Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Automattic is a global leader in publishing, messaging, and commerce software, known for platforms like WordPress and WooCommerce. The Global Account Director, Payment Partnerships, is a senior commercial leader responsible for managing and growing a $100M ARR strategic partnership, driving significant year-over-year growth, and aligning cross-functional teams to execute partnership strategies. This role requires deep expertise in payment economics and global acquiring, with a focus on executive relationship management and commercial strategy.
Responsibilities
- Own and grow a $100M ARR strategic partnership, delivering a minimum of 30% year-over-year growth through disciplined pipeline development, commercial expansion, and joint go-to-market execution
- Develop, maintain, and execute a rolling multi-year strategic partnership plan that aligns WooCommerce's roadmap and capabilities with the partner's commercial objectives and market position
- Identify, scope, and close expansion opportunities—including new geographies, product lines, merchant segments, and revenue-share structures—that unlock mutual value
- Define and track the commercial KPIs, milestones, and leading indicators that reflect the health and trajectory of the partnership
- Build and sustain deep, trusted relationships across all levels of the partner organization, from C-suite and VP-level sponsors to operational and technical teams, ensuring alignment, advocacy, and momentum at every tier
- Serve as the primary executive point of contact for the partner, driving QBRs, annual planning sessions, and escalation resolution with authority and credibility
- Internally, act as the single accountable owner for the partnership, managing a broad set of stakeholders across product, engineering, marketing, legal, finance, and operations to secure alignment, investment, and execution commitment
- Proactively manage partner satisfaction, anticipate friction points, and resolve issues before they become relationship risks
- Lead the development and ongoing refinement of a comprehensive multi-year joint business plan, including growth targets, investment requirements, capability milestones, and market expansion priorities
- Build and present compelling business cases to senior WooCommerce leadership to secure the resources, budget, and organizational commitment required to execute on the partnership strategy
- Translate high-level strategic goals into phased, actionable execution plans, balancing ambition with operational realism, and managing progress rigorously
- Drive accountability across internal teams through clear ownership assignment, milestone tracking, and regular executive reporting
- Implement structured frameworks for ongoing partner evaluation using competitive analysis, industry benchmarks, and financial modeling—ensuring the partnership remains best-in-class relative to market alternatives
- Maintain a deep, current understanding of the global payments ecosystem—including acquiring, PSPs, alternative payment methods, payment network rules, interchange economics, and bank transfer cost structures—and apply that knowledge to sharpen partnership strategy and commercial positioning
- Actively monitor the market for emerging payment technologies, capabilities, and competitive dynamics that could enhance WooCommerce’s merchant value proposition, reduce underlying costs, or create new revenue opportunities through this partnership
- Use technical fluency in payment capabilities to assess integration feasibility, validate business cases, and ensure that commercial terms are grounded in a clear understanding of product and operational realities
- Translate payment capability gaps and merchant needs into concrete partnership priorities, working closely with product and engineering to align partner roadmap commitments with WooCommerce’s strategic direction
- Drive global partnership growth by identifying and activating opportunities across geographies, adapting strategy to local market dynamics while maintaining a coherent global framework
- Collaborate with marketing, product, and sales teams to develop and execute joint go-to-market initiatives, including co-selling, co-marketing, merchant acquisition programs, and partner-led revenue acceleration
- Represent WooCommerce's strategic interests in commercial negotiations, contract renewals, and partnership expansions, crafting creative commercial structures that optimize for both strategic flexibility and economic outcomes
- Establish and maintain robust reporting mechanisms to track partnership performance, commercial outcomes, and strategic milestones—delivering consistent, data-driven updates to senior leadership
- Build scalable processes and frameworks that enable efficient collaboration between WooCommerce and the partner across geographies and functions
- Manage contract amendments, commercial reviews, and renegotiations with rigor and commercial discipline
- Thrive in ambiguity: able to define structure, process, and direction in fast-moving, resource-constrained environments where the path forward is unclear
Skills
- 10+ years of experience in strategic partnerships, global account management, or commercial leadership within the payments industry, ideally spanning merchant services, acquiring, or payment service providers
- Demonstrated track record of growing strategic partnerships at significant scale ($50M+ ARR), consistently delivering against aggressive revenue growth targets
- Deep knowledge of payment economics, including interchange structures, bank transfer costs, payment network rules, and the pricing and cost dynamics that drive partner and merchant outcomes
- Strong technical fluency in payment capabilities: able to assess integration feasibility, translate technical concepts into commercial terms, and engage credibly with product and engineering counterparts
- Exceptional executive presence and written and verbal communication skills, with a proven ability to build trust and influence at the C-suite level, both with partners and internally
- Strong analytical and financial modeling capabilities, with experience building business cases, applying competitive analysis, and presenting ROI frameworks to executive audiences
- Proven ability to operate as an internal orchestrator, mobilizing and aligning cross-functional teams (product, engineering, legal, finance, marketing) without direct authority
- Experience managing multi-year joint business plans and translating long-range strategy into structured, accountable execution
- Comfort operating in globally distributed, remote-first, and asynchronous environments across multiple time zones and cultures
- Experience managing global partnerships across multiple geographies is strongly preferred
Benefits
- We’re a remote-based company with 1500 Automatticians in nearly every corner of the globe, speaking over a hundred different languages.
- Unlike many companies, we are and will always be 100% remote (we call it distributed). This means that you can work from anywhere in the world, in any time zone, leveraging collaboration tools and asynchronous communication.
- We are a fully-remote company with an open vacation policy.
- To see a full list of benefits by country, consult our Benefits Page.
- If you need disability-related accommodations during the application or interview process, please fill out this form. We are committed to ensuring an accessible hiring process for all candidates.
- Automattic is a Most Loved Company, an Equal Opportunity employer, and Disability Confident Committed.
- Automattic participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law.
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