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Salary: USD 350,000 - 700,000 / annual
Human Interest is a high-growth fintech company on a mission to ensure that people in all lines of work have access to retirement benefits. The company has raised approximately $500 million from top-tier investors including BlackRock, TPG (The Rise Fund), SoftBank, and others, and is backed by Marshall Wace and Baillie Gifford.
The Head of Strategic Partnerships will own a vital piece of Human Interest's most important growth channel: expanding the ecosystem of partners who distribute the retirement platform to millions of small and medium-sized businesses. Over 95% of Human Interest's business comes from its partner ecosystem. 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.
Key responsibilities include:
- 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.
The role is equal parts strategist, dealmaker, and operator. You'll be 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 Partnerships organization 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 served. As the company continues to scale, this role will take the function to its next level: bigger partners, deeper integrations, and a measurable line on the revenue plan.
Human Interest values five core operating principles: Customer Obsession (creating amazing experiences and putting customer needs first), Long-Term Orientation (thinking big and building a legacy), Autonomous and Accountable Teams (trusting team members to take ownership and make smart decisions), An Escalating Bar for Talent and Performance (constantly raising the bar and challenging continuous improvement), and Fundamental Optimism (seeing potential for greatness).
The company is certified as a Great Place To Work (2023-2025), named a Fortune Best Place to Work in the Bay Area (2024), included in Best Places to Work by Built In (2023-2024), recognized as America's Best Startup Employers by Forbes (2020-2022, 2024), a Top Company by Y Combinator (2020-2023), and an Inc. Fastest Growing Company (2021).
REQUIREMENTS:
- 10+ years in partnerships, business development, or channel sales, with a track record of personally owning and growing a book of strategic partnerships.
- 5+ years experience building, coaching, and scaling high-performing teams, with a track record of enabling others to achieve revenue targets.
- Demonstrated history of sourcing, structuring, and closing complex, high-value partnership and distribution agreements with measurable revenue impact.
- 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.
- Proven ability to mobilize Product, Engineering, Marketing, Legal, and Sales around a partnership without direct authority over those teams.
- Ability to negotiate with and present to senior executives, both internally and across partner organizations, with confidence and credibility.
- Thrives in a fast-paced, scaling environment; brings structure to ambiguity and is energized by standing up new motions from scratch.
- Strong commercial and financial instincts: able to model channel economics and make sharp prioritization calls about where to invest.
- Deep alignment with Human Interest's core principles, especially Customer Obsession, Long-Term Orientation, and Leading with Autonomy.
- Ability to design and operationalize partnership processes that scale beyond a single contributor, ensuring consistent growth and partner success.
