Head of Strategic Planning & Operations, Partnerships

About Gusto

Gusto is a modern, online people platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. On top of full-service payroll, Gusto offers health insurance, 401(k)s, expert HR, and team management tools.

Today, Gusto offices in Denver, San Francisco, and New York serve more than 300,000 businesses nationwide.

Our mission is to create a world where work empowers a better life, and it starts right here at Gusto. That’s why we’re committed to building a collaborative and inclusive workplace, both physically and virtually.

Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy .

About the Role :

In this role, you will provide strategic and operational support to the Partnerships team within the Revenue organization (Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Revenue Operations, Partnerships).

Partnerships has built an ecosystem of 200 partners, all of whom work closely with Gusto to build excellent products and integrations for our small business customers.

We strive to help customers in new ways together with our product and channel partners, provide a world-class customer experience, and grow revenue for Gusto as a result.

We’re looking for a seasoned Strategy & Operations professional to help drive key initiatives across the business and with our partner ecosystem.

Role Overview :

The ideal candidate will have been a leader on past Partnerships and / or Revenue teams, with a proven track record in developing strategy, advancing objectives, scaling operations, and owning strategic programs with measurable outcomes.

The role requires someone who is both detail-oriented and able to see the broader strategic picture, with the ability to navigate, influence other leaders and departments, and thrive in a high-growth environment.

Key Responsibilities :

Develop and execute strategy and cross-functional programs that advance Partnerships objectives with tangible, measurable results that are delivered on time.

Examples : partnerships account tiering, building business cases for new areas of investment, etc.

• Design, build, and scale operational playbooks (e.g., partner onboarding and offboarding) and evaluate tools (e.g., analytics or PRM software) that accelerate Partnerships and revenue teams’ outcomes, driving efficiency and alignment.
• Hire, empower, and optimize a team of 2-3 strategy and operations professionals.
• Partner with and influence leaders from product, engineering, marketing, sales, finance, and other departments to build best practices on product flows, identify key metrics for partnerships marketing campaigns, and how to iterate and scale over time.
• Analyze data and key metrics (e.g., acquisition funnel jointly with partners, churn reasons, product analytics) together with partner managers to assess operational performance and inform action planning.

Help build tools to do this effectively so that partner managers can self-serve.

Be the biggest supporter and critic in Partnerships and run a tight ship : air-tight goal setting and OKR reviews, business review cadence, risks / issues log and resolution, etc.

Required Qualifications :

• 10+ years of experience in strategy, operations, or partnerships within high-growth SaaS startups. Emphasis on quantitative analysis, program design, and operational execution - you’ve done it all.
• Proven experience building and scaling operations processes, tools, and strategic programs, particularly for revenue or partnerships teams.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret and present data to drive decision-making in matrixed or highly cross-functional organizations.
• Builder mentality with a self-starter approach; able to operate in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills. You are as effective interpreting partner requirements with engineers as you are collaborating with marketing on partner campaigns.
• Hyper-organized with a penchant for details when necessary but also step back to see the big picture and articulate vision.

Preferred Qualifications :

• Experience in both early-stage startups and more mature, scaling companies.
• Payroll & HR, benefits, payments software experience.
• Experience in business development and working directly with technology or channel partners is a plus - you know what partners want and how to enable them to be successful while balancing what’s right for our customers and our business.
• Experience with operational tools and technologies that support SaaS businesses.

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