Head of Partner Development

Echelon; Riyadh; On-site; SAR 350,000 - 700,000; Full time

Job summary

Echelon in Riyadh is hiring a Head of Partner Development to activate and grow technology partnerships across Technologies and Frontier. You will translate signed agreements into executable activation plans, enable sales and technical teams, onboard partners, and drive revenue through a scalable operating rhythm.

You will shape joint programs, governance, and cross-functional collaboration to scale the portfolio.

Qualifications

• Curiosity — map partner solutions to customer problems and explore cross-technology combinations.
• Speed of building — scale from contract to enablement, governance, pipeline and operations.
• Commercial & operating rigour — contracts, KPIs, revenue mechanics; spot inconsistencies.
• Leadership — build teams and operating disciplines across stakeholders.
• Where you are — experience in partnerships/BD/enterprise software or AI; English required; Arabic advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Partner activation & enablement — translate agreements into activation plans and onboarding.
• Portfolio strategy into execution — ensure partner roles are understood and activated.
• Commercial & operational landing — implement terms, pricing, invoicing, and revenue recognition.
• Pipeline, performance & governance — manage joint pipeline, KPIs, and reviews.
• Partner relationships — maintain leadership relationships and cross-team alignment.
• The Partner Development engine — lead specialists and operations with scalable processes.

Skills

Curiosity

Speed of building

Commercial & operating rigour

Leadership

Where you are

Job description

Head of Partner Development

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Full-time Partner Activation

CONTEXT & MANDATE
Echelon is a Saudi-born, sovereign technology company that brings leading global AI technologies to the Kingdom, deploys them with its own forward deployed engineering organisation, compounds partner technology into Echelon IP and, over time, productises Saudi-developed capability.

Partner Strategy identifies the right partners, defines their role in the portfolio and signs the agreements. Partner Development makes those partnerships work — and the book roughly doubles every year to 2028.

You will own the activation and development of every signed technology partner across Technologies and Frontier: turning the strategic and commercial intent of each agreement into execution, adoption and revenue, and making each partnership an Echelon-wide asset rather than one team’s relationship.

You are the bridge between partnership strategy and what actually happens. Sales and technical teams understand and position partner propositions; agreed programmes and contractual commitments land; customer scenarios combine partner technologies, complementary solutions and Frontier capabilities; and the commercial machinery runs without friction from opportunity and transaction set-up through delivery, billing and revenue recognition. The method is not given. You define it, and you set the standards others follow.

You will build and lead the Partner Development team — Partner Development Specialists and Partner Operations — and the tools, processes and cadence that let the portfolio scale without bureaucracy. We are hiring for how you think and how fast you build, not for how long you have carried the title.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

• Partner activation & enablement — Translate each signed agreement into a practical activation plan: programmes, priority use cases and accounts, enablement of sales and technical teams, partner onboarding, launch activities and the operating cadence that moves quickly from signature to execution.

• Portfolio strategy into execution — Ensure each partner’s role and value proposition is understood, landed and activated; equip sales teams to see where and how to position partner solutions; turn the strategy into customer scenarios that combine partner technologies, complementary solutions, Frontier capabilities and, over time, Echelon IP.

• Commercial & operational landing — Make sure what was negotiated is implemented: programme and contract terms, deal registration, pricing and revenue-share mechanics, transaction and billing set-up, milestones, invoicing and the information revenue recognition needs — working across Finance, Legal, Sales and Delivery to remove friction end to end.

• Pipeline, performance & governance — Build and maintain the joint partner pipeline across Technologies and Frontier; set the KPIs; run performance reviews and QBRs; track revenue, account penetration, programme adoption and time-to-value; and bring clear recommendations on where Echelon should accelerate, intervene, renew or exit.

• Partner relationships — Own the operating relationship with partner leadership and coordinate Echelon stakeholders around each partner as one integrated programme, so that agreed programmes are launched, adopted and followed through.

• The Partner Development engine — Build and lead Partner Development Specialists and Partner Operations, with scalable tools, processes and operating rhythms — and keep the organisation fast and pragmatic while doing it.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

You know the signature is the beginning, not the result. You are interested in what a partner’s technology actually does, what a customer would do with it, and what has to be true operationally for the revenue to show up.

• Curiosity — You read a partner’s solution deeply enough to map it to a customer problem and to see the combinations across technologies and Frontier delivery that nobody has proposed yet.

• Speed of building — You have taken a strategic partnership beyond signature — enablement, joint programmes, pipeline, governance, commercial operations — and you can stand the machinery up from little more than a contract and a mandate.

• Commercial & operating rigour — Contracts, KPIs, QBRs, revenue-share mechanics and the path from opportunity through delivery, billing and revenue recognition are second nature; you notice when a number and a contract disagree.

• Leadership — You build teams and operating disciplines while staying pragmatic, and you are credible in the same week with a global technology partner, a Saudi ministry and an Echelon engineer.

• Where you are — Technology partnerships, alliances, business development, programme management or commercial operations in enterprise software, AI, infrastructure or similarly complex environments. What you have activated counts for more than the number of years. English required; Arabic a strong advantage.

THE SEAT

Reports to: Managing Director
Location: Riyadh, with regular travel to partner headquarters