Strategic Partnerships Manager

Job Description

Job Description

Position Summary

The Strategic Partnerships Manager — New Logo Acquisition is responsible for driving business growth by acquiring net-new, revenue-generating corporate and institutional relationships across the Americas region (currently U.S. and Canada). This role focuses exclusively on bringing new organizations into IMA's full portfolio of corporate solutions — Corporate Membership, and team purchase of CMA, CSCA, and FMAA certifications, IMA courses and micro-credentials. 

The successful candidate will proactively identify and close new corporate account opportunities and position IMA as the leading professional partner for accounting and finance talent development from the very first conversation. This is a quota-driven, hunter role with primary focus on new-logo acquisition, with clear ramp expectations in the first 90–180 days.

Position Responsibilities Business Development & Revenue Growth

• For this role, institutional customers include employers, corporations, professional organizations, and workforce-development partners. 
• Develop and execute strategic plans to bring new organizations into IMA Corporate Membership, certifications (CMA, CSCA, FMAA), IMA learning, and micro-credentials, for the first time.
• Routinely prospect, pitch, and close new corporate memberships and CMA cohort sponsorship agreements with organizations that have no existing IMA relationship, to achieve revenue and engagement targets.
• Conduct needs assessments with prospective corporate clients to position IMA solutions as part of their talent development strategy.
• Identify opportunities for campaigns, initiatives, and packaged offerings that increases new-logo sales and engagement.
• Prioritize Enterprise-tier (30–49+ seat) opportunities to grow average new-logo deal size year over year. 
• Build and manage a robust new-logo pipeline, maintaining at least 4x quarterly goal in qualified opportunities and disciplined activity levels (outreach, meetings, proposals), with accurate forecasting in Salesforce.
• Navigate complex, multi-stakeholder buying processes including finance, HR, learning & development, and procurement to structure multi-seat, multi-product first-time agreements.

Certification Volume & Top 50 Contribution

• Drive employer-sponsored CMA cohort registrations as a primary lever for closing the Americas CMA New Candidate volume gap, tracked monthly against the region's CMA dashboard.
• Identify and flag newly-discovered, high-potential accounts to leadership as Top 50-caliber opportunities. 

Relationship Handoff & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Serve as the primary relationship contact for newly acquired corporate accounts through close and onboarding, then hand off 100% of accounts to the Account Manager, Strategic Partnerships.
• Coordinate with the other Strategic Partnerships Manager — New Logo Acquisition to maintain territory boundaries, preventing overlapping outreach on the same accounts. 
• Promote multi-program engagement (certification pathways + upskilling programs + membership) at the point of first sale, to maximize new-logo deal size and set the Account Manager up for expansion success.
• Collaborate with global and regional IMA teams on marketing, communications, and product promotion to support new-logo campaigns and prospecting.
• Coordinate with IMA Education and Certification teams to ensure accurate program knowledge, including new offerings such as micro-credentials, when prospecting.

Market Insights & Engagement

• Participate in IMA events, webinars, chapter events as needed to generate awareness of and new leads for IMA corporate offerings.
• Track account activity, maintain CRM accuracy including consistent Renewal vs. New deal tagging and support forecasting and reporting for the Americas region.
• Provide market insights, trends, and competitive intelligence on prospective accounts to internal stakeholders to inform product and business strategy.
• Systematically capture voice-of-customer insights from new-logo conversations to inform product, pricing, and packaging of IMA's corporate membership and learning solutions.

 

Position Requirements

• 7 to 10 years of business development experience within workforce development, corporate learning, professional education solutions, financial services/tech solutions, or similar industries, with demonstrated focus on new-account acquisition specifically — not primarily account management or expansion.
• Bachelor's degree required.
• Highly results-driven self-starter with a hunter mentality; resilient, able to creatively navigate customer objections or timeline hurdles; collaborative, and aligned with a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment.
• Strong sales acumen and experience in business development, consultative selling into corporate or institutional accounts preferably in fintech, professional development, HR/talent solutions, or for association programs.
• Proven track record of meeting or exceeding annual new-logo/net-new sales quotas in an enterprise account acquisition role, managing complex, multi-stakeholder sales cycles.
• Experience selling or promoting professional certifications, learning programs, or membership solutions is highly preferred.
• Strong relationship-building and negotiation skills; ability to engage senior executives and influence decision-making from a cold or early-stage start.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills.
• Comfortable handing off newly won accounts to a dedicated expansion counterpart rather than retaining long-term account management.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and Salesforce, including disciplined activity capture, deal-type (Renewal vs. New) tagging to support accurate forecasting.
• Ability to travel approximately 25%