[Hiring] Strategic Partnerships @Freehand

Role Description

This is an individual contributor role, reporting directly into leadership, with no team to manage. We want someone who's genuinely hands-on: building their own decks, running their own demos, writing their own partner collateral, and closing their own relationships. There's no support infrastructure to lean on yet; you're building it.

We're open on exactly how this role is structured, depending on who we find:

• One person, both channels: If you bring real System Integrator (SI) and Private Equity/ISV partnership experience, we'll hire you into a single role covering both channels at a premium.
• Two people, one channel each: If your background is strong in only one of these areas, we're equally happy to hire two specialists.

• SI Partnerships: Could be a partner sales or partner marketing background — building and running relationships with systems integrators.
• PE Channel Partnerships: Must have experience selling to industrial- or consumer-focused private equity firms, who in turn open doors to their portfolio companies.
• Alternative path: If the partnerships hires aren't a slam dunk, we're also open to a very hungry ABM marketer or product marketer with a track record of building strong external relationships and a genuine hustle to move into partnerships.

Whichever shape this takes, you'll be one of the earliest strategic hires in this function, with outsized influence over how Freehand's partner ecosystem gets built from scratch.

What You'll Do

• Partner pipeline generation: Identify, prioritize, and build relationships with SIs, PE firms, and/or ISV/product partners relevant to accounts payable, procurement, supply chain, and finance ops.
• Deal collaboration: Work hand-in-hand with these partners to source, co-sell, and close enterprise deals, acting as the connective tissue between their relationships and Freehand's sales motion.
• Collateral and enablement, self-built: Create your own partner decks, one-pagers, demo scripts, and pitch materials; there's no dedicated support team, so you own the full production.
• Demos and pitches: Run partner- and prospect-facing demos yourself, translating Freehand's agentic AI capabilities into value propositions relevant to each partner type.
• PE portfolio company motion: For the PE channel, build the specific muscle of pitching PE firms on Freehand as a value-creation lever across their industrial/consumer portfolio, then working through to individual portco engagements.
• SI relationship building: For the SI channel, build joint go-to-market motions, referral pipelines, and co-delivery relationships with systems integrators serving supply chain and finance transformation.
• Feedback loop to product/GTM: Bring market and partner intelligence back to product and marketing to sharpen positioning and roadmap prioritization.

Qualifications

• Startup or scale-up sales/partnerships experience — you've built something like this before, not just maintained an existing program.
• High-pedigree intellect — top-tier engineering or MBA background.
• An athlete or high performer in whatever form that's taken in your life — competitive, driven, and used to winning.
• A true individual contributor at heart: scrappy, comfortable doing the work yourself (decks, demos, outreach) rather than delegating.
• Some exposure to accounts payable, supply chain, finance, or logistics — you don't need to be a domain expert, but you should be conversant enough to build credibility fast.
• If pursuing the premium single-role path: proven SI and PE/ISV partnership experience.
• If pursuing a single-channel path: deep, specific experience in either SI partnerships or PE-channel selling (with the PE track specifically requiring experience selling to industrial/consumer-focused PE firms to reach their portfolio companies).
• If coming from marketing: a demonstrated hustle and relationship-building track record as an ABM or product marketer, with real hunger to move into a partnerships-facing role.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and building process from scratch at an early-stage, fast-moving startup.

Benefits

• Full Health coverage (accidental, life, vision, dental & health consultations).
• Monthly home-internet costs.
• Flexible working hours.
• Complimentary food & snacks at the Chennai HQ.

Equal Opportunity

Freehand hires on merit — your thinking, your track record, your potential — without regard to race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or any other protected characteristic. If you meet most of the criteria above but not all of it, apply anyway. We care more about your willingness to learn & take initiative than whether your resume maps perfectly to every line.