Manager - Partnerships & Alliances

noqodi grows faster through partners than on its own. This role finds, signs and manages the fintech partnerships that bring noqodi new customers, new products and new revenue: fintechs and platforms that embed noqodi's gateway, wallet and acquiring; providers whose products noqodi adds to its platform; and channels that let customers fund and use their noqodi wallets.

The Manager owns each partnership from first conversation to signed contract, launch and ongoing performance, and makes sure every partnership earns its place commercially

1. Partnership strategy and pipeline

• Build noqodi's fintech partnership strategy with the Director – Commercials, in line with the commercial plan and product roadmap.

• Map the UAE and regional fintech landscape and identify the partners that add the most customers, products or revenue.

• Build and manage a pipeline of partnership opportunities, prioritised by commercial value and fit.

2. Deal structuring and negotiation

• Lead negotiations from first meeting to signed agreement.

• Structure the commercial model for each partnership: revenue share, referral fees, licence and implementation fees, white-label and wholesale pricing.

• Build the business case for each deal with Business Intelligence, showing expected volumes, revenue, cost and margin.

• Prepare term sheets, MoUs and partnership agreements with Legal, and make sure terms protect noqodi's revenue, data and exclusivity rights.

3. Due diligence and approvals

• Assess each partner's financial strength, technology, security and regulatory standing with Compliance, Risk and IT.

• Support strategic opportunities such as licensing, joint ventures or investments, working with external advisers on due diligence.

• Take partnership proposals through internal approvals and, where needed, to management and the board.

4. Launch and integration

• Work with Product and IT to plan and deliver each integration, from technical scoping to go-live.

• Agree the go-to-market plan with each partner: target customers, joint offers, marketing and sales enablement.

• Make sure operations, settlement, reconciliation and support are ready before launch.

5. Partner performance management

• Track each partnership's volumes, revenue, active customers and service levels against its business case.

• Hold regular business reviews with each partner and agree actions to grow the partnership or fix issues.

• Check, with Revenue Assurance, that partner revenue shares and fees are calculated, billed and collected correctly.

• Recommend renewing, expanding, renegotiating or ending each partnership based on its results.

6. Market intelligence and ecosystem

• Track fintech trends, new players and competitor partnerships in the UAE and the region.

• Follow Central Bank of the UAE regulation that affects partnerships, including stored value, retail payment services and open finance.

• Represent noqodi at fintech events and in industry forums, and build relationships with fintech hubs and investors.

Requirements

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics or a related field.

• MBA or a relevant postgraduate qualification is an advantage.

Experience

• 8+ years in partnerships, alliances, business development or corporate development in payments, fintech or banking.

• A track record of signing and growing commercial partnerships with measurable revenue results.

• Experience negotiating revenue share, licensing and white-label agreements.

• Experience with a payment gateway, acquirer, wallet, BNPL, issuing processor or card scheme is a strong advantage.

• An existing network across the UAE fintech and payments ecosystem is a strong advantage.

Technical and payments knowledge

• The payments value chain: gateways, acquiring, payment facilitators, schemes, issuing, wallets and settlement.

• Payment methods including cards, tokenised wallets, BNPL, Aani and account-to-account payments.

• How integrations work: APIs, SDKs, hosted pages and settlement files.

• Partnership economics: MDR, interchange, revenue share and unit economics.

• UAE payments regulation, including the Central Bank's stored value, retail payment services and open finance frameworks.

Skills

• Strong negotiator who closes deals that work for both sides.

• Commercial and analytical: builds and tests business cases.

• Builds trust with founders, senior executives and technical teams.

• Clear writer and presenter, comfortable presenting to management and the board.

• Manages many partners and projects at once, and follows through to launch.