About this role
We are looking for a driven, commercially-minded Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager to join our expanding global Partnerships team, based in San Francisco and supporting Sokin's next stage of growth across North America. This is a ground-floor opportunity to build Sokin's enterprise and platform-distribution partnerships motion from scratch in the US: rather than a single-client pipeline, you will target category-leading platforms and ecosystems - ecommerce, payments, vertical software, marketplaces - and architect deals that embed Sokin's cross-border payments and treasury infrastructure directly into their products, reaching thousands of businesses through a single signed agreement.
About Us
Sokin is a next-generation B2B financial services provider, enabling businesses to make and receive global payments with greater speed, lower cost, and total transparency.
Our mission is simple: we’re simplifying global business - so businesses thrive wherever they choose to grow. We deliver services across:
• Global payments and receivables
• Foreign Exchange (FX)
• Treasury management
• Finance reconciliations
We are rapidly expanding, with established presence in EMEA, APAC, and North America, backed by a strong global infrastructure and industry-leading partners, we are redefining how businesses move money worldwide.
Our clients span industries from sports and entertainment to logistics and travel, and our community is growing rapidly. As we continue to expand, we’re building a team of exceptional people who share our ambition to transform the future of global payments.
Key Responsibilities
1. Platform & Distribution Deal Development
· Identify, target, and pursue the highest-leverage partnership opportunities across ecommerce, marketplaces, vertical software, and other platforms where Sokin's target customers already operate - making Sokin the embedded cross-border payments and treasury layer underneath them
· Own the full deal lifecycle from outreach and business-case development through commercial negotiation, legal close, integration scoping, and launch, engaging decision-makers up to senior executive and C-suite level
· Collaborate with cross-functional teams (Product, Engineering, Legal, Finance, GTM) to ensure successful integration and execution of embedded and API-driven partnerships
· Work closely with Sokin's global Partnerships leadership to align on target segments, account prioritisation, and how the US enterprise motion connects to our EMEA and APAC partnership programs
2. Deal Structuring
· Architect bespoke partnership structures - embedded finance arrangements, deep API integrations, co-distribution models - that create strategic lock-in and measurable commercial impact
· Leverage Sokin's full product suite (global payments, FX, treasury, reconciliations) as strategic currency in negotiations, matching capabilities to each partner's specific needs
· Develop and pressure-test the business case for each partnership, modelling deal economics and aligning cross-functional stakeholders at Sokin
3. Relationship Management
· Warm handover of closed partnerships to the relationship/account management team, ensuring a smooth transition and clear context on the account
· Support the relationship manager where needed during the early stages of the partnership
4. Market & Sector Focus
· Build a strong understanding of the US payments landscape, including fintech, platforms, ecommerce, marketplaces, travel, and logistics
· Target enterprise and platform-scale organisations where an embedded partnership unlocks distribution at scale, not just a single account
Qualifications:
· 8-10+ years of progressive experience in strategic partnerships, business development, or enterprise sales within financial services, payments, or a high-growth technology company
· A track record of closing platform-scale deals that unlocked distribution at scale - embedding a product into a platform, ecosystem, or distribution channel that reached far more customers than a direct sales motion
· An existing, activatable network at the senior executive and C-suite level within your target ecosystem
· Deep experience structuring embedded or API-driven deals, with the technical credibility to hold a substantive conversation about integration architecture, even without writing code yourself
· Solid understanding of cross-border payments, FX, and the US regulatory environment
· Strong commercial and financial fluency - able to model deal economics and negotiate complex incentive arrangements
· The ability to operate in ambiguity and build a new function from scratch
· Strong negotiation, communication, and stakeholder management skills; commercially driven and able to work autonomously against targets
· Passion for payments, fintech innovation, and evolving digital ecosystems
