[Hiring] Senior Lead, External Partnerships & Social @Shopify

Role Description

You own how Shop shows up in culture: the partnerships we do with brands and media companies, and the organic social presence that carries them.

The mandate: get more people to know what Shop is, and give the people already on Shop something worth coming back for.

• Brand co-marketing: Source, structure and ship at least one co-marketing partnership a month with brands selling on Shop. Pick the brands, build the offer, negotiate the terms, run the launch.
• Media and non-endemic partnerships: Build always-on relationships with media companies and cultural properties that put Shop's message in front of new audiences and bring better content into the app. These take longer to land, so they need a pipeline, not a campaign.
• Organic social: Own Shop's handles end to end — strategy, calendar, content, publishing, community management and reporting. Set the voice and hold it.
• Measurement: Define what a good partnership looks like before it launches: reach, new buyers, engagement, GMV, cost per outcome. Kill the ones that don't work and say why.
• Budget and forecasting: Own the partnership and social budget, forecast it, and defend the spend with results.
• Creative: Brief creative well and edit hard. Partner work is judged in public, so the bar is craft, not volume.
• Cross-org coordination: Partnerships touch merchant-facing teams, brand, lifecycle, paid, PR, legal and product. Keep them aligned on one calendar and one story, and keep leadership current with short, clear updates.
• Zero defects: Everything here ships with a partner's name on it. Rights, disclosures, approvals and QA are part of the job, not an afterthought.
• The team: At Shopify everyone is a manager and a doer. Run agencies and freelancers, hire selectively, and stay in the work: writing the pitch, reviewing the cut, posting the thing. Put AI agents to work where they help.

Qualifications

• 10–15 years in partnerships, brand marketing or social at a consumer tech company or a consumer brand.
• Real fluency in culture and brands: you can name the partners worth doing next quarter and explain why.
• Track record sourcing and closing co-marketing partnerships, including the unglamorous parts — terms, contracting, approvals, timelines.
• Experience with media or non-endemic partnerships that ran longer than a single campaign.
• Hands-on ownership of a brand's organic social presence at scale. You have run the account, not just approved an agency's calendar.
• Budgeting and forecasting experience, with accountability for what the spend returned.
• Strong creative direction: you brief well, give useful notes, and have shipped work you would show anyone.
• Clear written communication. You can get a partnership approved in a one-page memo and report results without spin.
• Comfortable moving at speed with legal, brand and product review in the loop.
• Bonus: experience in fashion, beauty, entertainment or sport; marketplace or two-sided businesses; creator programs.

Requirements

• 10–15 years in partnerships, brand marketing or social at a consumer tech company or a consumer brand.
• Real fluency in culture and brands: you can name the partners worth doing next quarter and explain why.
• Track record sourcing and closing co-marketing partnerships, including the unglamorous parts — terms, contracting, approvals, timelines.
• Experience with media or non-endemic partnerships that ran longer than a single campaign.
• Hands-on ownership of a brand's organic social presence at scale. You have run the account, not just approved an agency's calendar.
• Budgeting and forecasting experience, with accountability for what the spend returned.
• Strong creative direction: you brief well, give useful notes, and have shipped work you would show anyone.
• Clear written communication. You can get a partnership approved in a one-page memo and report results without spin.
• Comfortable moving at speed with legal, brand and product review in the loop.
• Bonus: experience in fashion, beauty, entertainment or sport; marketplace or two-sided businesses; creator programs.