Head of Partnerships
About Starbridge
Starbridge is building the front door for how businesses partner with government in America. Public agencies spend roughly a trillion dollars a year with private companies, and nearly all of it still moves through infrastructure that hasn't changed in decades. Starbridge is building the full operating system for that relationship: the data, the signals, the workflows, and the rails that let a company find a public buyer, win the work, and get paid. We monitor 320,000+ public sector entities around the clock. 500+ customers have joined us since our launch in March. We've raised $50M from top investors including Craft and Michael Seibel of Y Combinator.
About the Role
We're building the next layer of growth beyond direct sales: a partner ecosystem. We've validated that there's real demand for it. Today, referrals from agencies already generate substantial ARR with no dedicated owner and no formal program. We believe there is a much bigger opportunity with different personas. Leadership is aligned and ready to invest in a person who owns this end-to-end, from proving out the size of the opportunity to building the program that scales it. This is a build-from-zero role. There is no existing partnerships function, no partner ops, and no program infrastructure. You'll start by answering one question: how big is the real referral partner universe for Starbridge, and where is it? Then you'll build the function needed to capture it. Compensation includes a quota component, so this role is accountable to revenue as well as activity.
What You'll Do
Phase 1: Prove the partner universe (0 to 1)
- Start inside the base: Mine the existing customer base, CRM data, call recordings, and sellers to identify which agencies, consultants, and firms are already showing up around our 500+ customers.
- Define the IPP: Build the Ideal Partner Profile from real, observed examples rather than firmographic guesses. Starbridge's partner universe is wider than traditional public-sector consultancies. It includes Clay/RevOps/GTM-engineering and outbound agencies that happen to serve GovTech and EdTech clients, investors, conference and event businesses that hold MDF budgets, independent operators and advisors in govcon/govtech/edtech, and media, data-sharing, and PR partners.
- Land the first anchor referral partners: Prioritize influence over size. The goal is strong, founder-level engagement with a handful of the right partners.
- Define and create incentives for our IPP: These can range from thought leadership and data content to networking and PR opportunities.
Phase 2: Build the program
- Partner enablement, certification, and a partner directory/tiering structure.
- Partner activation: making it easy for partners to routinely refer strong pipeline.
- Seller activation: making it easy and incentivized for the Starbridge sales team to work with partners.
- A repeatable recruitment and onboarding motion across every IPP category, not only agencies.
- Reporting and forecasting for partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline and revenue.
What You Bring
- Proven 0→1 builder: A track record building a partnerships, channel, or alliances function from zero to one, beyond running an existing program.
- Quota-driven mindset: Comfortable being measured on partner-sourced pipeline and revenue, not only program activity.
- Strong at market mapping: Able to identify a non-obvious partner universe through research, customer/CRM data, and direct outreach rather than relying on existing lists or inbound.
- Founder-mode relationship skills: A genuine relationship-builder who can earn founder-level trust with a small agency or independent operator as easily as with a larger firm.
- Comfortable in office 5 days a week: Willing and able to be in the Starbridge NYC office for in-person collaboration.