Strategy & Business Development Associate

The role

You will support leadership on strategic initiatives across ecosystem growth, product expansion, and institutional adoption. You will work cross-functionally with product, engineering, legal, marketing, ecosystem teams, and external partners.

What you will do

• Support the development and execution of strategic growth initiatives across Aave Labs' ecosystem and products
• Help identify and evaluate new market opportunities and expansion strategies with leadership
• Coordinate cross-functional initiatives across product, engineering, legal, marketing, and ecosystem teams
• Assist in developing and managing strategic partnerships across DeFi, fintech, infrastructure, and institutional ecosystems
• Conduct market research, competitive analysis, and ecosystem mapping
• Help prepare partnership proposals, market overviews, presentations, and ecosystem analyses
• Support business development efforts including outreach coordination, pipeline management, and partner tracking
• Monitor trends in DeFi, stablecoins, tokenization, institutional adoption, and digital asset infrastructure
• Contribute to internal strategic planning and operational initiatives

Required qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of experience in strategy, business development or partnerships, and digital assets
• Strong understanding of crypto, DeFi, and the digital asset ecosystem
• Intellectual curiosity and a genuine passion for decentralized finance
• Exceptional communication, organizational, and project management skills
• Ability to operate autonomously and manage multiple workstreams
• Strong analytical and strategic thinking with high attention to detail
• Comfortable working cross-functionally with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• High-agency mindset with willingness to take ownership
• Strong team player in collaborative, globally distributed environments

Before you apply

• If you do not meet every requirement, the company still encourages you to get in touch

About the company

Aave Labs builds the Aave Protocol, described as the world's largest and most trusted onchain lending market. The company builds products that expand access to lending, credit, and savings globally.