Head of Product Partnerships

About the Company

Thought Machine's mission is to rid the world's banks of legacy technology through cloud-native core and payments technology. They are a rapidly growing fintech company with over 550 employees globally and significant backing from major investors like JPMorgan Chase and Standard Chartered.

Responsibilities

• Own the strategic direction and commercial performance of the partner ecosystem
• Identify and prioritize partnership categories including global payment networks and AI specialists
• Design and negotiate high-stakes commercial frameworks and revenue-sharing models
• Manage and scale a team of five Partnership Managers
• Collaborate with Product Leads to ensure high-quality third-party integrations
• Lead the strategy for integrating AI-first partners into the platform
• Establish "Vault-Certified" standards for technical and operational benchmarks
• Develop sales enablement tools and playbooks to accelerate sales cycles
• Provide market trend insights to the CPO to inform build-vs-buy-vs-partner decisions
• Execute partnership plans to support growth in North America, EMEA, and APAC
• Implement frameworks for tracking ecosystem health and partner-influenced pipeline

Requirements

• Extensive experience in Partnerships, Business Development, or Product Strategy within Fintech or Enterprise SaaS
• Proven track record of closing complex, multi-million pound deals
• Experience managing and developing teams through rapid scale
• Ability to navigate procurement, legal, and risk hurdles of Tier 1 financial institutions
• Deep understanding of the modern financial technology landscape
• Strong ability to use CRM data and market trends to quantify ecosystem impact

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary
• Pension plan (match up to 5%)
• Life insurance (three times annual salary)
• Competitive maternity (six months fully paid) and paternity leave (four weeks fully paid)
• 25 days holiday and bank holidays
• Flexible working hours
• Cycle-to-work and electric car schemes
• Access to learning materials and courses
• Sports and hobby clubs
• Weekly food pop-ups and healthy snacks