Manager - Partnerships & Alliances

About the Role
This position is critical in driving growth through fintech partnerships that enhance the company's customer base, product offerings, and revenue streams. You will be responsible for finding, signing, and managing these partnerships, ensuring each collaboration is commercially successful from initial engagement to ongoing performance management.

Responsibilities

1. Partnership Strategy and Pipeline

   • Collaborate with the Director – Commercials to establish and implement the fintech partnership strategy aligned with the commercial plan and product roadmap.
   • Analyze the UAE and regional fintech landscape to identify high-value partners that can contribute to customer growth, product offerings, or revenue generation.
   • Create and maintain a pipeline of partnership opportunities, prioritized according to commercial value and strategic fit.

2. Deal Structuring and Negotiation

   • Lead negotiations from the initial meeting to the signing of agreements.
   • Develop the commercial model for each partnership, considering revenue shares, referral fees, license and implementation fees, as well as pricing structures for white-label and wholesale arrangements.
   • Collaborate with Business Intelligence to build robust business cases that illustrate expected volumes, revenues, costs, and margins for each deal.
   • Work with the legal team to prepare term sheets, MoUs, and partnership agreements, ensuring terms protect revenue, data, and exclusivity rights.

3. Due Diligence and Approvals

   • Evaluate each partner's financial stability, technological capabilities, security protocols, and regulatory compliance in collaboration with Compliance, Risk, and IT departments.
   • Support strategic initiatives like licensing, joint ventures, or investments, and coordinate due diligence with external advisors as necessary.
   • navigate partnership proposals through internal approval processes and, when required, present to management and the board.

4. Launch and Integration

   • Partner with Product and IT teams to orchestrate each integration, ensuring comprehensive technical scoping and planning for go-live.
   • Collaborate with partners to establish a go-to-market plan that includes target customers, joint offers, and marketing strategies.
   • Ensure that operational processes, settlement procedures, reconciliation, and customer support are prepared prior to launch.

5. Partner Performance Management

   • Monitor the performance of partnerships by tracking volumes, revenue, active customer metrics, and service levels against established business cases.
   • Conduct regular business review meetings with partners to discuss performance, growth opportunities, and address any issues.
   • Ensure accurate calculation, billing, and collection of partner revenue shares and fees in coordination with Revenue Assurance.
   • Make recommendations regarding the renewal, expansion, renegotiation, or termination of partnerships based on performance outcomes.

6. Market Intelligence and Ecosystem

   • Stay informed on fintech trends, emerging players, and competitive partnerships in the UAE and regional markets.
   • Monitor Central Bank of the UAE regulations impacting partnerships, particularly concerning stored value, retail payment services, and open finance.
   • Represent the company at fintech events and industry forums, and cultivate relationships with fintech hubs and investors.

Requirements
Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or a related field.
• An MBA or relevant postgraduate qualification is preferred.

Experience

• 8+ years of experience in partnerships, alliances, business development, or corporate development within payments, fintech, or banking.
• Proven track record of establishing and growing commercial partnerships with demonstrable revenue results.
• Experience in negotiating revenue share, licensing, and white-label agreements.
• Familiarity with payment gateways, acquirers, wallets, BNPL, issuing processors, or card schemes is highly advantageous.
• Existing network within the UAE fintech and payments ecosystem is a significant asset.

Technical and Payments Knowledge

• Comprehensive understanding of the payments value chain including gateways, acquiring, payment facilitators, schemes, issuing, wallets, and settlement processes.
• Knowledge of payment methods such as cards, tokenized wallets, BNPL, Aani, and account-to-account transactions.
• Familiarity with integration processes including APIs, SDKs, hosted pages, and settlement files.
• Understanding of partnership economics, including MDR, interchange, revenue share, and unit economics.
• Knowledge of UAE payments regulation, specifically concerning stored value, retail payment services, and open finance frameworks.

Skills

• Strong negotiation skills, with the ability to close deals that are mutually beneficial.
• Commercially and analytically minded, capable of building and validating business cases.
• Proven ability to build rapport and trust with founders, senior executives, and technical teams.
• Excellent writing and presentation skills, comfortable delivering presentations to management and the board.
• Proficient in managing multiple partners and projects simultaneously while ensuring timely follow-through to launch.