Director, Strategic Partnerships - Travel Rewards

A Director of Business Development, Earn at Rove will lead the partnerships strategy and execution behind the ways users earn Rove Miles outside of travel. This role will focus on sourcing, negotiating, launching, and growing merchant, dining, affiliate, card-linked offer, and direct brand partnerships that make Rove a leading platform for earning travel rewards on everyday spend. The ideal candidate is a highly commercial operator who can build relationships with merchants and platforms, structure creative deals, and turn shopping and dining into major growth channels for Rove. Key Responsibilities: Own business development for Rove’s Earn pod, including shopping, dining, personalized offers, direct merchant integrations, card-linked offers, affiliate partnerships, and merchant-funded rewards. Source, pitch, negotiate, and close partnerships with merchants, restaurants, brands, affiliate networks, dining platforms, card-linked offer providers, and commerce infrastructure partners. Build direct merchant relationships that allow Rove to offer differentiated rewards, exclusive earning rates, personalized offers, and custom campaigns. Develop the strategy for merchant onboarding, campaign packaging, pricing, commission structures, promotional placements, and partner success. Partner closely with product and engineering on merchant onboarding, direct integrations, offer configuration, tracking, reporting, and campaign performance tools. Work with marketing and growth to launch merchant campaigns, seasonal promotions, transfer bonus tie-ins, and personalized offer experiences. Own key Earn partnership metrics, including merchant pipeline, launched partners, commission revenue, shopping and dining GMV, campaign performance, partner retention, and incremental user engagement. Identify high-value merchant categories and partnership opportunities that align with Rove’s target audience and travel rewards positioning. Collaborate with operations and support to resolve merchant tracking issues, missing miles claims, stale MID issues, reversals, and campaign discrepancies. Represent Rove externally with senior merchant, restaurant, network, and platform partners. Qualifications: Strong business development, partnerships, or commercial experience in commerce, dining, fintech, loyalty, rewards, affiliate marketing, card-linked offers, marketplaces, or consumer platforms. Proven ability to source, negotiate, and close complex partnerships with merchants, brands, platforms, or enterprise partners. Strong understanding of merchant economics, commission structures, promotional funding, campaign performance, and partner ROI. Commercially creative with the ability to structure deals that create value for Rove, merchants, and users. Strong product intuition and ability to work closely with product and engineering on partner-facing tools, integrations, and operational workflows. Excellent communication, negotiation, and relationship management skills. Highly analytical and comfortable using data to prioritize partners, evaluate performance, and improve campaign outcomes. High ownership mindset with the ability to operate independently in a fast-moving startup environment. Passion for travel, rewards, loyalty programs, shopping, dining, and building new consumer behavior around earning miles. Desirable Skills: Experience with affiliate networks, card-linked offer platforms, dining rewards networks, merchant-funded rewards, or shopping portals. Existing relationships with retailers, restaurants, commerce platforms, affiliate networks, dining platforms, or offer providers. Experience negotiating direct merchant deals, exclusive offers, elevated commissions, sponsored placements, or co-marketing campaigns. Experience working with product and engineering teams on partner integrations, APIs, merchant portals, reporting dashboards, or campaign tools. Experience managing partnerships with complex tracking, attribution, transaction matching, or rewards reconciliation requirements. Experience at an early-stage startup or high-growth consumer, fintech, commerce, or marketplace company. Strong understanding of how personalized offers, loyalty incentives, and rewards economics drive consumer behavior. Additional Requirements: Prior experience in a partnerships-driven startup, commerce, fintech, marketplace, loyalty, rewards, or dining environment strongly preferred. Comfort operating with ambiguity, urgency, and high ownership. A passion for building the merchant network behind the future of travel rewards. #J-18808-Ljbffr Rove