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Zipline is the world's largest drone delivery service, operating on four continents and completing millions of deliveries of blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products. The company has flown over 140 million commercial autonomous miles and is redefining logistics and supply chain access globally.
As Strategic Partnerships Manager, Retail, you will own the relationship and growth strategy for a focused portfolio of Zipline's most strategic retail partners. This is a deep-ownership role, not high-volume account management. You will serve as the primary point of contact across partner organizations—from executives to operations and field teams—and develop comprehensive understanding of each partner's business model, priorities, and decision-making dynamics.
Key responsibilities include:
- Owning strategic retail partner relationships from launch through growth and expansion
- Collaborating with partners to understand business objectives, customer experience goals, and operational constraints
- Building trusted relationships across partner organizations at all levels
- Developing expansion plans across markets, locations, use cases, and customer segments
- Working cross-functionally with Zipline's Operations, Product, Engineering, Legal, Finance, Marketing, and Support teams
- Establishing and tracking key success metrics, monitoring performance, and identifying risks and opportunities
- Creating executive-ready presentations, business reviews, and performance analyses
- Leading regular partner touchpoints, quarterly business reviews, and executive briefings
- Providing white-glove service while maintaining clear expectations and accountability
- Gathering partner insights and surfacing findings to influence Zipline's product roadmap
- Navigating complex stakeholder environments with competing goals and timelines
- Translating ambiguous partner needs into clear internal plans and decision points
- Advocating for partner needs while balancing Zipline's operational, product, and strategic priorities
Requirements:
- 5+ years of experience in partnerships, partner success, business development, customer success, strategy, operations, consulting, or related function
- Experience owning and growing complex strategic partnerships, ideally with large retail, marketplace, logistics, consumer technology, or enterprise partners
- Proven ability to manage high-value, highly customized partnerships for complex systems, products, or services
- Strong executive presence with experience delivering clear, compelling presentations to senior audiences
- Excellent analytical judgment; ability to use data to diagnose performance, identify opportunities, and make recommendations
- Demonstrated success driving cross-functional alignment and accountability across senior internal and external stakeholders
- Ability to quickly build trust through authenticity, direct communication, responsiveness, and customer empathy
- Strong commercial judgment and ability to balance partner needs with company priorities
- Highly organized with ability to manage multiple workstreams, stakeholders, deadlines, and open questions
- Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-changing, and politically complex environments
- Strong written communication skills for executive updates, strategic plans, and decision documents
- Ownership mindset, bias toward action, and commitment to continuous improvement
- Intellectual curiosity about transforming the future of logistics
