Partner Acquisition Director

Cloudinary is the Image and Video API platform trusted by millions of developers and over 10,000 companies worldwide. Our powerful tools fuel websites to be faster, richer in user engagement, and breakthrough creativity. With a growing suite of products that support everything from developer efficiency to brand storytelling, Cloudinary is becoming the visual layer of the web.
Cloudinary has a globally distributed team across North America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, united by a shared commitment to building smart, scalable technology and a culture rooted in humility, curiosity, and collaboration. At Cloudinary, we celebrate Life & Work. We believe in healthy growth, working with purpose, and creating meaningful value. If you’re looking for a place where your voice matters and your work truly makes an impact, this may be the opportunity for you.
We are seeking a Partner Acquisition Director to identify, recruit, and activate high-value strategic partners to advance Cloudinary’s ecosystem to further unleash the full potential of visual media. Strategic partners are those with the commercial potential, ecosystem relevance, and technical compatibility to extend Cloudinary’s reach and create long-term platform value, while delivering disproportionate returns. This role focuses on choosing the right partners based on commercial upside and technical fit, and helping them succeed as AI reshapes business models, platform economics, and the competitive landscape.

Responsibilities:

• Identify and recruit strategic partners that can disrupt the status quo, expand market reach, accelerate the pipeline, and create unparalleled revenue opportunities. Own Cloudinary’s global strategic ecosystem strategy.

• Assess partner potential through market access, solution relevance, integration feasibility, and scalability, acting as the company’s top partnership authority. Define long-term partnership monetisation strategy.

• Build executive alignment among partners and internal leadership by aligning key commercial and technical stakeholders to secure commitment and ensure launch readiness. Lead transformational global alliances with hyperscalers and strategic platform providers

• Work across internal teams to help partners unlock new revenue streams and shape a clear value proposition, accelerating value creation and delivery, with responsibility for major influence on sourced revenue.

• Influence the company’s product and AI platform roadmap through ecosystem insights. Drive company-level ecosystem growth initiatives with executive leadership.

About you:

• Highly autonomous market-shaping work, including 8-12 years of relevant experience in partnerships, business development, alliances, or ecosystem strategy, including experience shaping partner strategy, ownership of a global strategic partner ecosystem and influencing senior stakeholders.

• Strong track record of landing high-value partners that drive measurable commercial outcomes. Executive-level partner negotiations with top-tier alliances. Experienced in regular interaction with C-level executives at hyperscalers/global strategic partners.

• Ability to quantify partnership potential by modelling commercial opportunity and evaluating technical fit to drive major sourced revenue influence.

• Background in API-first SaaS, digital platforms, integrations, or software ecosystems is preferred. externally recognised thought leader in ecosystem/platform strategy.

• Skilled at partnering across Product, Sales, Marketing, Legal, Finance, and Engineering to drive strategic alliances, leading through influence without direct authority and aligning multiple executive stakeholders around shared commercial outcomes.

Success factors

In this role, you'll build a pipeline of well-qualified partners and turn it into active alliances ready to scale. The ideal candidate is a recognised subject-matter authority who combines strong judgment, commercial instinct, and technical credibility with a disciplined approach to qualification, recruitment, and enablement. You will create entirely new partnership models/business motions, define ecosystem monetisation frameworks, and shape platform economics or AI ecosystem positioning at company scale.

We have you in mind. As an employee, you will experience many benefits, including:
Awesome technologyTop-talent peers100% sponsored medical, dental, and vision plans for employees & familyHSA company contributionMatching 401k programRobust vacation & wellness policy Annual development stipend Catered lunches or a food stipend
Cloudinary is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer dedicated to pursuing a diverse workforce.