Director of Partnerships

About OpenSesame

OpenSesame is transforming workforce development with an AI-powered marketplace of 60,000+ skill-building courses and learning pathways. We help organizations build skills and stay compliant through a high-quality content catalog, seamless LMS/LXP integrations, and advanced capabilities like skills-based curation and multilingual content creation. More than 2,000 companies, including 150+ of the Global 2000, rely on OpenSesame to develop the world’s most productive and admired workforces.

Learn more: www.opensesame.com/about

About the Team

The Partners Team builds and manages mutually beneficial relationships with leading Learning Management Systems (LMSs), Learning Experience Platforms (LXPs), HR Platforms, and other technology companies that distribute, bundle, or refer OpenSesame’s enterprise learning solutions to organizations around the world.

The Partner Team is building a scalable, tiered ecosystem that collaborates tightly with Sales, Marketing, and Product to fuel indirect revenue, amplify partner-led go-to-market motions, and create differentiated product integrations. Our mandate is to deliver and scale a world-class partner experience that boosts repeatability, elevates partner impact, and accelerates OpenSesame’s global reach.

About the Role

The Director of Strategic Partnerships is a hands-on, strategic, and operational leader responsible for building, optimizing, and scaling OpenSesame’s partner ecosystem. You will help define and execute our partner strategy, lead a global team of Strategic Partner Managers, drive indirect pipeline and revenue growth, improve partner operations, and deepen executive relationships that support OpenSesame’s continued growth.

In addition to relationship and revenue leadership, this role owns the programmatic evolution of our partner ecosystem, including partner tiering, operational processes, integration alignment with Product, and forecasting accuracy across the indirect funnel.

This is a player/coach role, leading by example while also contributing individually to high-impact partner initiatives, executive engagements, and revenue-driving motions.

This role requires approximately 25% travel for partner engagements, senior management collaboration, industry events, and full-team events.

Performance Objectives

In Your First 60 Days:

• Meet the top 30 partners to build an understanding of their business models, strategic goals, and performance metrics.
• Complete onboarding across Partner Operations, GTM, Product, and Sales workflows.
• Review existing partner processes, systems, reporting, and playbooks to identify scalability gaps.
• Begin building relationships with Strategic Partner Managers and observe partner touchpoints (QBRs, enablement calls, joint planning meetings).
• Gain fluency in our value proposition, competitive positioning, and partner ecosystem architecture.

Become literate with OpenSesame’s methods of integration with partner platforms, pros/cons of each approach based on partner requirements

In Your First 90 Days:

• Conduct and present a full SWOT analysis of the partner program, including risks, operational inefficiencies, growth blockers, and opportunities for expansion.
• Define the critical path for ecosystem growth tied to OpenSesame’s 30%+ annual revenue target.
• Begin contributing individually to high-impact partner engagements by attending QBRs and strategic meetings.
• Review and evaluate all partner tiering, incentives, joint value propositions, and performance metrics.
  • Structure partnership models
  • Lead executive meetings and onsite visits
  • Prepare and deliver strategic presentations
• Demonstrate sustained improvements in partner contribution metrics: sourced revenue, influenced revenue, partner satisfaction, and depth of collaboration.
• Be a key contributor to the Senior Management Team—helping refine OKRs, inform strategy, and represent the partner ecosystem across the business.
• Establish clear expectations, goals, and communication cadences with your global team.

By 120 Days:

• Deliver a comprehensive strategic plan outlining how OpenSesame will scale the partner ecosystem over the next three years.
  • Includes revenue milestones, GTM alignment, resourcing, operational improvements, and partner experience enhancements.
• Present cross-functional recommendations to Marketing, Product, Sales, and Operations to support partner growth motions.
• Launch key initiatives to evolve the partner program (e.g., new onboarding workflows, refined partner tiers, improved enablement, optimized processes).
• Establish a scalable partner governance model covering roadmap visibility, escalation handling, joint planning, and communication cadences, and deliver a partner experience improvement plan across onboarding, enablement, and integration workflows.

By 180 Days:

• Build and launch internal and external partner metrics reporting systems that track performance, pipeline, enablement, onboarding, and strategic outcomes.
• Optimize and operationalize the Partner Playbook, documenting best practices for partner management, communication, escalations, enablement, and forecasting.
• Demonstrate measurable improvements in indirect pipeline contribution, funnel conversion, and partner engagement indicators.
• Collaborate with Partner Operations to define scoring rubric and threshold criteria for 2027 partner program tiers.

Within Your First 12 Months:

• Serve as executive owner for top strategic partners, leading roadmap alignment, business planning, and high-impact GTM initiatives. Demonstrate ecosystem-driven revenue growth, measurable partner satisfaction improvements, and more substantial multi-year collaboration depth.
• Lead high-impact business opportunities:
  • Structure partnership models
  • Lead executive meetings and onsite visits
  • Prepare and deliver strategic presentations