Head of Enterprise and Strategic Partnerships

Mercury•Portland, OR

5d•$273,600 - $380,000

About The Position

Mercury is seeking a leader to land high-impact platform partnerships that can significantly expand the company’s reach. The role owns Mercury’s most ambitious relationships, including efforts to become the default bank for AI platforms and the core banking partner for merchants. It is measured on agreements that create distribution at a scale beyond direct sales. The person in this role will originate and develop bespoke, first-of-a-kind deals with senior executives at major technology companies and platforms. They will take partnerships from initial conversations and business cases through negotiation, legal close, integration planning, and launch. The role also establishes Mercury’s enterprise partnerships function and playbook, works across internal teams and with bank partners, and hires and leads a team as the partnership motion grows. The position reports to Mercury’s leadership team and has a direct line to the CEO. In the first year, success means signing platform-scale agreements in AI and commerce with clear integration plans, committed executive sponsors on both sides, and measurable distribution, while building a repeatable playbook and network of relationships.

Requirements

15+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, or corporate development.
Senior leadership experience at a category-defining technology company or platform.
A record of personally originating and closing one-of-a-kind deals, with the ability to explain the counterparty, structure, economics, and personal contribution in detail.
Personal, recent relationships with senior executives at leading technology companies who will take meetings directly.
Deep experience structuring embedded, API-driven, or distribution deals.
Understanding of how technical integrations create commercial advantages and how to negotiate them.
Strong commercial and financial fluency, including modeling economics for both sides, structuring complex incentives, and negotiating with sophisticated counterparties.
Executive presence and the ability to earn trust with Finance, Product, Engineering, and Legal and align the company behind a deal.
Comfort building a function from scratch.
Technical credibility sufficient to discuss APIs, integration architecture, and embedding financial infrastructure in another platform; coding is not required.

Nice To Haves

Experience in fintech, payments, embedded finance, or AI-native products.

Responsibilities

Own Mercury’s top partnership targets across the AI ecosystem and major commerce, productivity, and vertical software platforms.
Personally open doors with C-suite and senior executives using an existing network of relationships.
Manage deals through the full lifecycle, from initial conversation and business case to term negotiation, legal close, integration scoping, and launch.
Design bespoke partnership structures, including embedded finance programs, deep API and agent integrations, co-distribution models, and joint product experiences.
Use Mercury’s banking, payments, cards, APIs, MCP, and CLI tooling to address partner needs.
Model deal economics for both parties, pressure-test business cases, and align Finance, Product, Engineering, Legal, and Risk leaders.
Define the enterprise partnerships playbook, including target selection, positioning, negotiation approach, and measures of success.
Account for bank-partner and regulator expectations so complex integrations can launch and scale safely.
Hire and develop the team as the enterprise partnerships motion grows.