Senior Managing Director, Joint Ventures & Partnerships

Ankura; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 350,000 - 700,000; Full time

Job summary

Ankura is seeking a Senior Managing Director for its JVP Practice in the United States. This executive role centers on originating, leading, and delivering advisory engagements around joint ventures, strategic alliances, consortia, and ecosystems for Fortune 500 and mid-market clients.

The successful candidate will bring a track record of building or scaling JV capabilities, selling major advisory engagements, and traveling internationally as needed.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of relevant consulting, advisory, corporate development, alliance management, transaction, or operating experience.
• Substantial experience advising on or leading joint ventures, strategic alliances, partnerships, consortia, or related collaboration models for mid-market through Fortune 500 companies.
• Demonstrated ability to personally originate, sell, and expand significant advisory engagements with senior executives.
• A portable network of executive-level client relationships and credible near-term revenue opportunities.
• A substantial share of recent engagements focused on JVs, alliances or other partnerships.
• Deep understanding of partnership structuring, governance, operating models and/or the practical execution of partnership arrangements.
• Track record of building or scaling a team, capability, offering, or market position.
• Collaborative and entrepreneurial leadership style suited to both a close-knit specialist team and a broader multidisciplinary advisory platform.
• Excellent written and oral communications to drive top-line growth through an established referral network; ability to coordinate and deliver Ankura services to new and existing clients.
• Ability to travel as needed, including internationally.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.

Responsibilities

• Originate and close advisory engagements with senior executives at corporations, joint ventures, private capital firms, and other partnership-reliant organizations.
• Develop and manage a sustainable pipeline of revenue opportunities, drawing on the candidate’s relationships as well as JVP’s and Ankura’s existing clients and market presence.
• Deliver $2.5M–$5M within 12 months, with at least 50% of revenue related to JVs, partnerships, consortia, alliances or other forms of collaboration; the balance may come from M&A or other adjacent Performance Improvement work.
• Build and lead a differentiated offering within JVP, or deepen and lead JVP’s transaction advisory capabilities, including service design, intellectual capital, market positioning, and go-to-market strategy.
• Advise clients across one or more areas, including partnership strategy, partner selection, deal structuring and negotiation, Day 1 launch, governance, operating models, alliance and portfolio management, performance improvement, restructuring, and exit.
• Staff and develop JVP team members on engagements you originate, and mentor the team in business development to increase sales pull-through.
• Collaborate with M&A advisory, value creation and other Ankura teams on cross-practice opportunities.
• Strengthen JVP’s market visibility through thought leadership, executive roundtables, and industry relationships.
• Help shape the strategy, capabilities, talent, and market position of the JVP practice as a senior member of its leadership team.

Skills

Origination & deal closing

Partnership strategy

Joint ventures & alliances

Board collaboration

Team leadership

Client relationship development

Travel willingness

Job description

Ankura JVP Practice Overview

Ankura’s Joint Ventures & Partnerships (JVP) practice helps companies use collaboration to achieve business outcomes. Joint ventures, strategic alliances, consortia, ecosystems, and other partnerships can provide scale, capabilities, and market access that no company can build alone. Because control is shared, however, these arrangements also create distinct strategic, commercial, operational, and governance challenges. We help clients structure, launch, govern, improve, restructure, and exit these collaborations so they deliver lasting value. JVP professionals serve as trusted advisors to boards, CEOs, corporate development leaders, business executives, and JV management teams at many of the world’s largest and most partnership-reliant companies. Because we treat joint ventures and partnerships as a core discipline, rather than as a secondary component of a broader M&A or governance offering, we bring deep experience, proprietary data, and practical benchmarks to these situations:

• $700B+ in JV and partnership transactions advised on
• 700+ client engagements since 2008, roughly 70% cross-border or outside the U.S.
• 350+ JVs benchmarked on operating and governance metrics, 1,200+ partnership agreements in our contracts database and 200+ deal case studies
• 200+ published articles, including in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review

JVP sits within Ankura’s Performance Improvement team, alongside M&A advisory, value creation and other adjacent services, and draws on a global firm of 2,000+ professionals. Solutions include:

• Transaction Advisory – Shape deal concepts, partner selection, economics and structures; support negotiations from term sheet to definitive agreements; and run launch planning and transaction management through Day 1
• Governance Advisory – Benchmark and redesign boards, decision rights, and ways of working; train boards and directors
• Restructuring Advisory – Diagnose underperformance, reset operating models and partner alignment, and develop restructuring and exit options
• Corporate Capability Development – Build enterprise partnering capability, including partnership portfolio management, stage-gate processes, standards, playbooks and training

Ankura JVP Role Overview and Responsibilities

The JVP Senior Managing Director is an executive-level leadership position responsible for originating, leading, and delivering advisory engagements involving joint ventures, strategic alliances, consortia, ecosystems, and other forms of business collaboration. We are particularly interested in candidates with one of two profiles:

