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Freshworks is seeking a Channel Manager for the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region to build, activate, and grow the company's partner ecosystem. This role owns the full partner lifecycle—from strategy and recruitment through activation, enablement, pipeline generation, and revenue realization.
Key Responsibilities:
Partner Strategy & Business Development: Develop and execute partner strategy for assigned MEA markets and segments. Identify and recruit partners (SIs, MSPs, VARs, distributors, cloud partners) that provide meaningful customer access, technical capability, industry expertise, or geographic coverage. Evaluate partners on their ability to generate pipeline, influence customers, implement solutions, and build sustainable Freshworks practices. Develop joint business plans with priority partners, including revenue objectives, target accounts, GTM activities, and capability-building priorities. Build relationships with senior partner stakeholders and establish clear mutual accountability.
Partner Activation & Readiness: Own activation of newly recruited partners, moving them from onboarding to productive engagement. Drive partner readiness across product knowledge, sales capability, solution positioning, certifications, and implementation capability. Identify capability gaps and create focused enablement plans. Establish measurable activation milestones and monitor progress. Ensure partners have tools, knowledge, and internal champions to independently position and sell Freshworks.
Pipeline Generation & Revenue Growth: Own partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline generation for the assigned territory. Build joint campaigns, account-mapping exercises, workshops, and roundtables with priority partners. Identify opportunities where partner access or capability creates incremental Freshworks revenue. Work with Sales teams to convert partner-generated pipeline into qualified opportunities and closed business. Track partner contribution across the funnel and identify gaps early with corrective action plans.
Joint GTM & Field Alignment: Build strong relationships with Freshworks Account Executives and Sales leadership to align partner activity with territory priorities. Facilitate joint account planning. Bring partners into relevant enterprise opportunities where they add value. Support strategic partner-led and partner-assisted opportunities through the sales cycle.
Partner Governance & Performance Management: Establish regular operating cadences with priority partners (pipeline reviews, business reviews, action tracking). Maintain visibility into partner performance, pipeline quality, conversion, activity, and readiness. Hold partners accountable to commitments. Identify underperforming partners and develop activation, remediation, or rationalization plans. Maintain accurate partner and opportunity information in Freshworks systems.
Opportunity & Deal Support: Support partner registration, opportunity alignment, attribution, and commercial processes. Ensure partner involvement is clearly documented. Coordinate with Sales, Finance, Legal, and Operations on partner-related deal issues. Escalate blockers and drive resolution while protecting customer experience.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Sales/Account Executives, Solution Consulting, Customer Success, Marketing, Partner Enablement, Operations/Finance, and Leadership on account planning, opportunity creation, technical readiness, campaigns, certifications, commercial processes, and regional priorities.
Success is measured by partner productivity, pipeline creation, revenue contribution, and ecosystem health—including partner addition and activation, partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline, partner-attributed revenue/ARR, conversion rates, partner readiness, joint account-planning coverage, GTM activity, and partner productivity.
Requirements:
- 7+ years of experience in channel sales, alliances, partner management, indirect sales, or B2B technology sales
- Experience working with partners such as SIs, MSPs, VARs, distributors, cloud partners, or technology specialists
- Experience managing enterprise technology sales cycles and partner-led opportunities
- Experience working across multiple countries or markets (strongly preferred)
- Experience in SaaS, ITSM, ITOM, ITAM, cybersecurity, cloud, or adjacent enterprise technology categories (advantageous)
Required Skills:
- Strong commercial and business-development mindset
- Ability to build trusted relationships with both partners and internal sales teams
- Strong understanding of indirect sales and partner economics
- Ability to identify where a partner creates genuine incremental value
- Strong pipeline-management and forecasting discipline
- Excellent communication, presentation, and negotiation skills
- Ability to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority
- Comfortable in fast-moving, matrixed environments
- Strong analytical skills and ability to use data to manage partner performance
