Sales Channel & Affiliates Manager (Remote)

Wolters Kluwer; Illinois; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, & Vision Plans

401(k)

FSA/HSA

Commuter Benefits

Tuition Assistance Plan

Vacation and Sick Time

Paid Parental Leave

Job summary

Wolters Kluwer seeks a Sales Channel & Affiliates Manager to drive new partner acquisition for the entrepreneur growth strategy. You will identify platforms, shape joint value, and lead partnerships from first contact to revenue.

Responsibilities include building the partner pipeline, negotiating structures, and coordinating with Finance, Legal, Product, Marketing, and Sales to secure commitments and launch readiness.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in developing alliances and revenue-generating partner relationships.
• Experience building partner programs or ecosystems from zero to revenue.
• Ability to prospect, negotiate, and drive multi-stakeholder deals.

Responsibilities

• Build a qualified pipeline of net-new SMB platform partnerships.
• Lead end-to-end prospecting for priority SMB platforms.
• Translate strategy into partner-specific value propositions.
• Negotiate commercial structures and work with cross-functional teams.
• Maintain accurate opportunities, forecasts, and executive reporting.

Skills

Partnership development

Sales leadership

Strategic thinking

Negotiation

CRM & Salesforce

Business development

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business or related field

Tools

Salesforce

Partner Portal

Job description

The Sales Channel & Affiliates Manager will lead new partner acquisition for Wolters Kluwer’s entrepreneur partner strategy. This role is accountable for identifying and recruiting platforms that reach entrepreneurs at critical moments such as starting, funding, operating, and scaling a business, then shaping partnership models that connect those customer journeys to Wolters Kluwer solutions. This is not an account-management or inherited-territory role. The successful candidate will have demonstrated experience building a partner program or new ecosystem motion from zero to one: defining the target market, creating the value proposition, prospecting into complex organizations, developing executive relationships, negotiating commercial structures, and driving opportunities through launch and first revenue.

• Build a qualified pipeline of net-new SMB platform partnerships aligned to the entrepreneur growth strategy.
• ~ Establish Wolters Kluwer as a strategic partner to platforms serving entrepreneurs and small businesses.
• ~ Create repeatable outbound, qualification, commercial, and launch motions that accelerate the path from first conversation to first revenue.
• ~ Advance partnerships beyond one-off referral arrangements where customer demand and economics support marketplace, co-sell, embedded/API, or white-label models.
• ~ Generate measurable partner-sourced pipeline, customer acquisition, and revenue.
• New partner hunting and pipeline creation
• ~ Own end-to-end prospecting for priority SMB platforms, including commerce, vertical SaaS, business management, gig/creator, banking, fintech, lending, payroll, accounting, and trusted-advisor ecosystems.
• ~ Build target-account lists, identify entrepreneur trigger points, map decision-makers, and execute disciplined multi-threaded outreach to business development, partnerships, product, strategy, and executive leaders.
• ~ Create entry strategies for high-value platform targets and consistently generate new meetings, qualified opportunities, and executive sponsorship without relying on an existing book of business.
• Translate the Wolters Kluwer entrepreneur strategy into compelling partner-specific value propositions and joint customer outcomes.
• ~ Identify where Wolters Kluwer can add value within a partner’s customer journey, particularly at business formation, registration, compliance, licensing, funding, and ongoing operations.
• ~ Commercial development and deal leadership
• ~ Lead discovery, solution shaping, commercial discussions, and negotiations from initial outreach through signed agreement.
• ~ Evaluate and structure partnership models including referral/lead generation, marketplace, co-sell, reciprocal distribution, embedded/API, and white label.
• ~ Partner with Finance, Legal, Product, Marketing, Operations, and Sales to secure decisions on economics, attribution, contracting, integration, routing, support, and go-to-market readiness.
• ~ Use early performance data and partner feedback to strengthen the commercial model and determine whether to expand, deepen, or stop the motion.
• ~ Operating discipline and market intelligence
• ~ Maintain accurate opportunity stages, contacts, next steps, commercial assumptions, risks, and forecasts in Salesforce and relevant partner-management tools.
• ~ Provide concise executive reporting on pipeline creation, stage progression, partner commitments, launch readiness, first revenue, and key decisions required.
• ~ Monitor SMB platform, entrepreneur, fintech, SaaS, commerce, and competitive trends to identify emerging distribution opportunities.
• ~ Bachelor degree in Business, Marketing or related field from an accredited college/university or equivalent work experience. 10+ years in developing alliances and revenue-generating partner relationships, preferably with key market players in the financial services industry
• ~3-5 of these years in customer success, account management, or sales, preferably in a SaaS environment.
• ~Experience driving new logos, as well as meeting/exceeding high growth goals
• ~ Experience with product and software development processes
• ~ Ability to think strategically, analytically, and work flexibly to interpret data to drive business decisions and achieve results.
• ~ Strong ability to network, align and work with key players at all levels to building business relationships and drive results
• ~ Strong presentation, negotiation and business planning skills.
• ~ Proficiency in using CRM software (e.g., Salesforce, Partner Portal)
• ~ Travel Requirements : Ability to travel up to 25%, including overnight stays
• To maintain a fair and genuine hiring process, we kindly ask that all candidates participate in interviews without the assistance of AI tools or external prompts. We value authenticity and want to ensure we’re getting to know you—not a digital assistant. To help maintain this integrity, we ask to remove virtual backgrounds and include in-person interviews in our hiring process. Applicants may be required to appear onsite at a Wolters Kluwer office as part of the recruitment process.

Wolters Kluwer offers a wide variety of competitive benefits and programs to help meet your needs and balance your work and personal life, including but not limited to:

• Medical, Dental, & Vision Plans
• 401(k)
• FSA/HSA
• Commuter Benefits
• Tuition Assistance Plan
• Vacation and Sick Time
• Paid Parental Leave