Strategic Partnerships Manager Jobs in Chicago, IL
Strategic Partnerships Manager jobs in Chicago are in strong demand, concentrated in the Loop, Fulton Market, and River North across technology, healthcare, and financial services. Employers actively hiring include Mars, Mhub, and Agoda. See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
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Showing 5 of 21+ Strategic Partnerships Manager jobs
About Us
Circle is building the world’s leading AI-powered, all-in-one platform for digital businesses. We make it possible for creators, coaches, educators, and businesses to bring together their audience with engaging discussions, live streams, events, chat, courses, and payments — all in one place, all under their own brand.
We’re proud to be a fully remote company of around 270 (and growing!) team members from 30+ countries around the world. We seek exceptional individuals around the world, set them up to do the best work of their lives, and in turn, create a meaningful impact in their own lives. We don't track hours, but we do manage for high expectations very closely. We collaborate across time zones, are highly async, and like to document a lot.
Twice a year, we bring the whole company together in beautiful places around the world for our company offsites. So far, we’ve hosted offsites in Turkey, Portugal, Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Italy, Ireland, and more, with still more to come!
Check out our Careers page for more about working at Circle.
About the role
The Director of Strategic Partnerships will lead the strategy, growth, and performance of Circle's partnerships function, building programs and relationships that strengthen Circle's brand while driving meaningful business outcomes.
This role sits at the intersection of business development, partnerships, creators, content, and growth. You'll be responsible for translating Circle's broader company priorities into a forward-looking partnerships strategy, identifying where and how we invest, developing our most important creator and strategic relationships, and ensuring those investments translate into measurable impact across customer growth, brand awareness, and market position.
A core part of the role is bringing strong creative and commercial judgment to the work, operating as a genuine strategic partner to the people on the other side of the table. You'll cultivate and maintain those relationships directly, building campaigns, offers, content, and experiences that feel authentic to their audiences — and developing strategies that grow revenue for both parties, so that Circle and the partner each achieve their own goals rather than just executing against Circle's priorities.
You'll also build the systems, team, and operating model required to scale the function, moving successful initiatives from one-off execution into repeatable programs that can grow without depending on a single person to drive every detail. This is essential to the function’s ability to achieve significant impact on ICP trials and for the director to be successful in this role. In addition to the operational expertise to move something from incubation to repeatable system, this role has to also be creative enough to continuously develop new strategic programs.
Reporting to our SVP, Ecosystem, you'll work closely with Circle's founders and leadership team, as well as teammates across Community Growth, Media, Demand Generation, Product Marketing, our Design Studio.
What you'll be doing
Own Circle's Partnerships strategic planning, and roadmap, using deep, company-wide knowledge of Circle's business, strategy, and goals to originate new concepts and ideas that extend the function's impact beyond its current scope — connecting partnership investments to company priorities, measurable business outcomes, and providing strategic direction to managers across multiple areas and operations.
Take ownership of the function's contribution to new business and other agreed performance goals, using those outcomes to inform where we invest, what we build, and how we prioritize.
Build repeatable partnership programs and playbooks that allow successful initiatives such as webinars, challenges, creator campaigns, launches, and event activations to scale without requiring the same level of hands-on involvement each time.
Develop a forward-looking quarterly and annual partnership plan across creator partnerships, strategic relationships, campaigns, launches, events, and other high-impact opportunities.
Lead Circle's highest-value creator and strategic partnerships, including relationship development, opportunity identification, deal strategy, negotiation, creative direction, and long-term growth.
Shape the content and creative strategy behind major partnerships, working closely with partners to develop ideas that are authentic to their audience, differentiated in the market, and effective for Circle. This includes bringing in leadership on a case-by-case basis in areas where there could be partnership impact across multiple functions.
Bring a strong marketing mindset into partnership development, including offer strategy, audience journeys, conversion opportunities, and ways Circle and its partners can create greater value together over time.
Develop a sophisticated measurement framework for brand activities (i.e. event sponsorships, activations, etc.), so we are leveraging data and insight to inform investments and decisions.
Establish clear measurement, reporting, and decision-making frameworks for the function, using performance and qualitative insights to improve future investments.
Support cross-functional teams in a consultative capacity on any content-forward initiatives.
What you'll need to be successful
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills in English (CEFR C2 or equivalent), as most collaboration at Circle happens asynchronously.
10+ years of experience building 6-7 figure strategic partnerships, creator programs, brand initiatives, or strategic growth programs within SaaS, technology, the creator economy, or a similarly fast-moving industry.
Strong business development skills including pipeline management, negotiation, partner development, and cross-functional project management.
Performance marketing instincts and an understanding of how partnerships can drive both brand value and measurable business outcomes.
Deep understanding of Circle's customers, the creator economy, and the broader market, with a point of view on where Circle can build differentiated relationships and influence.
