Vice President, Strategic Partnerships

About the Role: We are looking for a strategic, commercially driven leader to join Upgrade as our VP, Strategic Partnerships, playing a pivotal role in expanding our personal lending business through high-impact enterprise partnerships. In this role, you will lead the development of strategic white-label partnerships with financial institutions, fintechs, and major consumer-facing brands, enabling them to offer personal loans under their own brand, powered by Upgrade's lending platform. You will be responsible for identifying and engaging high-value partners, building relationships with senior decision-makers, and independently structuring and negotiating complex commercial agreements. With a strong understanding of partnership economics and P&L impact, you'll evaluate opportunities that drive meaningful revenue growth and long-term profitability for Upgrade's personal lending business. Working closely with executive leadership and cross-functional teams across Finance, Product, Engineering, Legal, Compliance, and Risk, you'll help shape partnership strategies, navigate technical integrations, and bring new opportunities to market. This is a highly visible, hands-on leadership opportunity for someone who thrives on building executive relationships, negotiating strategic deals, and turning commercial opportunities into scalable businesses. You'll have significant autonomy to shape a growing partnership channel, with opportunities to collaborate directly with senior leadership and contribute to emerging AI-driven products and initiatives. This is a remote-flexible position for candidates based in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, or Delaware, and requires occasional travel for partner meetings. What you’ll do: Sourcing & Pipeline • Build and manage a pipeline of prospective white-label partners. • Develop and prioritize a target list based on strategic fit, reach, and revenue potential. • Represent Upgrade at industry events and in outbound outreach to build a network of decision-makers at prospective partners. • Source potential partnerships to support Upgrade's emerging AI-driven product initiatives beyond personal loans Deal Structuring & Negotiation • Lead commercial negotiations for partnership agreements, including economics, exclusivity, SLAs, and branding terms. • Partner with Legal, Finance, and Risk to structure deals that meet Upgrade's compliance and margin requirements. • Own the business case and internal approval process for each partnership, from term sheet through signed contract. Onboarding & Launch • Own the end-to-end onboarding of signed partners — project-managing integration, compliance review, branding/marketing/UX approvals, and go-live. • Serve as the primary point of contact for partners during implementation, coordinating Engineering, Product, Compliance, and Ops to hit launch dates. • Build repeatable onboarding playbooks and SLAs to shorten time-to-launch as the partner roster grows. What We Look For: • 10+ years in strategic partnerships, business development, or a related deal-making role, with a track record of sourcing and closing complex commercial agreements. • Experience in fintech, consumer lending, or financial services — comfortable with regulatory, compliance, and risk considerations • Demonstrated ability to manage a deal from first outreach through signed contract and through live launch. • Strong cross-functional leadership: proven ability to align Legal, Compliance, Risk, Product, and Engineering around a partner launch timeline. • Excellent negotiation and executive presence; comfortable representing Upgrade large enterprise partner leadership. Nice to Have: • Direct experience structuring white-label or embedded finance partnerships (co-branded cards, priva