Partnership Development Director, Product & Infrastructure – Digital Assets

At Early Warning, we’ve powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting-edge solutions like Zelle®, Paze℠, and so much more. As a trusted name in payments, we partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Positions located in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York follow a hybrid work model to allow for a more collaborative working environment.

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire. This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

Overall Purpose:

The Director, Product & Infrastructure Partnerships – Digital Assets will lead  the sourcing, evaluation, building , structuring, and managing strategic technology partnerships across the digital asset infrastructure stack, including stablecoin, blockchain, custody, and compliance tooling providers.

This role is responsible for helping define and build the technology stack that supports Early Warning’s digital asset architecture, including partnerships across blockchain infrastructure, stablecoin issuance and ecosystem services, custody, settlement, compliance, monitoring, payments processing, messaging, and related infrastructure providers.

The position combines technical partnership strategy, executive relationship management, commercial negotiation, implementation oversight, and partner governance to ensure selected third-party capabilities support Early Warning’s product, architecture, risk, resiliency, security, and regulatory objectives.

Essential Functions:

• Act as the primary promoter of all Early Warning vision, products and solutions across customer executive teams and business units and assists the customer in maximizing the effectiveness of existing products.

• Lead identification, evaluation, negotiation, and lifecycle management of digital asset infrastructure partnerships (e.g., blockchain platforms, stablecoin ecosystem partners, custody/settlement providers, and compliance tooling).

• Structure commercial agreements and joint operating constructs that support scalable ecosystem participation and long-term flexibility.

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Security, Architecture, Risk, and Legal to assess partner capabilities meet security, resiliency, integration, and third-party risk standards.

• Establish governance and performance frameworks (KPIs/SLAs) for infrastructure partners and drive ongoing health checks and optimization.

• Hold primary responsibility for identification, evaluation, and onboarding of new Early Warning partners, driving new revenue streams, capabilities, client platforms and data exchanges.

• Develop and provide both internal and external vision and business cases to support partner development.

• Provide partner executives with Early Warning value summaries, product usage reviews, upcoming product enhancements, and overall Early Warning product roadmap.

• Working with Corporate Strategy, Product, external clients and internal teams to identify and nurture prospective partnerships aligned with the Early Warning Strategy.

• The role will partner closely with Corporate Strategy, Product and the Sales Enablement team to ensure a results-focused approach to customer success.

• Serve as primary business conduit for partners into Early Warning for all lines of business during the relationship development and onboarding processes.

• Utilize strong understanding of customer strategy and organizational structure to develop and articulate value proposition around using Early Warning products, ensure continued product usage and identify additional opportunities for growth.

• Ensure partners understand and adhere to Early Warning’s rules, data governance policies, data security polices and business practices and standards.

• Ensure that Salesforce.com is kept updated and current for all partnership opportunities, contacts, projects, and legal efforts within the assigned portfolio on a weekly basis.

• Drive and own Partner Satisfaction throughout the process.

• Support the company’s commitment to protect the integrity and confidentiality of systems and data.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Education and experience typically obtained through completion of a Bachelor’s degree in business, finance or other related field

• Typically 12+ years of strategic partnerships, product partnerships, technical partnerships, relationship management, business development, technology partnership management, or related roles.

• Experience developing and managing partnerships involving digital asset infrastructure, fintech platforms, payment networks, regulated technology providers, or other complex technical ecosystems.

• Demonstrated ability to evaluate technology partners and translate technical, commercial, operational, risk, and regulatory considerations into partnership recommendations.

• Proven experience structuring and negotiating complex commercial agreements with technical, operational, implementation, and governance dependencies.

• Proven partnership or sales experience with payment, fraud and risk-based technology solutions, with a primary focus on strong partner development with revenue delivery in the financial services sector

• Strong consultative, conceptual and strategic selling skills

• Ability to work as a key member of a team-based selling organization, providing leadership and mentoring to less-experienced members of the team

• Ability to use a structured sales methodology

• Excellent active listening skills

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

• Demonstrates professionalism

• Must be able to travel up to 50%, including internationally

• Background and drug screen

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with stablecoin, tokenization, custody, blockchain infrastructure, or regulated crypto market structure.

• Proven experience building or scaling product partnerships that directly support technology architecture, product capabilities, or infrastructure delivery.

• Proven experience executing strategic partnerships from identification and evaluation through negotiation, implementation, governance, and optimization.

• Experience working with financial institutions, fintechs, payment networks, regulated technology providers, or digital asset infrastructure companies.

• Experience supporting international or cross-border payment, remittance, settlement, or network infrastructure initiatives.

Physical Requirements

Early Warning works together in a highly collaborative office environment.  As such, working conditions consist of a normal office environment. Work is primarily sedentary and requires extensive use of a computer and involves sitting for periods of approximately four hours. Work may require occasional standing, walking, kneeling and reaching. Must be able to lift 10 pounds occasionally and/or negligible amount of force frequently. Requires visual acuity and dexterity to view, prepare, and manipulate documents and office equipment including personal computers. Requires the ability to communicate with internal and/or external customers.

Employee must be able to perform essential functions and physical requirements of position with or without reasonable accommodation.

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States at the date of hire.

The base pay scale for this position in:

Phoenix, AZ / Chicago, IL / Remote in USD per year is: $154,000 - $232,000.

New York, NY/ San Francisco, CA in USD per year is: $209,000 - $255,000.

Additionally, candidates are eligible for a discretionary incentive plan and benefits.

This pay scale is subject to change and is not necessarily reflective of actual compensation that may be earned, nor a promise of any specific pay for any specific candidate, which is always dependent on legitimate factors considered at the time of job offer. Early Warning Services takes into consideration a variety of factors when determining a competitive salary offer, including, but not limited to, the job scope, market rates and geographic location of a position, candidate’s education, experience, training, and specialized skills or certification(s) in relation to the job requirements and compared with internal equity (peers). The business actively supports and reviews wage equity to ensure that pay decisions are not based on gender, race, national origin, or any other protected classes.

Some of the Ways We Prioritize Your Health and Happiness 

• Healthcare Coverage – Competitive medical (PPO/HDHP), dental, and vision plans as well as company contributions to your Health Savings Account (HSA) or pre-tax savings through flexible spending accounts (FSA) for commuting, health & dependent care expenses.

• 401(k) Retirement Plan – Featuring a 100% Company Safe Harbor Match on your first 6% deferral immediately upon eligibility.

• Paid Time Off – Flexible Time Off for Exempt (salaried) employees, as well as generous PTO for Non-Exempt (hourly) employees, plus 11 paid company holidays and a paid volunteer day.

• 12 weeks of Paid Parental Leave

• Maven Family Planning – provides support through your Parenting journey including egg freezing, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, postpartum, early pediatrics, and returning to work.

And SO much more! We continue to enhance our program, so be sure to check our Benefits page here for the latest. Our team can share more during the interview process!

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Early Warning Services, LLC (“Early Warning”) considers for employment, hires, retains and promotes qualified candidates on the basis of ability, potential, and valid qualifications without regard to race, religious creed, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, protected veteran or disability status or any factor prohibited by law, and as such affirms in policy and practice to support and promote equal employment opportunity and affirmative action, in accordance with all applicable federal, state, and municipal laws. The company also prohibits discrimination on other bases such as medical condition, marital status or any other factor that is irrelevant to the performance of our employees.