Director of Strategic Partnerships - Circle

About Us

Circle is building the world’s leading AI-powered, all-in-one platform for digital businesses. We make it possible for creators, coaches, educators, and businesses to bring together their audience with engaging discussions, live streams, events, chat, courses, and payments — all in one place, all under their own brand.

We’re proud to be a fully remote company of around 270 team members from 30+ countries around the world. We collaborate across time zones, are highly async, and document our work extensively. Twice a year, we bring the whole company together in beautiful places around the world for our company offsites.

About the Role

The Director of Strategic Partnerships will lead the strategy, growth, and performance of Circle's partnerships function, building programs and relationships that strengthen Circle's brand while driving meaningful business outcomes.

This role sits at the intersection of business development, partnerships, creators, content, and growth. You'll translate Circle's broader company priorities into a forward-looking partnerships strategy, identifying where and how we invest, developing major creator and strategic relationships, and ensuring those investments translate into measurable impact across customer growth, brand awareness, and market position.

Reporting to our SVP, Ecosystem, you'll work closely with Circle's founders and leadership team, as well as teammates across Community Growth, Media, Demand Generation, Product Marketing, and our Design Studio.

What You'll Be Doing

• Own Circle's partnerships strategic planning, roadmap, and connection of partnership investments to company priorities and measurable business outcomes.
• Take ownership of the function's contribution to new business and other agreed performance goals.
• Build repeatable partnership programs and playbooks that allow successful initiatives (webinars, challenges, creator campaigns, launches, and event activations) to scale.
• Develop a forward-looking quarterly and annual partnership plan across creator partnerships, strategic relationships, campaigns, launches, and events.
• Lead Circle's highest-value creator and strategic partnerships, including relationship development, deal strategy, negotiation, and creative direction.
• Shape the content and creative strategy behind major partnerships to ensure ideas are authentic to the partner's audience and effective for Circle.
• Apply a strong marketing mindset to partnership development, including offer strategy, audience journeys, and conversion opportunities.
• Establish clear measurement, reporting, and decision-making frameworks for the function, utilizing performance and qualitative insights.

What You'll Need to Be Successful

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills in English (CEFR C2 or equivalent), essential for async collaboration.
• 10+ years of experience building 6-7 figure strategic partnerships, creator programs, brand initiatives, or strategic growth programs within SaaS, technology, the creator economy, or similar fast-moving industries.
• Strong business development skills including pipeline management, negotiation, partner development, and cross-functional project management.
• Performance marketing instincts and an understanding of how partnerships drive brand value and business outcomes.
• Deep understanding of Circle's customers, the creator economy, and the broader market.
• Exceptional content and creative instincts, with the ability to translate Circle's value into ideas native to a creator or partner.
• Track record of turning successful one-off initiatives into repeatable programs, systems, and playbooks.
• Experience managing and developing a team through senior managers or managers-of-managers.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills and the ability to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.

Compensation & Benefits

• U.S.-benchmarked compensation globally
• Company equity with ongoing refresh grants
• 35 days of paid time off each year
• Company retreats twice a year in destinations around the world
• Comprehensive benefits package supporting health, wellbeing, and professional growth