Director, Strategic Partnerships job in New York City

About the Role and the Department

Catchafire’s Strategic Partnerships team is a key revenue driver of the company and supports Catchafire’s mission by expanding and accelerating the adoption of Catchafire, primarily through creating new and deepening and expanding existing partnerships with grantmaking foundations and philanthropic institutions.

We generate partnership opportunities via thought leadership and key relationships. The essence of your role will be to grow existing partnerships and support the development of new partnerships by collaborating with our new business team and working with our existing partners to drive growth within a region. With decreasing guidance from your Regional Managing Director over time, You will lead and execute this work end-to-end: from developing strategic plans for each of your accounts, establishing meaningful relationships with senior leaders of our foundation partners, creating sophisticated and effective proposals, managing a robust portfolio, cultivating relationships with decision makers at various levels within the organization to build demand for Catchafire, and effectively communicating the value of Catchafire. As a Director on the team, you may also have opportunities to co-sell with other senior team leaders while you grow in the role.

Your success in this role will require you to operate effectively not only as a stellar enterprise sales person and relationship builder, but as someone who can set and sell a complex and forward-thinking vision to individuals at the top of their field in philanthropy. You’ll also be expected to contribute to Catchafire’s sales strategy and vision, the evolution of our offering, and to collaborate excellently with other senior sellers as well as cross-functionally within Catchafire. While starting as an individual contributor, supporting the learning and development of the Partnerships team is a company priority and there will be ample opportunities for growth.

Attributes

• Rainmaker and expert partnerships builder: You have demonstrated the ability to create demand and sustain relationships for a transformative product or service. You are able to drive nuanced client discussions and co-create a compelling, long-term partnership vision that clients champion. You understand what it takes to get things done in a complex organization with many decision makers, and you are able to motivate different individuals up and down an organization to take action. You are highly skilled at ensuring that the proper balance of relationship and revenue is created and maintained as you advance strategic initiatives such evolving pricing and partnership structures or exploring new services. The relationships you build are long lasting and deep, enabling innovative solutions and long-term value creation.
• Execute a vision: You understand the long-term vision for the program and account based on where Catchafire is headed, and you are able to identify the steps and plan the path to get there. You have honed your ability to work across functions and create an inclusive process that drives towards outcomes.
• Compelling communicator: You are an expert listener that knows that excellent communications start with first understanding your audience. You are skilled at composing content at each stage of a partnership building process and can do so expediently. Whether it be writing a 5 page grant proposal or collaborating with a Design team to build a new 2 page summary of an offering, you create clear, concise materials that make your audience feel heard while presenting a persuasive path forward.
• Intentional leader and teammate: You are actively developing an intentional leadership style that is true to your own personality. You are a leader who believes that you are both a teacher and a student, and you strive to be the best that you can be for your team.

Responsibilities of the Director, Strategic Partnerships

• Lead enterprise deals (new business and renewals) with high-profile clients from start to finish in an assigned region:
• Understand the landscape for the regions you are assigned and efficiently and effectively create and cultivate leads that translate into qualified opportunities, building senior relationships in order to expand and deepen our partnerships
• Set a long-term vision in collaboration with existing partners and the new business seller in regions where we already have a presence in order to grow the number of organizations we serve
• For new regions, forge relationships with influential leaders and decision makers in order to bring Catchafire to the community
• Support the development and execution of the regional strategy, partnering with other members within the Revenue function and across other teams at Catchafire as appropriate
• Shepherd the evolution of a partnership from prospecting to close by selling strategically through a complex organization
• Develop the arc of the sale and seamlessly lead client stakeholders along the way
• Develop pricing, deal structure, proposal, supporting marketing collateral and presentations to drive forward the sale
• Negotiate terms and close
• Strategically cultivate relationships within the foundation sector so that they serve as champions and reference clients for us
• Translate industry knowledge and a keen understanding of sector challenges into opportunities and strategic new initiatives for Catchafire
• Be an active leader at the company-wide level, sharing insights and learnings and helping to shape our offering to meet the philanthropic and nonprofit sector’s needs

Experience / Background
In order to be successful in this role you must meet most, of if not all, of the following needs:

• Extensive relevant enterprise sales and sales mentorship experience with progressive responsibility (perhaps 5-7+ years)
• Strong track record in building partnerships from prospecting to close at an enterprise level that are in new or particularly challenging regions, are particularly innovative, transformative, visionary, or previously unproven, and highly strategic involving multiple stakeholders and levels of decision makers
• A strong understanding of how large organizations work and an ability to quickly speak the language of different organizations in different sectors
• Track record of strategic and operational excellence when managing a portfolio of high growth clients, including driving work streams that require a high degree of cross functional collaboration
• Demonstrated proficiency in independently developing and executing a prospecting and outreach strategy in new or challenging regions and for new or innovative partnerships
• Exceptional presentation and verbal and written communications skills that enable you to both pitch Catchafire to leaders of their field and communicate your long term vision and strategic process to your internal stakeholders
• Commitment, experience OR interest in the social good sector
• Though prior experience in the social good sector is not required, we are seeking individuals looking to learn deeply about this space and quickly progress into thought leaders
• Familiarity with and a commitment to continued learning and development in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) issues and topics through professional and/or personal spaces. This experience might include:
• Understanding of DEI issues within the Philanthropy and Nonprofit sectors
• Experience in partnering or working with underrepresented or marginalized groups and/or the organizations that support them

Though travel is usually expected in this role for up to one third of your time, we are currently not expecting employees to travel due to COVID-19 through at least February 2022 (though maybe longer), and are happy to discuss any reasonable accommodations you would need to succeed in this role

Catchafire’s office is based in NYC, though we will be working remotely as long as COVID-19 persists. We consider our employees’ safety as a top priority and we will continue to assess our return date and when we will resume work travel as the situation progresses. We also provide accommodations to help with home office set up. This role can be remote full time, with the expectation that the employee is willing and able to travel to the NYC office periodically as deemed necessary and beneficial.

Catchafire is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We are also welcoming to any reasonable accommodations that can be made for candidates in our hiring process.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide sponsorship for employment at this time.