Director, Strategic Partnerships
Leads VGS’s strategic payments and product partnerships, manages a partnerships team, and shapes product and corporate strategy through ecosystem relationships. Requires 10+ years in partnerships, fintech business development, product strategy, or payments consulting, plus strong payments and technical product knowledge.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Lead and develop a team of Strategic Partnerships professionals, including direct reports.
- Own and grow strategic partnerships across payments and commerce technology, including card networks, investors, cloud and infrastructure providers, AI platforms, wallets, processors, and other ecosystem partners.
- Develop and execute partnership strategies that advance company and product priorities, growth, differentiation, market expansion, and distribution.
- Lead complex, product-oriented partnerships across Product, Engineering, Legal, Sales, and executive leadership.
- Source, evaluate, prioritize, and develop new strategic partnerships.
- Lead negotiations covering partnership structures, economics, go-to-market models, technical commitments, and success criteria.
- Drive partnerships from strategy and business case through negotiation, launch, commercialization, and ongoing management.
- Build senior-level executive relationships, identify expansion opportunities, and address partnership risks.
- Establish partnership goals, operating rhythms, and measurable success metrics.
- Represent partner priorities and market insights in product and company decision-making.
- Develop strategic perspectives on tokenization, payments infrastructure, agentic commerce, AI, and next-generation commerce technologies.
- Identify ecosystem shifts and translate them into recommendations for products, partnerships, distribution models, and strategic initiatives.
- Represent the company externally with senior payments and technology leaders.
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, fintech business development, product strategy, or payments consulting.
- Understanding of the payments ecosystem, including issuers, processors, card networks, wallets, and commerce platforms.
- Ability to connect technical product functionality with partner and market needs.
- Demonstrated success managing complex partnerships and cross-functional projects.
- Comfort working in ambiguous, fast-paced environments with shifting priorities and emerging technologies.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, strategic mindset, and bias toward execution.
Nice to Have
- Experience working closely with product or engineering teams in a platform company or fintech infrastructure provider, particularly in a startup environment.
- Familiarity with tokenization, payment flows, reconciliation processes, or data compliance frameworks.
- Technical literacy and comfort discussing APIs, SDKs, and integration workflows.
Skills
Strategic Partnerships, Business Development, Product Strategy, Payments, Payment Networks, Tokenization, APIs, SDKs, Cloud Infrastructure, Cross-Functional Leadership, Commercial Negotiation, Go-to-Market Strategy, Payment Flows, Data Compliance
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