Experience developing and growing high-value relationships, with strong judgment around deal structure, negotiation, partner dynamics, and long-term opportunity.
Exceptional content and creative instincts, with the ability to understand an audience, identify a compelling story, and translate Circle's value into ideas that feel native to a creator or partner.
The ability to move fluidly between brand strategy and performance, understanding how strong storytelling, offers, funnels, campaigns, and distribution work together.
A track record of turning successful one-off initiatives into repeatable programs, systems, and playbooks that can scale through a team.
Strong strategic planning skills and in-depth knowledge of the partnerships function, Circle's broader business strategy, and company-wide goals — with the judgment to translate ambiguous, cross-functional, abstract situations into clear strategy and direction, anticipate future needs, identify opportunities early, prioritize investments, and keep the function operating ahead of the business rather than reacting to it.
Experience managing and developing a team through senior managers or managers-of-managers, not only direct individual contributors — setting clear expectations, delegating full ownership of a sub-area rather than staying close to execution, coaching judgment, and building greater autonomy over time.
Strong cross-functional leadership skills and the ability to influence senior stakeholders across teams without needing direct authority.
Compensation & benefits
Circle offers U.S.-benchmarked compensation globally, equity in the company with ongoing refresh grants, and 35 days of paid time off each year.
We’re a remote-only team that comes together twice a year for company retreats in incredible destinations around the world. Alongside incredible flexibility and autonomy, we offer a benefits package that supports health, wellbeing, and professional growth. Learn more in our Candidate Hub.
Learn more
Candidate Safety & Interview Process Notice
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
How We Use Candidate Data
Equal Employment Opportunity
Visit our Candidate Hub to learn more about working at Circle, our benefits, and our hiring process.
Compensation Range: $186K
About Us
Circle is building the world’s leading AI-powered, all-in-one platform for digital businesses. We make it possible for creators, coaches, educators, and businesses to bring together their audience with engaging discussions, live streams, events, chat, courses, and payments — all in one place, all under their own brand.
We’re proud to be a fully remote company of around 270 (and growing!) team members from 30+ countries around the world. We seek exceptional individuals around the world, set them up to do the best work of their lives, and in turn, create a meaningful impact in their own lives. We don't track hours, but we do manage for high expectations very closely. We collaborate across time zones, are highly async, and like to document a lot.
Twice a year, we bring the whole company together in beautiful places around the world for our company offsites. So far, we’ve hosted offsites in Turkey, Portugal, Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Italy, Ireland, and more, with still more to come!
Check out our Careers page for more about working at Circle.
About the role
The Director of Strategic Partnerships will lead the strategy, growth, and performance of Circle's partnerships function, building programs and relationships that strengthen Circle's brand while driving meaningful business outcomes.
This role sits at the intersection of business development, partnerships, creators, content, and growth. You'll be responsible for translating Circle's broader company priorities into a forward-looking partnerships strategy, identifying where and how we invest, developing our most important creator and strategic relationships, and ensuring those investments translate into measurable impact across customer growth, brand awareness, and market position.
A core part of the role is bringing strong creative and commercial judgment to the work, operating as a genuine strategic partner to the people on the other side of the table. You'll cultivate and maintain those relationships directly, building campaigns, offers, content, and experiences that feel authentic to their audiences — and developing strategies that grow revenue for both parties, so that Circle and the partner each achieve their own goals rather than just executing against Circle's priorities.
You'll also build the systems, team, and operating model required to scale the function, moving successful initiatives from one-off execution into repeatable programs that can grow without depending on a single person to drive every detail. This is essential to the function’s ability to achieve significant impact on ICP trials and for the director to be successful in this role. In addition to the operational expertise to move something from incubation to repeatable system, this role has to also be creative enough to continuously develop new strategic programs.
Reporting to our SVP, Ecosystem, you'll work closely with Circle's founders and leadership team, as well as teammates across Community Growth, Media, Demand Generation, Product Marketing, our Design Studio.
What you'll be doing
Own Circle's Partnerships strategic planning, and roadmap, using deep, company-wide knowledge of Circle's business, strategy, and goals to originate new concepts and ideas that extend the function's impact beyond its current scope — connecting partnership investments to company priorities, measurable business outcomes, and providing strategic direction to managers across multiple areas and operations.
Take ownership of the function's contribution to new business and other agreed performance goals, using those outcomes to inform where we invest, what we build, and how we prioritize.
Build repeatable partnership programs and playbooks that allow successful initiatives such as webinars, challenges, creator campaigns, launches, and event activations to scale without requiring the same level of hands-on involvement each time.
Develop a forward-looking quarterly and annual partnership plan across creator partnerships, strategic relationships, campaigns, launches, events, and other high-impact opportunities.
Lead Circle's highest-value creator and strategic partnerships, including relationship development, opportunity identification, deal strategy, negotiation, creative direction, and long-term growth.
