Head of Partnerships

What You'll Do

• Close the first marquee partners yourself, structure the economics, and write the playbook from live deals.
• Decide which channels to build and in what order, and say no to the rest.
• Build the attribution, payouts, and contracts so every partner-sourced dollar is tracked.
• Route every referral to a named owner with a tracked outcome.
• Own the scoreboard: partner-sourced conversion, revenue per partner, time-to-first-referral, reviewed weekly with the CEO.
• Hire an execution lead and build the team once the motion is proven.

Who You Are

• Think in distribution, not logos.
• Are a player-coach: you'll close deals this quarter and build the team next year.
• Rigorous about attribution and unit economics, including thin-margin, high-volume models.
• Move cross-functional work across product, legal, compliance, and ops without owning those teams.
• Treat regulation as a design problem, not a blocker.
• Learn a new domain fast and use AI as real leverage.

Requirements

• A track record building distribution, channel, or platform partnerships that drove attributable revenue, at a payments, commerce, fintech, marketplace, or platform company (or somewhere equally complex).
• You've personally closed and structured partner deals, not just managed a team that did.
• Comfort with low-margin, high-volume unit economics.
• Based in SF or willing to relocate; on-site, with travel to partner markets.

Nice to Have

• Insurance, insurtech, or other regulated-distribution experience (useful, never required).
• Embedded or API distribution, developer/ISV ecosystems, or marketplace app stores.
• Channel or reseller program design.
• A regulated launch navigated with counsel.

The Reality

This is a build-from-zero seat, not a big-company partnerships seat. No team, no pipeline, no brand opening doors. You are the brand, and the first quarter is you closing deals yourself. The deals are small and the discipline is high, so small-dollar, high-volume economics have to energize you. It's on-site in San Francisco, long days, Monday to Friday, with travel to partner markets as needed.

Benefits

• Uber commuter benefits
• Meals provided: breakfast, lunch, and dinner
• Snacks, drinks, and coffee stocked daily
• Free gym membership
• Health, dental, and vision insurance

The Process

• Lead screen - Fit and alignment.
• Founder screen with the CEO - How you think about distribution at a forcing mechanism.
• Super day - Work a live partner pitch and present a partnership you built.

To Apply

Send your resume and one partnership or distribution channel you built yourself: who the partner was, the forcing mechanism it sat on, the economics you structured, and how you know it worked. Compensation Range: $190K - $260K