Head of Marketplace & Strategic Partnerships

Vendasta Technologies, Inc.; Saskatoon; Hybrid; CAD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading SaaS company in Saskatoon seeks a Head of Marketplace to drive strategic growth and operational excellence. This role involves managing vendor partnerships and leveraging AI to enhance marketplace operations. Ideal candidates bring 7+ years of B2B SaaS experience, especially in marketplace roles. This position offers competitive health benefits and flexible work arrangements, focusing on professional growth and community engagement.

Benefits

Competitive health benefits

Flexible work hours

Employee Options Program

Learning opportunities

Catered lunches

Qualifications

• 7+ years in B2B SaaS, with 3+ years in marketplace or partnership roles.
• Proven track record in vendor lifecycle management.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled platforms and tools.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the long-term strategic roadmap for Marketplace.
• Lead full lifecycle vendor partnerships from sourcing to growth.
• Guide scalable vendor workflows with Product and Engineering.

Skills

B2B SaaS experience

Vendor relationship management

AI/automation knowledge

Communication skills

Job description

Head of Marketplace

Saskatoon, SK

Are you energized by the challenge of scaling a B2B SaaS marketplace from strategy to execution? Does building a thriving ecosystem of software vendors and enabling partners to succeed light a fire in you? Vendasta is looking for a Head of Marketplace to own and evolve the strategic direction, growth, and operational excellence of our Marketplace platform.

About the Job

Vendasta’s Marketplace is a central pillar of our platform strategy, delivering world-class, white-label solutions to help channel partners serve small and medium businesses (SMBs) around the globe. As Head of Marketplace, you will lead the evolution of our marketplace offerings by attracting top-tier vendors, streamlining onboarding, and driving adoption across our partner base. You’ll blend strategic vision with operational discipline, supported by deep technical and business development acumen.

This role blends high-level strategy with a hands-on leadership approach. You’ll not only define the long-term roadmap for Marketplace growth, but also take an active role in bringing that vision to life—steering critical initiatives, building cross-functional alignment, and removing obstacles with determination and creativity. Whether navigating vendor negotiations, accelerating onboarding timelines, or coordinating co-marketing campaigns, you’re someone who leads by doing and delivers results without waiting on perfect conditions.

At Vendasta, we’re building with an AI-forward mindset—leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance onboarding, product discoverability, and performance insights. This role is critical to scaling Marketplace operations through intelligent automation, simplified workflows, and ecosystem-wide enablement.

You’ll thrive in this role if you bring a proactive mindset, an ability to lead through influence, and a passion for creating impact in evolving environments. This is a role for a builder—someone energized by ownership, resourcefulness, and the opportunity to shape the future of our platform.

Your Impact

As Head of Marketplace, you'll work with cross-functional teams including Product, Engineering, Sales, Success, Marketing, and our executive leadership to:

• Marketplace Strategy & Roadmap Execution
  • Define the long-term strategic roadmap of Vendasta’s Marketplace—aligning with platform, revenue, and AI strategy.
  • Identify solution gaps in the Marketplace portfolio and source high-impact, partner-ready vendor solutions to fill them.
  • Drive white-label and reseller-readiness as a differentiator in Marketplace solution offerings.
• Vendor Acquisition & Relationship Leadership
  • Lead full lifecycle vendor partnerships—from sourcing and contracting through integration, onboarding, and lifecycle growth.
  • Serve as an executive sponsor to strategic vendors; foster trust, co-marketing alignment, and performance accountability.
  • Ensure a high standard of vendor value delivery by championing packaging integrity, revenue share economics, and platform compatibility.
• AI-Forward Operational Excellence
  • Guide the evolution of scalable vendor workflows by partnering with Product and Engineering to implement automation and AI tooling.
  • Support the optimization of onboarding velocity, SKU architecture, discoverability, and billing clarity.
  • Empower the Marketplace operations team to adopt repeatable, automated systems to reduce toil and improve vendor experience.
• Cross-Functional Influence & Enablement
  • Work cross-functionally to ensure internal readiness—enabling Sales, Success, and Marketing to effectively sell and support Marketplace offerings.
  • Partner with internal stakeholders to simplify promotional planning, reduce GTM friction, and ensure category clarity.
  • Use influence and data to align executive stakeholders around Marketplace priorities and platform investments.
• Growth Execution & Evangelism
  • Operate with a growth mindset and scrappy execution style—able to drive high-impact results with limited resourcing.
  • Act as a Marketplace evangelist—internally and externally—showcasing the Marketplace’s strategic impact across partner events, webinars, and industry forums.
  • Own and report on Marketplace health metrics including vendor count, partner adoption, vendor contribution to revenue, and onboarding throughput.

What You Bring to the Table

You’re a Marketplace builder, SaaS strategist, and partnership champion all in one. You bring over 7 years of experience in B2B SaaS, including at least 3 years in marketplace, partnerships, or platform leadership roles. You have a proven track record of sourcing and closing ISV/technology partnerships within platform ecosystems such as AppExchange, PartnerStack, or Shopify Apps. Your familiarity with AI-enabled platforms, tools, and strategies enables you to enhance partner and vendor ecosystems effectively. You have hands-on experience managing the full vendor lifecycle—from onboarding and technical integration to performance management—and you thrive in cross-functional environments. With a strong understanding of SaaS economics (CAC, MRR, LTV), channel sales models, and the SMB software landscape, you bring both strategic insight and operational savvy. Technically, you’re comfortable navigating API integrations, SSO, and cloud platform standards. You have an executive presence and the ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical audiences. Experience in the Vendasta or similar channel ecosystem is a strong asset, as is previous work in white-label or reseller platform environments. While being based in Saskatoon is preferred, remote candidates will be considered if they are open to periodic travel.

About Vendasta

We help businesses get more customers. And keep them. Vendasta is an AI-powered customer acquisition and engagement platform for SMBs and the partners who support them, streamlining marketing, sales, and operations through intelligent AI employees, automation, and real-time actions and insights. From creating awareness to nurturing lasting customer relationships, Vendasta offers a suite of solutions with AI assistants that streamline every stage of the customer journey. By combining a business's unique data with AI and automation, Vendasta simplifies marketing, sales, and operations, eliminating the need for multiple disjointed systems.

Perks

Join the Vendasta team, where your well-being and growth come first. Step into a workplace that blends competitive health benefits with true flexibility, including flex time and an annual work-from-anywhere policy. Take ownership of your future with our Employee Options Program, and enjoy the little things, like daily snacks, a vibrant cafeteria, and catered Friday lunches at our offices. Invest in your growth through education reimbursement, in-house learning opportunities, and a suite of leadership development programs. We’re driven by our values; Drive, Innovation, Respect, and Agility, and it shows in everything we do. Give back through community initiatives and volunteer opportunities, and build more than just a career, build a life you love. At Vendasta, you’ll find the support, the challenge, and the culture to thrive. Discover your potential. Make an impact. Grow with us.

Please apply on our company website by June 27th.