Business Development Director, Channel Partnerships – Contractor

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Arizona, +17 more states.

📋 Description

• Take charge of Known’s global channel strategy involving cloud service providers, trust and identity platforms, global systems integrators, and strategic technology partners.

• Focus on ecosystem initiatives that enhance distribution, adoption, implementation capacity, and revenue leverage for DNSid.

• Define the roles of partners and create scalable business models, incentives, and engagement frameworks.

• Manage high-value strategic partnerships with cloud service providers, trust providers, and other ecosystem collaborators.

• Foster executive alignment and create joint business plans that promote integrations, customer adoption, pipeline generation, and commercial success.

• Develop consistent sell-with, sell-through, build-with, and integrate-with partner strategies.

• Oversee the GSI strategy and team responsible for implementation methodologies, reference architectures, enablement, and collaborative go-to-market strategies.

• Lead Customer Success in transforming early deployments into reference implementations and replicable adoption playbooks.

• Position DNSid within enterprise architectures, transformation initiatives, and industry solutions.

• Act as the senior commercial lead for the partner ecosystem, aligning partner strategy with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and go-to-market priorities.

• Represent Known to senior partner executives and at strategic industry events.

• Establish 10–15 strategic ecosystem partnerships and secure 5–8 active design partners within the first year.

• Finalize initial enterprise commercial agreements and help influence the product roadmap through customer insights.

⛳️ Requirements

• 7–10 years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, alliances, or ecosystem leadership within the enterprise technology sector.

• Proven success in building and scaling strategic partnerships in areas such as cloud, enterprise technology, security, identity, trust, and/or global systems integrators.

• Demonstrated ability to transform emerging technologies and partnership models from inception to execution, developing the necessary strategy, commercial model, and operational frameworks for growth.

• Strong business and technical acumen across product, engineering, architecture, security, and executive stakeholders.

• Excellent commercial judgment and experience in structuring partnership economics, incentives, joint business plans, and complex strategic agreements.

• Capacity to link partner economics, technical integration, and customer value to create scalable partner offerings.

• Outstanding executive communication, negotiation, and relationship-building abilities.

• Experience in leading teams and influencing across organizational boundaries.

• Strategic, AI-native operational mindset with a focus on execution, measurable outcomes, and adaptability in a fast-paced, uncertain environment.

• Legally authorized to work in the US with all necessary permits, licenses, and authorizations to function as a contractor.

🏝️ Benefits

• Sales incentive plan upon transition to full-time employment.

• Possibility of transitioning to full-time employment following an initial contractor engagement period.

• Equal opportunity and non-discrimination protections.