The posting
We are seeking a Director of Partnerships for a full time and direct hire role for one of our amazing partners in the travel & tour industry. This role is remote, but living is Southern California is preferred. You MUST be living in the United States, and you MUST be a US Citizen or Green Card Holder. This role does NOT offer sponsorship, it's NOT a consulting role, and we do NOT work with 3rd parties!
Overview:
Our client is a growing travel company expanding its presence across the U.S. travel advisor and partnership ecosystem. They are looking for a Director of Partnerships with deep knowledge of the U.S. travel advisor landscape, established industry relationships, strong commercial instincts, and a track record of building partnerships that generate profitable revenue. You will build and scale this channel into a significant driver of revenue and long-term growth. This leader will develop relationships with major travel advisor organizations, host agencies, consortia, national and regional agency networks, AAA organizations, and other strategic partners. This is a hands-on, highly visible leadership role. You'll own the partnership strategy and commercial plan while personally managing key national relationships. At the same time, you'll work closely with a 30+ person Business Development team to activate partners at the local level and turn relationships into measurable production.
This is an opportunity to build a major growth channel from the ground up and have significant influence over the company's partnership strategy. You'll have direct access to senior leadership, ownership of important national relationships, and the opportunity to shape how the organization works with the travel advisor community. This is more than managing existing accounts. It's an opportunity to build partnerships, create a scalable channel, and directly influence revenue growth.
Success in this role will be reflected in:
- Revenue and contribution profit generated through the partnership channel.
- Growth and quality of the national partnership and key-account pipeline.
- New strategic partnerships secured and successfully launched.
- Revenue and production generated by new and existing partners.
- Strong partner engagement, activation, and retention.
- Effective adoption and execution by the field sales organization.
- Improved visibility into pipeline, forecasts, partner performance, and ROI.
- Successful coordination across Sales, Marketing, Operations, Product, Technology, and other internal teams.
Responsibilities:
Partnership Strategy & Growth
- Develop and execute the strategy for expanding the company's travel advisor and strategic partnership channel.
- Build annual operating plans, budgets, revenue targets, and investment priorities.
- Identify and prioritize the partnerships and markets with the greatest growth potential.
- Monitor channel performance and adjust strategy based on revenue, profitability, pipeline, and market opportunity.
National Partnerships & Key Accounts
- Build and manage a pipeline of high-value partnership opportunities.
- Develop relationships with senior executives, owners, and decision-makers across priority organizations.
- Lead the full partnership process, from initial outreach and business development through business cases, negotiation, contracting, launch, and ongoing growth.
- Personally manage major national partnerships and selected strategic accounts.
- Develop joint business plans, executive reviews, growth strategies, and renewal plans.
- Establish appropriate partner economics across commissions, marketing, inventory, service, technology, and reporting.
Build the Partner Experience
- Work cross-functionally to ensure the organization is prepared to support and scale new partnerships.
- Partner with Operations, Product, Inventory, Client Services, Technology, and Marketing to address operational requirements and remove barriers to growth.
- Help define the tools, processes, service standards, reporting, and technology needed to create a strong partner experience.
- Translate partner needs into clear internal priorities while maintaining sound economics and operational discipline.
Activate the Field Sales Team
- Establish clear roles between national partnership management and local Business Development activity.
- Partner with Sales leadership to equip and mobilize 30+ BDMs to develop local relationships and drive advisor engagement.
- Establish expectations, sales routines, training, and accountability around partner activation.
- Ensure the field team is building the right relationships, maintaining accurate account data, and following through on partner opportunities.
- Use CRM and performance data to identify opportunities to improve activation, conversion, and revenue.
Events & Industry Presence
- Develop and oversee the strategy for conferences, trade shows, partner events, and other industry activities.
- Determine where the company should invest time and resources based on expected business impact.
- Ensure strong pre-event planning, executive engagement, follow-up, and measurement of ROI.
Responsibilities:
- 10+ years of experience in U.S. leisure travel sales, strategic partnerships, national accounts, business development, or a closely related field.
- Deep understanding of the U.S. travel advisor ecosystem and established relationships with senior leaders across relevant distribution organizations.
- Proven success sourcing, negotiating, launching, and growing national partnerships that generate measurable revenue.
- Strong commercial understanding of partner economics, budgets, forecasting, business cases, and revenue growth.
- Experience working with or mobilizing a distributed field sales organization.
- Demonstrated ability to influence and coordinate senior stakeholders across multiple functions without direct authority.
- Strong CRM discipline and experience using data to manage pipelines, forecasts, account plans, and performance.
- HubSpot or Salesforce experience preferred.
- Exceptional executive communication, presentation, relationship-building, and negotiation skills.
- Comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment where you'll need to be both strategic and hands-on.
- Strong ownership mentality with the ability to move opportunities forward without waiting for perfect conditions.
- Experience with one or more of the following is a plus: Group travel, Escorted tours, River cruises, Travel advisor distribution, Host agencies or consortia, AAA or affinity organizations, Travel booking technology and Travel industry conferences and events.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, age, ancestry, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, or military or veteran status. You must be legally authorized to work in the United States without current or future sponsorship.
