Head of Strategic Partnerships

• The Head of Strategic Partnerships owns a vital piece of Human Interest's most important growth channel: expanding our ecosystem of partners who put our retirement platform in front of millions of small and medium-sized businesses
• Reporting directly to the Chief Revenue Officer, you will source and land business partnerships across payroll providers, benefits brokers, accountants, financial institutions, PEOs, and embedded fintech distribution
• This is an individual-contributor role with a builder's mindset and a quota orientation. You will be responsible for signing complex, multi-year agreements with some of Human Interest's largest and most important partners
• The role is equal parts strategist, dealmaker, and operator. You'll be just as comfortable modeling the economics of a new channel as you are in a room negotiating terms, and just as effective driving a deal across the finish line as you are shaping the partnership thesis with the CRO and the broader leadership team
• You bring executive presence and the systems thinking to see how a single partnership fits into a broader distribution strategy
• You read a term sheet and a partnership thesis with equal fluency, you make sharp prioritization calls about where to spend your time, and you carry deals with a sense of ownership
• Above all, you are a builder: you're drawn to the ambiguity of standing up new channels from scratch, and you bring structure, pace, and judgment to a function that is still writing its own playbook
• The Partnerships organization is the engine behind Human Interest's reach, with over 95% of our business coming from our partner ecosystem
• This team builds the relationships that let us scale access to retirement benefits far faster than we could one employer at a time
• They think in systems and incentives: which partners share our mission, how we make those partners successful, and how we design programs that compound over time
• The team works shoulder-to-shoulder with Sales, Product, Marketing, Legal, and Operations to establish and launch partnerships that are commercially sound, operationally clean, and genuinely good for the businesses we ultimately serve
• As we continue to scale, we're looking for a leader who can take this function to its next level: bigger partners, deeper integrations, and a measurable line on the revenue plan
• Partnership Strategy: Shape and own the strategy for your portfolio of partnerships, prioritizing the channels, partner types, and deals that drive the highest-quality growth, in close partnership with the VP of Partnerships
• Sourcing & Closing: Identify, pursue, and close strategic partnerships across payroll, benefits brokers and advisors, financial institutions, PEOs, and embedded/distribution partners, personally leading the most complex negotiations
• Deal Structuring: Lead commercial negotiation and deal structuring end-to-end: economics, terms, integration scope, and go-to-market commitments, partnering with Legal and Finance to protect the business
• Cross-Functional Execution: Partner with Product and Engineering to scope integrations; with Marketing to build co-marketing and enablement; and with Sales to operationalize partner-sourced demand
• Onboarding & Handoff to Partner Management: As the "hunter" who sources and closes the deal, own the partner relationship through signature and initial activation, then drive a clean, structured handoff to the Partner Management team. Equip them with the context, relationships, and commercial intent needed to nurture, grow, and steward the partnership over its lifecycle. A disciplined handoff keeps you focused on landing the next high-value relationship while ensuring nothing is lost in the transition from "hunting" to "farming."
• Executive Communication: Translate the partnership thesis, pipeline, and results into clear narratives for the VP of Partnerships and senior leadership, and represent Human Interest externally with senior partner stakeholders
• Market Intelligence: Maintain a sharp view of the retirement, payroll, fintech, and benefits landscape, surfacing competitive and regulatory shifts that should shape the partnership roadmap
• Other duties as needed

Benefits

• Short/Long-term disability and life insurance
• Generous parental leave policy
• Monthly work from home stipend
• Dollar-for-dollar match of employee donations to nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations, up to $1,000 per year
• Comprehensive training and professional development via Beacon U plus an annual education stipend
• Annual wellness stipend
• An annual membership to One Medical Group, with membership fees paid by Human Interest
• HSA or FSA offering with an annual employer contribution
• Generous FTO (exempt) and PTO (non-exempt) policies
• Stock options for every employee
• Top-of-the-line health, dental, and vision, with employee premiums fully paid and dependent premiums 50% covered by Human Interest
• A great 401(k) plan: our own! Our 401(k) includes a dollar-for-dollar employer match up to 4% of compensation

The person who thrives here is a natural hunter - energized by the pursuit of net-new relationships, comfortable opening doors cold, and relentless about carrying complex, multi-stakeholder deals through long sales cycles

Partnerships & Business Development Expertise: 10+ years in partnerships, business development, or channel sales, with a track record of personally owning and growing a book of strategic partnerships

Domain Fluency: Deep experience in fintech, retirement / wealth, payroll, benefits, or an adjacent financial-services ecosystem, with a working understanding of how these distribution channels actually buy and sell

Executive Presence: Ability to negotiate with and present to senior executives, both internally and across partner organizations, with confidence and credibility

Cross-Functional Influence: A proven ability to mobilize Product, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, and Sales around a partnership without direct authority over those teams

Builder's Mindset: Thrives in a fast-paced, scaling environment; brings structure to ambiguity and is energized by standing up new motions from scratch

Analytical Rigor: Strong commercial and financial instincts: able to model channel economics and make sharp prioritization calls about where to invest

Proven Dealmaking: Demonstrated history of sourcing, structuring, and closing complex, high-value partnership and distribution agreements with measurable revenue impact

Values-Driven: A deep alignment with Human Interest's core principles, especially Customer Obsession, Long-Term Orientation, and Leading with Autonomy