Tamara - Senior Manager, Channel Partnerships

• UAE partner strategy and pipeline development • Translate UAE commercial priorities and the wider channel strategy into a focused partner acquisition and growth plan. • Map and prioritise payment service providers, acquirers, POS networks, e-commerce platforms, software providers, aggregators, referral partners, and relevant vertical ecosystems. • Assess opportunities against addressable merchant base, category and segment fit, distribution reach, technical readiness, activation potential, risk profile, and expected economics. • Build and manage a qualified pipeline, with clear next steps, accountable owners, and realistic contract, launch, and revenue timelines. • Identify opportunities to extend partner distribution across online and in-store merchant journeys. • Partner acquisition and commercial negotiation • Originate and develop new channel relationships and build trusted connections with commercial and technical decision-makers. • Prepare business cases covering merchant potential, expected conversion, GMV, revenue, revenue share, integration requirements, costs, and time to value. • Recommend the appropriate approved partnership model, including integrated referral, non-integrated referral, or reseller arrangements. • Lead negotiations within delegated authority on commercial terms, incentives, partner commitments, service levels, and joint go-to-market activity. • Coordinate contracting with Legal and obtain required pricing, risk, compliance, and commercial approvals; escalate exceptions rather than committing outside approved authority. • Partner enablement and merchant activation • Build joint business plans with priority partners, including target merchant segments, acquisition motions, activation milestones, and commercial commitments. • Equip partner sales and support teams with training, product knowledge, sales playbooks, collateral, and clear escalation routes. • Coordinate co-marketing, campaigns, referrals, and merchant outreach with Marketing and UAE Sales teams. • Establish clear rules for lead registration, attribution, routing, ownership, and handoffs to avoid channel conflict and duplication. • Improve conversion from partner-sourced lead to onboarded merchant, first transaction, and sustained activity. • Identify expansion opportunities within partner portfolios, including additional merchant categories, online and in-store adoption, and eligible product propositions. • Portfolio growth and partner relationship management • Own the performance and health of the assigned UAE partner portfolio against agreed acquisition, activation, GMV, revenue, and quality goals. • Run regular performance reviews and quarterly business reviews with priority partners, supported by clear scorecards and action plans. • Develop senior relationships, manage commercial escalations, and coordinate timely resolution of partner issues. • Diagnose underperformance across the funnel and implement recovery plans with partner and internal owners. • Track and analyze key partner performance metrics—including lead-to-conversion rates, GMV velocity, cohort retention, and yield—using data-driven insights to evaluate channel ROI, detect underperformance early, and optimize strategic focus. • Your expertise: • Your expertise: • Demonstrated success building and scaling partner channels that delivered measurable merchant or customer acquisition, activation, revenue, and GMV. • Strong understanding of referral, reseller, aggregator, marketplace, payment-provider, acquirer, and POS partnership models. • Proven ability to negotiate complex commercial agreements, revenue shares, pricing structures, incentives, and multi-year commitments. • Experience managing technical integrations and cross-functional launch programs with Product, Engineering, Operations, Legal, Risk, Compliance, and Finance. • Strong commercial and analytical capability across pipeline, conversion, unit economics, partner profitability, cohort quality, and forecasting. • Experience designing partner tiering, enablement, scorecards, QBRs, rules of engagement, and incentive models. • Ability to balance ambitious growth with regulatory, credit, fraud, settlement, and operational considerations. • Strong senior stakeholder management and executive communication skills, internally and with partners. • Experience leading multi-market or geographically distributed partnership teams. • Familiarity GCC commerce platforms, PSPs, acquirers, POS providers, and merchant ecosystems is strongly preferred. • Arabic capability is advantageous; excellent English communication is required.