Strategic Partnerships Director

Human Interest is on a mission to ensure that people in all lines of work have access to retirement benefits. More than half of all working Americans are not saving enough for their future. Too often, it’s because they are employed by a company that doesn’t offer a retirement plan. Human Interest is changing that by making it affordable and accessible for small and medium-sized businesses to offer employees a path to financial independence through retirement savings. We’re a high-growth fintech company changing the retirement industry. We are backed by a number of investors. This includes funding from Marshall Wace and Baillie Gifford, as well as top investors such as BlackRock, TPG (The Rise Fund), SoftBank, Glynn Capital, NewView Capital, USVP, Wing, Uncork, and more. About the role The Director, 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 Head of Strategic Partnerships, 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. 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. 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. About the team 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. What you get to do every day 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. What you bring to the role 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. Proven Dealmaking: Demonstrated history of sourcing, structuring, and closing complex, high-value partnership and distribution agreements with measurable revenue impact. 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. Cross-Functional Influence: A proven ability to mobilize Product, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, and Sales around a partnership without direct authority over those teams. Executive Presence: Ability to negotiate with and present to senior executives, both internally and across partner organizations, with confidence and credibility. 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. Values-Driven: A deep alignment with Human Interest's core principles, especially Customer Obsession, Long-Term Orientation, and Leading with Autonomy. Why you will love working at Human Interest Human Interest is tackling one of our country's biggest challenges - closing the retirement gap. You'll be instrumental in architecting and scaling solutions that bring financial security to employees at small and medium-sized businesses nationwide. We’ve made significant progr