DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

What you will be doing at VGS (Responsibilities)... • Lead and develop a team of Strategic Partnerships professionals, including direct reports, setting clear priorities, coaching performance, and building the team’s capabilities as VGS’s partnership portfolio and strategic mandate expand. • Own and grow a portfolio of VGS’s most strategic partnerships across payments and commerce technology, including card networks, investors, cloud and infrastructure providers, AI platforms, wallets, processors, and other ecosystem partners. • Develop and execute partnership strategies that advance VGS’s company and product priorities, identifying where external partners can accelerate growth, strengthen product differentiation, or open new markets and distribution channels. • Lead complex, product-oriented partnerships that require deep coordination across Product, Engineering, Legal, Sales, and Executive Leadership, translating strategic opportunities into executable commercial and technical plans. • Source, evaluate, prioritize, and develop new strategic partnerships, with a focus on opportunities that can materially influence VGS’s product roadmap, competitive positioning, or long-term growth. • Lead negotiations for strategic commercial and product agreements, including defining partnership structures, economics, go-to-market models, technical commitments, and mutual success criteria. • Drive partnerships from initial strategy and business case through negotiation, launch, commercialization, and ongoing relationship management. • Build senior-level relationships with partner executives and serve as a trusted strategic counterpart, identifying opportunities to expand the partnership and proactively addressing risks or areas of misalignment. • Establish clear goals, operating rhythms, and success metrics for key partnerships, holding both VGS and partners accountable for execution and measurable outcomes. • Act as the voice of strategic partners within VGS, bringing external market insights, partner priorities, and ecosystem developments into product and company decision-making. • Influence VGS’s broader corporate and product strategy by developing a point of view on the evolution of tokenization, payments infrastructure, agentic commerce, AI, and next-generation commerce technologies. • Identify emerging ecosystem shifts and translate them into actionable recommendations for VGS, including potential new products, partnerships, distribution models, and strategic initiatives. • Represent VGS externally with senior leaders across the payments and technology ecosystem, strengthening VGS’s position as a strategic infrastructure partner for the next generation of commerce. What we are looking for from you (Requirements)... • 10+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, fintech BD, product strategy, or payments consulting • Understanding of the payments ecosystem—issuers, processors, card networks, wallets, and commerce platforms • Ability to connect technical product functionality with partner and market needs • Demonstrated success managing complex partnerships and cross-functional projects • Comfortable in ambiguous, fast-paced environments with shifting priorities and emerging technologies • Strong written and verbal communication skills, with a strategic mindset and a bias toward execution Nice to Have • Experience working closely with product or engineering teams in a platform company or fintech infrastructure provider, especially in an innovative and fast paced startup environment • Familiarity with tokenization, payment flows, reconciliation processes, or data compliance frameworks • Technical literacy (e.g., comfortable discussing APIs, SDKs, and integration workflows)