Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager - Enterprise

Mercury · San Francisco, CA, New York, NY, Portland, OR, or Remote within United States

About Strategic Partnerships at Mercury: The Strategic Partnerships team drives customer growth, product expansion, and strategic advantage through high-impact partner relationships. We build and manage partnerships across the startup ecosystem: accounting firms, VCs, investors, ecommerce partners, incorporators, platforms, and financial institutions. We work cross-functionally with Product, GTM, Finance, Legal, Risk, and Operations to unlock new distribution channels, expand product capabilities, and strengthen Mercury's position as the leading financial platform for ambitious companies. About the Role: This is a ground-floor opportunity to build something that doesn't exist yet at Mercury. Our team is growing fast and we've built most of our partnerships business bottom-up through accounting firms, VCs, accelerators, and incorporators. That motion works. But the next chapter is different: large-scale platform deals, embedded finance arrangements, and distribution partnerships that put Mercury in front of thousands of businesses through a single signed agreement. This is a pure hunter role. You'll own Mercury's most ambitious enterprise and platform targets and be measured on deals that create real distribution leverage. The best ones will embed Mercury as the financial layer inside platforms, tools, and ecosystems that thousands or millions of businesses already use. You'll find the right targets, get yourself in the room, and architect deals that go well beyond a simple referral or co-marketing arrangement: embedded finance structures, deep API integrations, and distribution arrangements that neither side has done before. What You'll Do: Win platform-distribution deals Identify, target, and pursue the highest-leverage partnership opportunities in Mercury's addressable universe: category leaders across ecommerce (Shopify), social selling (TikTok, Meta), legal (Clio), productivity (Google), and any platform where ambitious businesses already live, then make Mercury the financial layer underneath them. Close deals where Mercury becomes natively embedded in a platform, reaching thousands of potential customers through a single signed agreement. Own outreach and relationship development at the senior executive and C-suite level, leveraging your existing network to open doors and build new ones fast Drive deals through the full lifecycle: from initial outreach and business case development through term negotiation, legal close, integration scoping, and launch Structure first-of-a-kind deals Architect bespoke partnership structures: embedded finance arrangements, deep API integrations, co-distribution models, and joint product experiences that create strategic lock-in and measurable impact Leverage Mercury's full product suite (banking,* payments, cards, APIs, MCP, CLI tooling) as strategic currency in negotiations, matching the right capabilities to each partner's specific needs Develop and pressure-test the business case for each partnership, modeling deal economics and aligning cross-functional stakeholders at Mercury Own the channel from day one You will build Mercury's enterprise partnerships motion from scratch, with full ownership over strategy, targeting, deal structure, and execution. Define the playbook: who we pursue, how we position, how we negotiate, and what success looks like a year from now Have a direct line to Mercury's leadership team and cross-functional leadership. Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Legal, Finance, and GTM to design the infrastructure needed to support large, complex partner integrations What We're Looking For: 8-10+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, or enterprise sales including meaningful time at a high-growth technology or similar company A track record of closing platform-scale deals. You've closed agreements that unlocked distribution at scale, embedding your product into a platform, ecosystem, or distribution channel that reached far more customers than a direct sales motion ever could. An existing network you can activate immediately. Your relationships are in the right places. You have been actively involved in your industry - speaking at conferences, events, and are regarded as a thought leader in your space. Experience at a high-growth, category-defining technology company. You know what it means to move fast, operate with limited resources, and close deals before the window closes. Deep experience structuring embedded or API-driven deals. You understand how technical integrations create commercial moats, and you know how to negotiate them Strong commercial and financial fluency. You can model deal economics, structure complex incentive arrangements, and align on terms with sophisticated counterparts The ability to operate in ambiguity and build from scratch. Mercury has not had a dedicated enterprise partnerships function. You're energized by this ground floor opportunity and the chance to build it from scratc