Strategic Partnerships Manager

What is Coast

Coast is re-imagining the trillion-dollar U.S. B2B card payments infrastructure, with a focus on the country’s 500,000 commercial fleets, 40 million commercial vehicles, and many millions of commercial drivers. The incumbent technologies that cater to these customers are decades old, and businesses with fleets increasingly demand modern digital experiences and transparent financial services products. Coast’s mission is to deliver this at a transformational scale, beginning with the Coast Fleet and Fuel Card built on a cutting-edge spend management platform.

About the Role

As we scale our Partnerships function, you will own the critical work of establishing strategic partnerships that drive the distribution of Coast’s product. Coast is built to help trades and transportation businesses save time and money, and you will identify, develop, and close relationships with prospective partners with whom we can share and drive that vision forward. This channel is growing very quickly and we’re excited to drive significant growth and innovation. 

What You’ll Do

• Work with Coast’s Head of Partnerships, CEO, and exec team to shape new partnership strategies for Coast to unlock at-scale distribution and create customer value through a variety of commercial relationships maintained by trades and transportation businesses. 
• Develop a pipeline: prioritize targets and build a prospecting plan to reach and engage potential partners for both distribution and customer value creation.
• Execute against your strategy, build relationships, and structure deals to drive increased distribution of Coast to new businesses.
• Negotiate deals with attractive economics, based on a mutual understanding of our and our partners core business models, in collaboration with finance and executive functions
• Work with legal to negotiate and close agreements by establishing a repeatable and scalable deal framework.
• Collaborate cross functionally internally and externally to stand up partnerships and manage them to measurable success.
• Think creatively to identify new partnership constructs for distribution, customer value, and driver/employee engagement - and quickly pressure test them for viability, demonstrating real innovation in GTM
• Work to activate partnerships, and sometimes wholly own marketing initiatives, including collateral, webinars, sales activation and even direct sales and customer engagement
• Attend tradeshows and industry events to drive partnerships forward and activate current book of partnerships 
• Manage partnerships: Maintain healthy partner relationships and drive towards long term strategic goals - in our current structure you will own and continue to activate and drive your partnerships forward 

What Success Looks Like

In your first year, you’ll be successful if you:

1. Increase the number of active partnerships driving meaningful acquisition and payment for Coast
2. Drive meaningful growth in deals sold and onboarded through partner teams rather than just referral to Coast’s sales organization, contributing to lower payback period for Coast.
3. Identify and unlock distribution for Coast through new partner verticals, signing net new strategic deals for the company
4. Ensure that the partnerships you structure drive healthy margins and profitability levels in addition to accelerating top-line revenue growth

Requirements 

• Bachelor’s degree from a four year university
• Minimum 3 - 7 years of experience in business development or partner management. 
• Enterprise sales and partner enablement experience strongly preferred.
• Background in vertical SaaS, field services trades, fleet management, financial services (including payments), or venture backed technology companies. 
• Outstanding executive presence and communication skills, for both internal and external audiences at all levels. 
• AI-native mindset: you're already using AI tools in your daily work and you're excited to push further.
• Strong analytical instincts - comfortable pulling metrics, spotting trends, and translating data into operational and commercial decisions.
• Experience negotiating deals from indicative commercials through legal review.
• Sales and pitching toolkit: you can prospect, qualify, demonstrate, negotiate, and close deals.
• Excitement about jumping into an early stage, fast-growing company where we’re building the ship and sailing it at the same time.
• Flexibility and capability to navigate complex environments and ambiguity.
• General business acumen - understanding of complex business and revenue models and how to navigate “big picture” challenges with tactical strategies.

Compensation and Benefits

Our salary ranges are based on paying competitively for our size and industry, and are one part of our total compensation package that also includes benefits and equity. Pay decisions are based on a number of factors, including scope and qualifications for the role, experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to other Coast employees. We expect the majority of candidates who are offered roles at Coast to fall healthily within the range based on these factors.

Total Compensation (Salary + Bonus) Range: $160,000 – $195,000 annually

Equity Grant: Meaningful potential upside given Coast’s early-stage trajectory

Benefits Overview:

• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• Flexible paid time off (vacation, personal well being, paid holidays)
• Tools to help manage your financial wellness, including webinars, access to an equity tax advisory service, and company-sponsored 401(k)
• Paid parental leave
• $400 accessories allowance (a keyboard, mouse, headphones, etc.)
• Education stipend
• Free lunch every Friday

Coast is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are building a diverse and inclusive environment, so we encourage people of all backgrounds to apply. We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, disability, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

Check out the latest podcast interview on Fintech Layer Cake with Coast Founder Daniel Simon!