Partnership Lead - payments (acquiring)

Our client is seeking a Senior Partnership Lead to support the development and growth of strategic partnerships across its merchant services platform. This role focuses on identifying, structuring, and scaling partnerships that expand product reach and drive revenue growth. The position supports the full partnership lifecycle, from strategy and commercial modeling through contracting, onboarding, and performance management. It works closely with internal stakeholders and external fintech, ISV, gateway, and vertical partners to bring partner-led solutions to market and accelerate growth.

What You Will Do

• Support the partnership strategy for merchant services, with a focus on referral, ISV, gateway, and vertical solution partners.
• Identify, evaluate, and prioritize partnership opportunities aligned to growth objectives and target customer segments.
• Develop partnership business cases, including pricing models, revenue-share structures, and financial forecasts.
• Negotiate, formalize, and execute partnership agreements in coordination with legal, risk, compliance, and product teams.
• Support partner onboarding, enablement, and migration activities to prepare partners for scale.
• Serve as a point of contact for key partners, managing performance, joint growth plans, and ongoing optimization.
• Collaborate with Product, Sales, Marketing, Operations, Risk, and Technology teams to commercialize partner-led solutions.
• Drive go-to-market efforts and internal enablement so sales teams can effectively position partner solutions.
• Establish and monitor success metrics and governance processes, including KPIs, QBRs, and pipeline visibility.

What You Bring

• Experience in acquiring payments, merchant services, fintech partnerships, or related commercial leadership roles.
• Deep understanding of the payments ecosystem, including acquiring, gateways, ISVs, and vertical-specific solutions.
• Track record of building and scaling revenue-generating partnerships in merchant services or fintech environments.
• Experience with pricing, revenue-share modeling, and partnership economics.
• Negotiation, executive communication, and stakeholder management experience.
• Experience working across legal, compliance, risk, and technology teams in complex internal environments.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and CRM or pipeline management platforms.