Partner Development Lead, Commerce: Afterpay & Cash App

Block (Square)
San Francisco, US
On-siteCareer-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Aimed at senior business development professionals with 9+ years in payments or fintech who thrive in cross-functional collaboration and global strategy execution.

Best fit for

  • Experienced partnerships practitioner with a track record in payments commercialization.
    — “9+ years of business development or partner management experience, preferably at an innovative payments company.
  • Strategic thinker who can navigate complex partner ecosystems and influence decision-makers.
    — “Proven ability to build C-suite relationships and navigate external organizations.
  • Autonomous operator comfortable with ambiguity and scaling programs globally.
    — “Deep comfort operating in the ambiguity of an ever-evolving product that operates at scale globally.

Things to consider

  • Frequent travel required, including international trips.
    — “Willingness to travel (primarily domestically but sometimes internationally)
  • Must collaborate across multiple internal teams and external partners.
    — “You'll partner directly with leaders at both Afterpay and Cash App across Product, Engineering, Sales, Account Management, Marketing, Finance, Compliance, and Legal.

How to stand out

  • Demonstrate specific examples of scaling partner programs in payments.
    — “A demonstrated track record of success managing growth partnership programs, ideally in payments or fintech.
  • Highlight C-suite engagement and complex negotiation outcomes.
    — “You are an expert negotiator with a strong understanding of commercial contracts and complex negotiating dynamics.
  • Showcase data-driven problem solving in your partnership strategies.
    — “Sharp problem solving and communication skills. You're a killer sales person and strategic thinker who comes armed to internal and external conversations with the right data and analysis to make a convincing argument.
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · CompanyLevel · Lead

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • successful partnership growth
  • revenue generation
  • product distribution
Typical background
business developmentpaymentsfinance

Skills & requirements

Required

Partnership ManagementCommercial StrategyCross-functional CollaborationNegotiation

Preferred

Payments Industry KnowledgeProduct Commercialization

Stack & domain

PaymentsCommerceFinance

About the role

Original posting from Block (Square)

It all started with an idea at Block in 2013. Initially built to take the pain out of peer-to-peer payments, Cash App has gone from a simple product with a single purpose to a dynamic ecosystem, developing unique financial products, including Afterpay/Clearpay, to provide a better way to send, spend, invest, borrow and save to our 50+ million monthly active customers. We want to redefine the world's relationship with money to make it more relatable, instantly available, and universally accessible.

Today, Cash App has thousands of employees working globally across office and remote locations, with a culture geared toward innovation, collaboration and impact. We've been a distributed team since day one, and many of our roles can be done remotely from the countries where Cash App operates. No matter the location, we tailor our experience to ensure our employees are creative, productive, and happy.

The Role

The Global Payments Partnerships team leads commercialization and business development for Cash App and Afterpay's payments products. Our ambitious team develops go-to-market strategy for our commercial products, builds effective relationships with the largest players in the payments, finance, and technology industries, and drives critical results across the business. We are looking for an experienced partnerships practitioner to source and own relationships with a select list of our biggest and most strategically important partners.

This Partner Development Lead will work closely with our executive leadership team to manage and grow existing partnerships that represent the biggest upside opportunities for our business globally.

You'll partner directly with leaders at both Afterpay and Cash App across Product, Engineering, Sales, Account Management, Marketing, Finance, Compliance, and Legal. You'll drive a global strategy for your partners and execute on that strategy in conjunction with cross-functional colleagues. You will source and own primary responsibility for the performance of your partners, innovate at the cutting edge of payments, and deliver revenue that will drive growth for our core business.

The ideal candidate will have an understanding of the economics of the payments space and deep knowledge of the payments ecosystem. This individual should also have an understanding of what will be needed to properly resource a partner strategy, and work with internal stakeholders to develop a plan for ensuring the success of a partner. A deep sense of ownership, drive, and entrepreneurship is essential.

You will:

Develop growth strategy: Create and implement an overarching plan and strategy for maximizing the effectiveness of a partnership, in terms of driving profitable business impact and product distribution at scale.

Build relationships: Establish strong rapport with partners at every level (executive to working groups, across functions) to influence their decision-making and advance our goals.

Design scalable programs: Build and project manager a partnership program that both achieves our goals and meets our partners' objectives, scaling across internal and external teams and across global regions.

Commercialize payment products: Lead commercialization of new products by refining and executing our growth partner distribution strategy. Lead end-to-end partner negotiations to deliver maximum distribution of our payments products, including upsell and cross-sell of new products and features.

Lead cross-functional initiatives: Establish yourself as the go-to commercial voice for our partnership strategy and most strategic partners. Provide critical market feedback to improve our product. Drive efficiencies and improvements that accelerate business impact.

You Have:

9+ years of business development or partner management experience, preferably at an innovative payments company.

A demonstrated track record of success managing growth partnership programs, ideally in payments or fintech.

Proven ability to build C-suite relationships and navigate external organizations both to identify internal champions and to influence decision makers. You are an expert negotiator with a strong understanding of commercial contracts and complex negotiating dynamics that may be simultaneously cooperative and competitive.

A hunger to tackle complicated and impactful business problems.

Sharp problem solving and communication skills. You're a killer sales person and strategic thinker who comes armed to internal and external conversations with the right data and analysis to make a convincing argument.

Deep comfort operating in the ambiguity of an ever-evolving product that operates at scale globally.

A scrappy and humble mindset to work autonomously. You roll up your sleeves to get things done.

Willingness to travel (primarily domestically but sometimes internationally) for both internal and external meetings.

BS/BA required; MBA or Masters degree a plus

We're working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is an equal opportunity employer evaluating all employees and job applicants without regard to identity or any legally protected class. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and "fair chance" ordinances. We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we're doing to build a workplace that is fair and square? Check out our I+D page.

 

We're working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is an equal opportunity employer evaluating all employees and job applicants without regard to identity or any legally protected class. We will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment in accordance with state and local laws and “fair chance” ordinances.

We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we're doing to build a workplace that is fair and square? Check out our I+D page.

While there is no specific deadline to apply for this role, U.S. roles are typically open for an average of 55 days before being filled by a successful candidate. Please refer to the date listed at the top of this job page for when this role was first posted.

 

Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. U.S. locations are categorized into one of four zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.

To find a location’s zone designation, please refer to this resource. If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information. 

 

Zone A:$198,000—$297,000 USDZone B: $184,200—$276,200 USDZone C:$174,200—$261,400 USDZone D:$164,300—$246,500 USDApplication Guidelines

Candidates may submit up to 9 active applications within a 60-day period. Reapplications to the same role are accepted 90 days after a previous application has been reviewed.

Use of AI in Our Hiring Process

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Source: Block (Square) careers

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