Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships

Futureheads have partnered with a high-growth consumer fintech to find an Associate Director of Strategic Partnerships, based in London on a hybrid working model.

This business has done what very few fintechs manage: built a genuinely mass-market consumer product that competes directly with the biggest names in payments, and won. They've scaled to millions of active customers, are adding six-figure new users every single month, and have the industry recognition to match, picking up over two dozen awards along the way. Their mission is to become the world's most empowering way to pay, and they have the traction, the product, and the commercial model to make a credible case for it. This is a business with serious momentum behind it and a culture that rewards people who take initiative, act without ego, and do things the right way.

This is not a partnerships management role. There's no inherited portfolio, no pre-built pipeline, no playbook to follow. The business needs someone who can look at a market, form a sharp view on where the opportunity sits, and build the strategy from scratch. You'll operate across two tracks simultaneously: accelerating distribution of the existing product through embedded, high-value partner relationships, and opening up new revenue streams by licensing core capabilities into new products, models and markets. You'll work directly with the VP of Partnerships, with high visibility into the C-suite, and real ownership over a function that doesn't yet exist in its full form. If you've spent your career executing other people's ideas, this isn't the role. If you're someone who builds the thinking and then brings it to life, read on.

WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING

• Mapping the market across financial services, fintech, payments infrastructure, retail and platforms to identify which partnership categories genuinely fit the brand and commercial position, using your own judgement rather than a provided list
• Building a clear, prioritised point of view on who to partner with and why, and iterating that strategy as you learn what works
• Developing commercial proposals and business cases from scratch, defining the model, sizing the opportunity, and making the argument both internally and externally
• Structuring novel commercial arrangements including embedded finance, co-brands and integrations
• Working cross-functionally with Legal, Finance, Product and Engineering to bring deals to life without losing momentum, as much about internal orchestration as external negotiation
• Originating relationships at senior and C-suite level, building genuine credibility as a commercial counterpart
• Owning flagship partnerships through their full lifecycle, from first conversation to go-live
• Converting proven partnership models into documented playbooks that Sales or Marketing can scale

ABOUT YOU

• Strong strategic and analytical thinker who can look at a market, form a view on where the opportunity is, and build a structured business case around it
• Proven experience building something from scratch in a commercial context: a strategy, a proposition, a partnership model, or a new function
• Comfortable operating cross-functionally with Product, Finance, Compliance and Legal on complex deliverables, particularly in a regulated or technically intricate space such as credit, lending or payments
• Confident engaging at C-suite and senior stakeholder level, both internally and externally
• Strong commercial modelling skills with the ability to size an opportunity and stress-test a structure
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to build proposals that land with senior stakeholders
• Experience in or alongside a high-growth or scale-up environment, comfortable with pace and ambiguity
• Degree in a quantitative, analytical or commercial discipline (STEM, Finance, Economics, Accounting or Business) from a strong academic institution
• Background in strategy or management consulting followed by an in-house move into partnerships, corporate strategy or corp dev is a strong advantage
• Familiarity with embedded finance, retail partnerships or financial infrastructure licensing models is a bonus