[Hiring] Strategic Partner Manager @Blackbaud

Role Description

We’re looking for an experienced channel leader to be Blackbaud’s Strategic Partner Manager for our partnerships with strategic partners like Microsoft, AWS, cloud distributors, and other ecosystem partners. This is a key business development role that will define and execute Blackbaud’s partnership strategy in collaboration with our product, marketing, customer success, and sales teams to actively drive towards our revenue goals.

This candidate must possess a passion for building and managing partner relationships and must have proven success driving business development activities in support of sales opportunities. As the partner manager, this candidate will be accountable for growing our partner business in support of our overall sales strategy and customer development ambitions.

At the end of the day, this is about business development and delighting our clients. We’re looking for a motivated, entrepreneurial self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment and relishes the opportunity to build and develop a critical partnership. This role requires collaboration, leadership, maturity, a drive for outcomes, and a passion for continuous learning and self-improvement.

What you’ll do

• Partner Strategy
  • Determines and drives to Blackbaud revenue goals based on input from overall market strategy, market growth goals, and practice focus areas.
  • Coordinates with Blackbaud local market personnel to meet defined performance, engagement, and revenue growth objectives.
  • Proactively assesses, clarifies, and validates partner and Blackbaud’s needs on an ongoing basis.
  • Develops partner engagement activities such as marketing campaigns, sales alignment, and customer engagement to support overall partner strategy.
  • Possesses a deep understanding of the partner ecosystem, including incentive programs, enablement offerings, and success measures.
  • Supports our practices in developing GTM strategies aligned to our partners.
• Partner Sales
  • Builds strong, trusted relationships within partner organizations centrally and regionally.
  • Owns the co-sell program including targets and deliverables.
  • Works closely with internal GTM teams to execute regional growth plans as a subset of business development go-to-market.
  • Engages internal and partner sales teams globally and partners together in account planning and co-selling efforts.
  • Promotes sales enablement opportunities, including the development of sales briefings, to increase Blackbaud’s knowledge of partner solutions and incentives.
  • Proactively identifies and manages potential channel conflict posed by the partner, including developing contingency planning and escalating to Blackbaud leadership when necessary.
• Partner Operations
  • Develops and nurtures relationships with Blackbaud’s partner teams to leverage best practices and relationships.
  • Collaborates with partners and Blackbaud Partner operations to ensure all sales data is up to date.
  • Proactively communicates and manages internal and partner colleagues on partner channel pipeline and forecasts.
  • Works directly and with partners to register leads and co-sell opportunities in partner portals, manages pre-sales activities, and tracks partner revenue when deals are closed.
  • Identifies opportunities to leverage partner funding and works with local market leaders to apply funds to existing client opportunities.
  • Manages the performance standards, scorecards, and data gathering required to evaluate and manage the performance of the partner.
  • Supports practices in partner-enablement for both sales and technical certifications.
  • Creates and maintains project plans, budgets, and timelines for partner initiatives.
• Partner Marketing
  • Increases Blackbaud’s brand awareness with our top partners through networking, marketing campaigns, and partner events, supported by marketing.
  • Serves as Blackbaud brand ambassador to identify opportunities to present, sponsor, or co-market partner events.
  • Coordinates to align key partner marketing strategies to the overall Blackbaud marketing strategy.

Qualifications

• Between 10+ years of experience working with or for Microsoft, AWS, or Google.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills to deliver messages across a variety of internal and external audiences.
• Ability to persuasively articulate Blackbaud partnership impact value and offerings to customers and partners.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage a vast array of information and create structure in heavily ambiguous environments.
• Ability to interact with leaders and all levels of the organization in a professional and impactful manner.
• Ability to influence and drive revenue goals while working closely with sales teams.
• Experience handling budgets and complex schedules to get meetings booked.
• Highly self-motivated and able to work both independently and in a team environment to drive critical outcomes.
• Strong interpersonal skills and demonstrable experience working with cross-functional teams, including remote teams in multiple time zones.
• Understanding of foundational cloud technologies and the cloud partner ecosystem (AWS, Salesforce, Microsoft, etc.) is preferred.
• Willingness to travel up to 20%.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Remote-flexible workforce.
• Wellness Programs.
• 401(k) program with employer match.
• Flexible paid time off.
• Generous Parental Leave.
• Donations for Doers.
• Pet insurance, legal and identity protection.
• Tuition reimbursement program.