Partnerships Manager - (Startup) HYBRID

Position Overview: We are a fast-growing fintech startup seeking a Partnerships Manager to lead and scale strategic alliances that accelerate growth, expand distribution, and drive product adoption. This hybrid role combines business development, partner management, and cross-functional execution to build long-term revenue streams and integrated solutions. The ideal candidate brings strong fintech domain knowledge, hands-on experience with core banking and digital banking partners (Q2, Lumin, Candescent, Banno, Alkami), and a startup mindset for fast experimentation and measurable impact.

Key Responsibilities: Identify, evaluate and prioritize partnership opportunities with fintech platforms, core banking providers, digital banking vendors and complementary startups to drive customer acquisition and product integration. Develop and execute end-to-end partnership lifecycle processes: outreach, deal structuring, commercial negotiations, implementation planning, and ongoing relationship management. Work closely with product, engineering and customer success teams to define technical integration requirements, co-develop joint solutions, and ensure smooth partner onboarding and go-to-market launches. Negotiate commercial terms and contracts that balance scalable economics with partner incentives; coordinate legal and finance teams to close deals efficiently. Create and manage a partnership pipeline, forecasting revenue impact and tracking KPIs to demonstrate ROI; report outcomes and strategic recommendations to leadership. Design co-marketing and co-selling programs with partners, including joint events, case studies, product demos and channel enablement to accelerate adoption. Act as the primary partner-facing owner, maintaining strong relationships with counterparties at Q2, Lumin, Candescent, Banno, Alkami and other ecosystem players; proactively surface product feedback and market intelligence. Champion a data-driven approach to partnership experiments: define success metrics, run trials, iterate quickly and scale repeatable models across the business. Represent the company at industry events, conferences and partner meetings to raise brand awareness and source new opportunities. Build internal processes, playbooks and documentation to ensure the partnerships function can scale as the startup grows.

Qualifications: 5+ years of business development, partnerships or strategic alliances experience, preferably at a fintech company or fintech-focused startup. Proven track record closing and scaling partnerships with core banking and digital banking providers (experience with Q2, Lumin, Candescent, Banno, Alkami is highly desirable).Strong understanding of fintech product models, payment rails, APIs, integration workflows and regulatory considerations relevant to financial services. Operational experience driving cross-functional programs with product, engineering, legal and sales teams to deliver partner integrations on time. Excellent negotiation, contract structuring and commercial modeling skills with the ability to balance growth and unit economics. Startup mindset: comfort with ambiguity, rapid experimentation, hands-on execution and building processes from scratch. Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills; ability to present to C-level partners and internal leadership. Data-driven approach: experience defining partnership KPIs, building pipeline forecasts and measuring program ROI.Bachelors degree in business, finance, computer science or related field; MBA or equivalent is a plus. Willingness to work in a hybrid model (on-site collaboration and remote work) and travel as needed for partner meetings and industry events.