Head of Strategic Partnerships

Remote; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Human Interest is seeking a Head of Strategic Partnerships to scale our partner ecosystem with payroll providers, brokers, and financial institutions. Reporting to the CRO, you will lead a team, shape the partnership thesis, and close multi-year agreements that drive high-quality growth.

You will balance strategy, dealmaking, and operations, build scalable processes, and influence cross‑functional teams to expand distribution.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in partnerships, business development, or channel sales with owned deals.
• 5+ years leading teams and enabling revenue targets.
• Proven history of sourcing, structuring, and closing complex agreements.
• Domain fluency in fintech, retirement, payroll, benefits, or adjacent financial services.
• Ability to mobilize cross‑functional teams around partnerships and revenue goals.
• Executive presence to negotiate with senior leaders and partners.
• Builder mindset with capacity to scale processes beyond a single contributor.
• Strong analytical instincts to model channel economics and prioritize investments.
• Values aligned with Customer Obsession, Long-Term Orientation, Autonomy.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a high‑performing partnerships team with ownership and deals execution.
• Design scalable partnership processes, playbooks, and systems for growth.
• Own the strategy for your portfolio and prioritize channels and deals with strong growth.
• Sourcing, pursuing, and closing net‑new strategic partnerships across payroll and financial institutions.
• Set metrics and KPIs; monitor progress and drive revenue targets.
• Oversee end‑to‑end deal structuring and negotiations with Legal and Finance input.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, and Sales on integrations and enablement.
• Translate partnership results into narratives for leadership and external stakeholders.
• Monitor market shifts in fintech, retirement, payroll, and benefits to shape the roadmap.

Skills

Partnerships & BD expertise

Leadership

Dealmaking

Cross-functional influence

Executive presence

Analytical mindset

Job description

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 Head of 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 Chief Revenue Officer, you will lead the team to identify, pursue, and close strategic partnerships across payroll providers, benefits brokers, accountants, financial institutions, PEOs, and embedded fintech distribution.

This is a leadership role focused on building, scaling, and driving the strategic partnership ecosystem. While hands-on, the focus is on organizational strategy, team mentorship, and driving cross-functional success. 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

• Team Leadership & Mentorship: Coach, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of partnership professionals, fostering a culture of ownership, strategic thinking, and high-quality deal execution.

• Strategic Organizational Scaling: Design and implement scalable partnership processes, playbooks, and systems that allow the team to efficiently manage growth and long-term partner success.

• 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: Act as a primary "hunter" for the organization; while guiding the team, you will remain hands-on in identifying, pursuing, and opening net-new strategic partnerships across payroll, benefits brokers, and financial institutions, personally leading high-stakes negotiations to close complex deals.

• Performance Management: Set clear performance metrics and KPIs for the team, tracking progress and providing regular feedback to ensure the team consistently meets and exceeds revenue targets.

• Deal Structuring & Execution: Lead commercial negotiation and deal structuring end-to-end, while empowering team members to lead negotiations on key accounts. Partner with Legal and Finance to protect the business.

• Cross-Functional Influence: Partner with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, and Sales to scope integrations, build co-marketing enablement, and operationalize partner-sourced demand.

• 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.

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.

• Leadership Experience: 5+ years experience building, coaching, and scaling high-performing teams, with a track record of enabling others to achieve revenue targets.

• 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.

• Strategic Organizational Scaling: Ability to design and operationalize partnership processes that scale beyond a single contributor, ensuring consistent growth and partner success.

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 progress, but there is still growth ahead, offering you a unique opportunity to solve complex problems, drive innovation, and advance your career alongside a dedicated, mission-driven team. We value hard work and recognize that our team's contributions are key to our continued success.

Join Human Interest and make a lasting impact by shaping the future of retirement.

Our operating principles define how we work together as a team. They reflect Human Interest’s unique view on what’s important and what’s right. Documenting this core aspect of our culture helps employees make good decisions on their own. It also helps candidates considering career opportunities critically evaluate whether they will thrive at Human Interest.

• Customer obsession: We’re all about creating amazing experiences for our customers. We put their needs first and go the extra mile to make them smile.

• Long-Term Orientation: We’re not just playing for today; we’re building