment. You will regularly interact with the CEO and executive team and be required to move confidently on emerging opportunities.
• Ability to build domain knowledge quickly in a complex financial services environment.
• Fluency using AI to multiply commercial output, from market mapping and counterparty research to deal analysis and building pipeline systems.

Preferred Skills

• Exposure to private markets, alternative investments, or capital markets products.
• Experience embedding a financial product into partner platforms.
• Familiarity with the wealth management ecosystem: RIAs, advisor platforms, and custodians.
• Experience as a first or early partnerships hire who built a function's operating infrastructure.
• Experience operating in a regulated environment, with the judgment to know when to engage legal and compliance partners.
• FINRA registrations (SIE, Series 7 or 82, Series 63).

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary commensurate with experience and contribution.
• Opportunity to participate in ownership of a rapidly growing company through our employee stock option plan.
• Comprehensive 100% employer-paid health & dental premiums and a Health/Personal Spending Account for Canadian employees. (An employer-subsidized benefits program is available for US-based team members).
• If you are based in Vancouver, enjoy a dedicated desk in our Vancouver, BC HQ, in the heart of downtown, with a fridge stocked with healthy snacks and drinks, an onsite gym, and a gorgeous rooftop amenity.
• Enjoy a $20-per-day commuter benefit for every day you work in our Vancouver HQ.
• An engaging social calendar, including bi-weekly catered lunches, bi-weekly “Friday bar,” team workouts, annual summer party, and holiday party, two “onsite” all-team retreats each year, semi-annual team-building events, and Hiive Women’s Network events.
• Significant opportunities for growth into team leadership and management roles.
• Entrepreneurial culture and a small and dynamic team.
• Sponsorship, immigration, and relocation for exceptional candidates.