Senior Director, MSP Partner Development

Arete

6d

About The Position

The Senior Director, MSP Partner Development is an individual contributor responsible for driving partner-led growth by recruiting, onboarding, and activating Managed Service Providers (MSPs) as partners for Arete's Incident Response (IR) and Managed Security Services (MSS) portfolio. This role is accountable for building a high-velocity MSP partner pipeline and signing 100 MSPs as partners through targeted outreach, relationship development, enablement, and coordinated go-to-market execution. Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Commercial Strategy and Growth, this role focuses on execution rather than team management or long-range channel strategy ownership. Success in this position is measured by signed partner agreements, activated partners, partner-sourced opportunities, and revenue contribution across Arete's IR and MSS service lines.

Requirements

• Excellent verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills
• Strong business development and partner acquisition capabilities within cybersecurity, managed services, or technology services environments
• Working knowledge of the MSP ecosystem, including partner operating models, buying behavior, and common platform environments
• Demonstrated ability to prospect, develop, and close channel or partner relationships with measurable results
• Strong consultative selling and relationship-building skills with the ability to engage decision-makers across executive, sales, and technical functions
• Highly organized, disciplined, and metrics-oriented approach to pipeline management and partner development
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment
• Experience using CRM platforms such as Salesforce to manage outreach activity, pipeline, forecasting, and reporting
• Bachelor's degree and 8+ years of industry experience, or Master's degree and 6+ years of related experience, or Doctorate and 4+ years of related experience
• Proven success in business development, channel sales, partner development, or ecosystem growth roles
• Direct experience working with MSPs, MSSPs, channel partners, or adjacent technology partner ecosystems
• Demonstrated track record of recruiting and activating partners that generate measurable pipeline and revenue impact
• Ability to travel for partner meetings, conferences, and field events as needed

Nice To Haves

• Understanding of incident response, managed detection and response, managed security services, and adjacent cybersecurity offerings preferred
• Experience in cybersecurity, incident response, managed security services, SaaS, or other complex B2B services environments preferred

Responsibilities

• MSP Partner Recruitment and Growth Own a defined target to recruit, sign, and activate 100 MSPs as Arete partners annually for Incident Response and Managed Security Services
• Build and manage a robust pipeline of prospective MSP partners through outbound prospecting, referrals, conferences, ecosystem relationships, and targeted account outreach
• Identify and prioritize high-value MSP prospects based on ideal partner profile criteria, geographic fit, service maturity, customer base, and opportunity potential across both incident response and managed security services
• Conduct discovery conversations, position Arete's value proposition, and advance prospective partners from initial engagement through signed agreement and activation
• Maintain a disciplined cadence of outreach, follow-up, and pipeline progression to ensure consistent partner acquisition results
• Partner Onboarding and Activation Lead partner onboarding activities to ensure newly signed MSPs are enabled to introduce, position, and refer Arete's incident response and managed security services
• Coordinate with internal stakeholders to deliver partner training, sales enablement materials, process documentation, and operational readiness support
• Drive time-to-first-referral and time-to-first-opportunity metrics across newly recruited partners
• Develop practical activation plans for each partner to increase engagement, referral readiness, and early-stage pipeline generation across IR and MSS offerings
• Monitor partner activity and engagement levels, identifying gaps and executing follow-up plans to improve activation rates
• Revenue and Pipeline Development Generate partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline through consistent co-selling engagement with MSP partners
• Collaborate with sales leadership and account executives to ensure effective handoff, follow-up, and conversion of partner-generated opportunities across the IR and MSS portfolio
• Maintain accurate pipeline visibility, forecast updates, and activity tracking in Salesforce and other internal systems
• Track performance against key commercial metrics, including signed partners, activated partners, referral volume, opportunity creation, pipeline value, and closed revenue
• Deliver consistent progress against monthly, quarterly, and annual growth targets for the MSP partner motion
• Relationship Management and Ecosystem Engagement Build trusted working relationships with MSP owners, executives, sales leaders, and technical leaders to drive long-term partner engagement
• Represent Arete in the MSP community through direct meetings, industry events, partner briefings, and ecosystem networking opportunities
• Identify opportunities to expand partner engagement through co-marketing, joint campaigns, webinars, regional events, and field-level collaboration
• Serve as the primary commercial point of contact for assigned MSP partners throughout the recruitment and activation lifecycle
• Capture market feedback from MSP partners and communicate insights to leadership, marketing, and service delivery teams to strengthen Arete's IR and MSS partner motion
• Cross-Functional Collaboration Work closely with Marketing, Legal, Finance, Sales, and Service Delivery to support partner recruitment, contracting, onboarding, and ongoing activation
• Coordinate execution of partner agreements, enablement workflows, referral processes, and internal reporting requirements
• Ensure a strong partner experience by removing friction from onboarding, communications, and opportunity handoff processes
• Support refinement of partner messaging, outreach campaigns, and enablement content based on field feedback and conversion performance
• Perform other duties as assigned by management

Benefits

• competitive salaries
• fully paid benefits including Medical/Dental, Life/Disability Insurance
• 401(k)
• opportunity to work with some of the latest and greatest in the fast-growing cyber security industry

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director