Shape the content and creative strategy behind major partnerships, working closely with partners to develop ideas that are authentic to their audience, differentiated in the market, and effective for Circle. This includes bringing in leadership on a case-by-case basis in areas where there could be partnership impact across multiple functions.
Bring a strong marketing mindset into partnership development, including offer strategy, audience journeys, conversion opportunities, and ways Circle and its partners can create greater value together over time.
Develop a sophisticated measurement framework for brand activities (i.e. event sponsorships, activations, etc.), so we are leveraging data and insight to inform investments and decisions.
Establish clear measurement, reporting, and decision-making frameworks for the function, using performance and qualitative insights to improve future investments.
Support cross-functional teams in a consultative capacity on any content-forward initiatives.
What you'll need to be successful
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills in English (CEFR C2 or equivalent), as most collaboration at Circle happens asynchronously.
10+ years of experience building 6-7 figure strategic partnerships, creator programs, brand initiatives, or strategic growth programs within SaaS, technology, the creator economy, or a similarly fast-moving industry.
Strong business development skills including pipeline management, negotiation, partner development, and cross-functional project management.
Performance marketing instincts and an understanding of how partnerships can drive both brand value and measurable business outcomes.
Deep understanding of Circle's customers, the creator economy, and the broader market, with a point of view on where Circle can build differentiated relationships and influence.
Experience developing and growing high-value relationships, with strong judgment around deal structure, negotiation, partner dynamics, and long-term opportunity.
Exceptional content and creative instincts, with the ability to understand an audience, identify a compelling story, and translate Circle's value into ideas that feel native to a creator or partner.
The ability to move fluidly between brand strategy and performance, understanding how strong storytelling, offers, funnels, campaigns, and distribution work together.
A track record of turning successful one-off initiatives into repeatable programs, systems, and playbooks that can scale through a team.
Strong strategic planning skills and in-depth knowledge of the partnerships function, Circle's broader business strategy, and company-wide goals — with the judgment to translate ambiguous, cross-functional, abstract situations into clear strategy and direction, anticipate future needs, identify opportunities early, prioritize investments, and keep the function operating ahead of the business rather than reacting to it.
Experience managing and developing a team through senior managers or managers-of-managers, not only direct individual contributors — setting clear expectations, delegating full ownership of a sub-area rather than staying close to execution, coaching judgment, and building greater autonomy over time.
Strong cross-functional leadership skills and the ability to influence senior stakeholders across teams without needing direct authority.
Compensation & benefits
Circle offers U.S.-benchmarked compensation globally, equity in the company with ongoing refresh grants, and 35 days of paid time off each year.
We’re a remote-only team that comes together twice a year for company retreats in incredible destinations around the world. Alongside incredible flexibility and autonomy, we offer a benefits package that supports health, wellbeing, and professional growth. Learn more in our Candidate Hub.
Learn more
Candidate Safety & Interview Process Notice
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
How We Use Candidate Data
Equal Employment Opportunity
Visit our Candidate Hub to learn more about working at Circle, our benefits, and our hiring process.
Compensation Range: $186K
See All 21 Strategic Partnerships Manager Jobs in Chicago
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Who's Hiring
Strategic Partnerships Manager Jobs in Chicago: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a strategic partnerships manager job in Chicago?
The strongest path is targeting Chicago's dense technology corridor in Fulton Market, its major health systems on the Near North Side, and the financial services firms anchored in the Loop. Candidates who stand out have a history of closing or managing multi-stakeholder deals and can point to measurable revenue or growth outcomes. Prior relationships within Chicago's tight-knit startup and enterprise ecosystem give applicants a meaningful edge over out-of-market candidates.
Which companies hire strategic partnerships managers in Chicago?
Chicago strategic partnerships manager roles are posted by Mars, Mhub, and Agoda and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of October 2026. The hiring landscape includes large enterprise technology companies, mid-size SaaS firms based in Fulton Market, major health networks, and financial services organizations with partnership teams downtown.
Are there remote strategic partnerships manager jobs in Chicago?
Yes, though the role skews hybrid since relationship-building and in-person client meetings remain central to the work. About 67% of strategic partnerships manager openings tied to Chicago are remote or hybrid as of October 2026, reflecting employer flexibility introduced in recent years. Responsibilities involving contract negotiation, pipeline reporting, and cross-functional coordination tend to be the most remote-friendly components of the role in Chicago.
How can I get a strategic partnerships manager job in Chicago with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in Chicago is moving into the role from business development associate, account management, or sales positions at mid-size technology or healthcare companies in Fulton Market or the Loop. Many Chicago employers promote internally from these adjacent roles once a candidate has demonstrated relationship ownership. Attending local events through Chicago-based industry groups and building a portfolio of any cross-functional project or co-marketing initiative strengthens applications considerably.
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