Manager, Affiliate Programs

HighLevel

23h•Remote

About The Position

HighLevel is seeking an experienced Manager, Affiliate Programs to lead a pod within our affiliate expansion team. This part of the affiliate program focuses on helping HighLevel's highest-producing affiliates scale and stay motivated. Affiliates are a critical channel for HighLevel, driving the majority of net-new trials. The Expand team focuses on affiliates who have already proven their ability to produce (100+ lifetime trials) and aims to turn them into long-term partners who scale and advance within the recognition program. The ideal candidate has experience managing a book of high-profile partners, including creators, influencers, agency owners, and educators with large audiences. They should be adept at protecting these relationships while upholding policy, compliance, and performance metrics. This role requires proven experience in building and leading teams of affiliate, partner, or account managers, and developing individuals new to the role into confident operators. The candidate should be comfortable handling difficult conversations directly, resolving issues with data and standards, and escalating only when necessary. Empathy and an action-oriented approach are key, as is the ability to coach a large team of Affiliate Managers to operate independently with significant business responsibilities. This role will collaborate closely with the existing Expand Manager and the Director, Affiliate Programs to scale the Expand initiative, diversify the partner base, and develop essential playbooks and systems for the growing team.

Requirements

A track record of owning and growing a large book of high-value partner, affiliate, channel, creator/influencer, or strategic account relationships where revenue impact was measurable.
Proven people leadership: you've hired, onboarded, coached, and held accountable a team of partner or account managers, including people early in their careers.
Comfort managing high-profile, high-personality partners, including tough negotiations and emotional escalations, while staying calm, fair, and firm.
Strong analytical skills. You can read a forecast, spot trends in cohort data, build a pacing view, and turn it into a clear plan.
Experience with partner incentive structures, commission programs, tiered recognition, and contract or endorsement-based partnerships.
Operational rigor. You build repeatable processes and documentation instead of relying on tribal knowledge.
Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to influence senior internal stakeholders and external partners.
Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, high-growth environment where priorities shift and you're expected to make good calls with imperfect information.
Willingness to travel for affiliate events and key relationship meetings (approximately 1-2 times per quarter).
8+ years of experience in affiliate, partner, channel, creator/influencer, or strategic account management, ideally in SaaS.
3+ years of direct people management experience leading partner, affiliate, or account managers.
Experience owning a multi-million dollar partner or affiliate book with forecast accountability.

Nice To Haves

Experience with affiliate platforms and tools (FirstPromoter, Tipalti, or similar), CRMs, and BI tools such as Tableau.
Familiarity with the marketing agency, SMB SaaS, or creator economy space.
Working knowledge of FTC endorsement guidelines and affiliate compliance.
Experience with international partner markets.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, and develop a pod of Affiliate Managers (AFMs) who each own a named book of 100+ lifetime trial affiliates, running weekly 1:1s, book reviews, and performance conversations.
Own the pod's trial commit, forecast, and pacing. Report weekly on wins, risks, and asks, and course-correct fast when an affiliate or AFM book is slipping.
Serve as the escalation point for sensitive affiliate situations and resolve them at your level whenever possible.
Manage the endorsement motion for your pod: scope and negotiate endorsement agreements, verify deliverables, and move contracts and payouts through the Legal, Finance, and leadership approval cascade on time.
Monitor and actively grow the variety of avatars within the affiliate organization, building the next wave of top producers.
Coach AFMs to coach affiliates across the full funnel with a quality-first lens: quality lead generation, quality trial conversion, and trial-to-paid, so affiliates bring in customers who stick.
Partner with Land (acquisition) and Activation teams on clean affiliate handoffs, including context-building before graduation into Expand.
Build, document, and continuously improve Expand playbooks, SOPs, and onboarding so newer AFMs can operate independently and leader time goes to strategy, not ad-hoc troubleshooting.
Work cross-functionally with Business Development, Product Marketing, Events, Compliance, Legal, Finance, Accounts Payable, and RevOps to deliver programs, co-marketing, recognition, and payouts for your affiliates.
Partner with Compliance to ensure affiliates in your pod promote HighLevel in line with our Affiliate Program Policies and step in quickly when something needs correcting.
Help plan and participate in affiliate recognition moments and events (LevelUp, Commander experiences, affiliate-hosted events), and represent HighLevel with top affiliates in person.
Provide insights and recommendations to leadership on areas for future investment: programs, incentives, tooling, headcount, and new segments.