Director Partner Programs & Operations Manager

The role

The Director, Partner Operations will build the operating model to scale Kong's partner business. You will serve as a strategic partner to Ecosystem leadership and own partner business flows including registration, deal structure, attribution, and payout.

What you will do

• Serve as strategic and operational partner to Ecosystem VP and Partner Sales leaders
• Run AI-assisted operating cadence including forecast and pipeline reviews
• Lead annual and quarterly planning for targets, capacity, and coverage
• Own rules for partner deal registration, protection, sourcing, and crediting
• Define and own partner-touched lead and deal workflows
• Partner with Deal Desk, Finance, and Legal to structure and book partner deals
• Partner with Incentive Compensation on channel-neutral crediting and referral fees
• Manage cloud marketplace operations across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud
• Define and report partner KPIs and maintain partner data accuracy
• Work with Partner Marketing to define how partner marketing is measured

Required qualifications

• 10+ years in Partner or Channel Operations, Revenue Operations, or Sales Strategy & Operations at a B2B SaaS or infrastructure software company
• 3+ years leading partner operations with direct ownership of deal registration, rules of engagement, and partner attribution
• 3+ years experience operating a multi-type, multi-region partner ecosystem
• Hands-on partner deal execution end to end including resale, referral, and cloud marketplace transactions
• 3+ years experience leading partner planning including targets, quota, capacity, and coverage
• Proven track record as a trusted advisor to VP-level Partner or Sales leaders
• Deep Salesforce fluency
• Experience with PRM and BI tools
• Hands-on use of AI tools to automate ops workflows

Nice to have

• Hyperscaler co-sell and marketplace mechanics: AWS ACE and ISV Accelerate, Marketplace private offers, Microsoft co-sell, and Google Cloud Partner Advantage
• Experience supporting a shift to usage-based or consumption pricing
• Experience leading a team from building processes to running them at scale
• API, cloud infrastructure, or AI platform experience

About the company

Kong Inc. is the AI Connectivity Company building the connectivity layer of AI. Their unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic.