Strategic Partnerships Manager

Strategic Partnerships Manager About the Role Our client is a fast-growing international payments and financial infrastructure business, supporting companies with cross-border payments, embedded finance and related financial solutions. As part of its continued growth, the business is expanding its network of infrastructure and strategic partners across the UK and Europe. This role will play a key part in building that network, developing new partnerships and managing existing strategic relationships. The role combines commercial development with relationship management. You will identify and onboard new infrastructure partners, negotiate commercial agreements and manage the performance of existing partnerships. You will also help determine where relationships should be treated as strategic commercial partnerships versus supplier relationships. The role has a strong commercial and analytical element, with responsibility for partner acquisition, commercial negotiations, routed payment volumes and the overall value generated through partnerships. The current focus is on the UK and European markets, with the scope expected to become increasingly international as the business expands. Responsibilities

• Manage day-to-day relationships with existing schemes, processors and other infrastructure partners, escalating key matters where required.
• Identify gaps in the existing partner network and source, approach and onboard new infrastructure partners, particularly on the acquiring side.
• Manage commercial negotiations with new partners from initial discussions through to signed agreements.
• Own partner performance, including service reviews, SLAs and escalation management.
• Monitor payment volumes routed through two-way partnerships and the commercial return generated.
• Assess strategic platform relationships and determine the appropriate commercial or supplier approach.
• Work closely with Legal and Procurement on contracts, negotiations and renewals.
• Establish effective partnership management processes, including review cadences, escalation routes and reporting.
• Maintain accurate visibility of partner activity, pipeline and performance within the relevant CRM and internal systems. Your Profile
• Experience building and managing partnerships within payments or financial infrastructure, ideally across acquiring, processing, card schemes, BIN sponsorship or issuing.
• Proven experience taking a new partnership from initial conversation through to commercial agreement.
• Strong understanding of payments infrastructure and the technical aspects of how payment integrations and settlement processes work.
• Comfortable managing supplier or partner performance and holding partners accountable to agreed SLAs.
• Strong commercial and analytical skills, with the ability to understand pricing models, routing economics and partnership value.
• Experience working across UK and European payments markets.
• Strong negotiation, stakeholder management and relationship-building skills.
• Experience working cross-functionally with Legal, Procurement, Product and other internal teams.
• Exposure to international markets beyond the UK and Europe would be advantageous.