Partnerships Lead

AT GRADIENT LABS, WE'RE BUILDING THE AI CUSTOMER OPERATIONS PLATFORM FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES. Founded in 2023, we now work with some of the biggest names in banking and fintech. Our platform runs specialist agents, purpose-built for financial services, to eliminate manual work across customer support and back-office operations. Together, they give product and operations teams the visibility and control to trust every outcome. We're a team of builders from companies like Monzo, Wise, Mastercard, Revolut and Braze and we're hiring our founding Partnerships Lead to join us either in London or NYC. We're growing fast and increasingly finding that our biggest unlocks come not just from direct sales, but from the ecosystem of technology and consulting partners that our customers already rely on. THE ROLE This is a foundational, individual-contributor role: you'll own the full partnerships function end to end, from managing and growing our existing relationships to proactively building new ones across a wide partner landscape: hyperscalers, core banking providers, global consultancies and systems integrators, boutique advisory firms, and BPOs. You'll be the first dedicated hire in this function, which means you'll be building the playbook as much as executing it: deciding which partner types deserve focus first, setting up how we track and report on partner-sourced/influenced pipeline, and establishing Gradient Labs' reputation as a serious, easy-to-work-with partner across financial services technology and advisory ecosystems. This role is scoped as an individual contributor today, with a clear path to hiring and leading a team as the partner motion proves out and scales. WHAT YOU'LL DO Manage and grow existing partnerships - Own the day-to-day relationships with our current technology and consulting partners, find mutually valuable expansion opportunities (new use cases, stakeholders, co-sell motions), and represent Gradient Labs in partner-facing forums and joint planning sessions. Build new partnerships proactively - Map, prioritise, and open up the partner landscape across: - Hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud) - Core banking and financial infrastructure providers (Fiserv, Jack Henry, FIS, Temenos, Mambu, 10x, and independent/regional providers) - Global consultancies and systems integrators (Deloitte and similar): influence relationships and joint go-to-market for large transformation programmes - Boutique advisory and consulting firms: trusted-advisor relationships that shape vendor selection, especially at mid-sized financial institutions - BPOs: partners who embed or resell our platform as part of broader operations offerings - Carry each relationship from cold outreach through to a structured partnership (referral, co-sell, technical integration, or reseller), negotiating and structuring partnership terms with legal, sales, and leadership. Build the function - Set up how we track and report on partnership impact (sourced and influenced pipeline, co-sell revenue), create repeatable playbooks by partner type, and make the case for hiring the team around you as the function matures. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Track record: experience building or significantly growing a partnerships function, ideally at a B2B SaaS company selling into financial services or another regulated industry. - Range and drive: equally credible managing a hyperscaler alliance and courting a boutique advisory firm, with as much bias for cold outreach and starting relationships from scratch as for growing what already exists. - Commercial judgment: able to structure a partnership agreement, negotiate terms, and know when a partnership is worth pursuing vs. a distraction. - First-hire mindset: comfortable with ambiguity and building process where none exists. Excellent written and verbal communication, since you'll represent Gradient Labs externally to senior stakeholders at much larger organisations. WHY THIS ROLE, WHY NOW Financial services technol…