Director, Business Development and Partnerships

Hazelcast is seeking a foundational leader for their Business Development and Partnerships team. This role involves defining and executing the global ecosystem strategy, building partnerships, and driving measurable commercial impact through strategic partner engagements.

Responsibilities:

• Design Hazelcast’s global partner strategy from the ground up, defining partner archetypes (GSI, Regional SI, OEM, Cloud, VAR) and use-case-specific GTM motions (e.g., BFSI, payments, real-time analytics)
• Develop and present clear, data-backed recommendations for approval to the CEO and executive team, whilst defining success metrics, economic models, and investment tradeoffs for the partnerships function
• Personally source, negotiate, and close foundational partnerships with Strategic GSIs, consulting partners, and key technology alliances
• Own early-stage partner economics, including margin structures, referral/resale models, and joint solution packaging
• Build and execute joint GTM plans, including target account mapping, joint solution narratives, and field enablement for both Hazelcast Sales Directors and partner sellers
• Accountable for Partner-sourced pipeline, Partner-influenced ACV, Time-to-first-deal per partner and act as a deal quarterback on strategic partner-led opportunities
• Work cross-functionally with Sales leadership on rules of engagement, and with Product, Engineering, and Marketing (partner messaging, co-marketing, events) to execute the partner-driven roadmap and strategy
• Once the motion is proven, you will hire, build, and scale the global partnerships team

Requirements:

• 10–15+ years in Business Development, Strategic Partnerships, or Alliances within the enterprise software space
• A demonstrated track record of creating (not just inheriting) partner strategies and programs
• Proven ability to source, negotiate, and close complex, multi-party enterprise deals and OEM distribution opportunities
• Strong instincts for designing economic models that drive partner motivation while protecting company margins
• Comfortable operating at the CEO and Board level, with the ability to present data-backed recommendations
• Experience operating in global markets with high cultural fluency
• Experience with complex, infrastructure-level technologies (distributed systems, data streaming, or in-memory computing) is strongly preferred