• Alliance and partnership leaders with deep experience designing, launching, governing, managing, and improving strategic alliances, consortia, ecosystems, or enterprise partnering capabilities
• M&A and transaction advisors with a substantial JV practice and experience shaping, structuring, negotiating, launching, restructuring, or exiting joint ventures and other partnership transactions

The successful candidate will be an important leader in the next phase of JVP’s growth. Depending on their experience, the SMD will either build and lead an offering in an adjacent partnership area, such as strategic alliances, consortia, ecosystems, public-private partnerships, or enterprise partnering, or deepen and expand JVP’s transaction advisory capabilities. The successful candidate will not be building from a blank sheet. The role provides access to an established specialist team, market-leading credentials, proprietary data and benchmarks, recognized thought leadership, existing client relationships, and Ankura’s broader M&A, value creation, and performance improvement capabilities. This platform will allow the new SMD to accelerate an existing business or bring a differentiated offering to market, expand into new sectors and buyer groups, and build a meaningful practice.

Primary Focus

• Originate and close advisory engagements with senior executives at corporations, joint ventures, private capital firms, and other partnership-reliant organizations
• Develop and manage a sustainable pipeline of revenue opportunities, drawing on the candidate’s relationships as well as JVP’s and Ankura’s existing clients and market presence
• Deliver $2.5M–$5M within 12 months, with at least 50% of revenue related to JVs, partnerships, consortia, alliances or other forms of collaboration; the balance may come from M&A or other adjacent Performance Improvement work
• Build and lead a differentiated offering within JVP, or deepen and lead JVP’s transaction advisory capabilities, including service design, intellectual capital, market positioning, and go-to-market strategy
• Advise clients across one or more areas, including partnership strategy, partner selection, deal structuring and negotiation, Day 1 launch, governance, operating models, alliance and portfolio management, performance improvement, restructuring, and exit
• Staff and develop JVP team members on engagements you originate, and mentor the team in business development to increase sales pull-through
• Collaborate with M&A advisory, value creation and other Ankura teams on cross-practice opportunities
• Strengthen JVP’s market visibility through thought leadership, executive roundtables, and industry relationships
• Help shape the strategy, capabilities, talent, and market position of the JVP practice as a senior member of its leadership team

Requirements

• 15+ years of relevant consulting, advisory, corporate development, alliance management, transaction, or operating experience
• Substantial experience advising on or leading joint ventures, strategic alliances, partnerships, consortia, or related collaboration models for mid-market through Fortune 500 companies
• Demonstrated ability to personally originate, sell, and expand significant advisory engagements with senior executives
• A portable network of executive-level client relationships and credible near-term revenue opportunities
• A substantial share of recent engagements focused on JVs, alliances or other partnerships
• Deep understanding of partnership structuring, governance, operating models and/or the practical execution of partnership arrangements
• Track record of building or scaling a team, capability, offering, or market position
• Collaborative and entrepreneurial leadership style suited to both a close-knit specialist team and a broader multidisciplinary advisory platform
• Excellent written and oral communications to drive top-line growth through an established referral network; ability to coordinate and deliver Ankura services to new and existing clients
• Ability to travel as needed, including internationally
• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.

Preferred

• Senior role at a strategy consulting firm, Big 4 or advisory firm, or specialist JV/alliance advisory firm
• Experience serving clients in one or more partnership-intensive sectors, including energy and natural resources, power, healthcare and life sciences, technology, aerospace and defense, automotive, industrials, infrastructure, real estate, or financial services
• Published thought leadership or a visible profile in partnership circles (e.g., Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals)
• Experience expanding an offering into new sectors, buyer groups, or geographic markets
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across practices and convert adjacent client relationships into multidisciplinary engagements

Equal Opportunity Statement

Ankura is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against based on disability. Equal Employment Opportunity Posters, if you have a disability and believe you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, submit an online application, or participate in an interview/assessment, please email [e-mail] or call toll‑free +1.312‑583‑2122. This email and phone number are created exclusively to assist disabled job seekers whose disability prevents them from being able to apply online. Only messages left for this purpose will be returned. Messages left for other purposes, such as following up on an application or technical issues unrelated to a disability, will not receive a response.

Ankura Consulting Group, LLC is an independent global expert services and advisory firm that delivers services and end-to-end solutions to help clients at critical inflection points related to conflict, crisis, performance, risk, strategy, and transformation. The Ankura team consists of more than 2,000 professionals serving 3,000+ clients across 55 countries who are leaders in their respective fields and areas of expertise. Collaborative Lateral Thinking That Delivers, hard‑earned experience, expertise, and multidisciplinary capabilities drive results and Ankura is unrivalled in its ability to assist clients to Protect, Create, and Recover Value. For more information, please visit, ankura.com.