Director, Strategic Partnerships & Sales

Wwshemi; Riyadh; Remote; SAR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

MinIO is seeking a Director of Strategic Partnerships & Sales to own flagship partnerships across the regional sovereign AI infrastructure landscape. You will operate at C-level with partners, drive co-sell motions, and manage multi-year engagements, blending enterprise sales, channel strategy, and executive relationship management.

The role requires deep experience in partnerships, strong negotiation skills, and fluency in Arabic and English, with willingness to travel regionally and reside in

Qualifications

• 15-20 years of experience across sales, presales, channel/alliances, and business development.
• Experience in infrastructure, data, or AI/ML companies with strategic partnership ownership.
• Familiarity with the Saudi enterprise tech and sovereign AI ecosystem.
• Proven track record of growing strategic partnerships and revenue.
• Experience with commercial terms, MSAs, NFRs, and reseller structures.
• Strong executive relationship management and regional travel willingness.
• Bilingual Arabic and English, with Gulf enterprise context communication.

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day partnership relationship, coordinating between MinIO and partner teams.
• Expand commercial scope with new use cases, regions, upsells, renewals, and terms.
• Manage contract renewals, amendments, and expanded commercial terms.
• Build executive relationships and maintain leadership alignment on partnership health.
• Drive partnership-sourced pipeline and revenue with the sales team.
• Run joint go-to-market execution with marketing and sales for co-selling motions.
• Maintain partner operations cadence, roadmaps, and risk tracking.

Skills

Strategic partnerships

Enterprise sales

Channel management

Executive communication

Contract negotiations

Arabic & English bilingual

Public speaking

Opportunity development

Job description

Director, Strategic Partnerships & Sales

Location Remote - Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

MinIO is the data and memory foundation for enterprise AI. Built for the speed, scale, and economics that AI and analytics demand, AIStor and MemKV unify every layer of the data stack, from agentic and inference context memory to tables and objects across core, edge, and cloud. Trusted by 77% of the Fortune 100, MinIO is redefining how AI factories, intelligent applications, and autonomous agents secure, persist, and unlock the full value of their data.

MinIO is looking for a senior partnership and business development executive to own a flagship strategic partnership end-to-end-commercially, operationally, and strategically-as it scales from initial agreement into a multi-year, multi-workstream engagement across the region's sovereign AI infrastructure landscape.

This is a high-visibility, single-account-depth role. You'll sit at the intersection of enterprise sales, channel/reseller strategy, and executive relationship management, with the credibility to operate comfortably at C-level on both sides.

What You Will Do

• Own the day-to-day partnership relationship. Act as the primary point of contact between MinIO and the partner's business and technical teams, keeping both sides aligned on commitments, priorities, and delivery milestones across the joint platform engagement.
• Expand the commercial scope of the partnership. Identify and negotiate opportunities to grow the relationship - new use cases, new regions, upsells, renewals, and expanded terms - building on the existing agreement.
• Manage contract renewals and amendments. Own the negotiation of contract renewals, amendments, and expanded commercial terms as the partnership evolves.
• Build and maintain executive relationships. Serve as the primary business point of contact for partner executives; keep leadership on both sides engaged and aligned on the health and direction of the partnership.
• Drive partnership-sourced pipeline and revenue. Own quota or targets tied to pipeline and revenue generated through the partnership; work with sales to convert the relationship into closed business.
• Run joint go-to-market execution. Partner with marketing and sales to execute co-selling motions, joint offers, and campaigns - including reseller/channel activation - that activate the partnership commercially.
• Manage ongoing partner operations. Run recurring cadences with the partner - QBRs, roadmap syncs, escalation handling - and keep internal stakeholders informed of partnership status, risks, and commercial health.
• Navigate reseller and channel dynamics. Manage complexity across the partner ecosystem, ensuring commercial terms remain consistent with MinIO's broader channel strategy.
• Translate partner needs into internal priorities. Bring partner feedback and requirements back to product and engineering, and advocate for the resourcing needed to keep commitments on track - without owning the product roadmap yourself.
• Track and report on partnership performance. Define and report on KPIs for the partnership - pipeline generated, revenue closed, deployment milestones hit, and overall partnership health - to regional and global leadership.
• Represent MinIO externally. Represent MinIO alongside the partner at industry events (including flagship regional events such as LEAP), conferences, and executive briefings to strengthen the partnership's visibility in the market.

Your Skills and Experience

• 15-20 years of collective experience across sales, presales, channel/alliances, and business development, ideally within infrastructure, data, or AI/ML companies - with a meaningful portion of that in a strategic partnership or key-account ownership capacity.
• Deep, demonstrated familiarity with the Saudi Arabia enterprise technology and sovereign-AI/government‑adjacent ecosystem - national AI infrastructure initiatives and the broader Vision 2030 digital infrastructure landscape.
• A track record of managing and growing an existing strategic partnership at scale - expanding scope, renewing and amending contracts, and increasing revenue over multi-year horizons.
• Comfort owning commercial terms and contract negotiations directly (MSAs, NFRs, exclusivity, revenue share, reseller structures), with support from legal as needed.
• Strong working knowledge of object storage, data infrastructure, or AI/ML ecosystems - enough to speak credibly with technical stakeholders on topics like sovereign AI infrastructure, inference/training data pipelines, and platform architecture, even though this is not a hands‑on technical role.
• Demonstrated success managing a partner relationship that drove measurable pipeline or revenue growth over time.
• Excellent relationship-building and executive communication skills - fully comfortable in the room with C-level partners and government‑adjacent stakeholders.
• Experience with co‑selling motions, joint go‑to‑market execution, channel/reseller management, and partner enablement.
• Bilingual fluency in Arabic and English, with a professional communication style suited to the Gulf enterprise and government context.
• Based in Riyadh; willing to travel regionally to partner sites, conferences, and industry events as needed.

Equal Opportunity Policy (EEO)

MinIO is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We review applications for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, veteran status, genetic information, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, or any other basis prohibited by law.