Manager, Affiliate Programs

The role

Lead a pod of Affiliate Managers who each own a book of 100+ lifetime trial affiliates. Manage the endorsement motion, forecast and pacing, and escalations for top affiliates, and build playbooks and onboarding for the team.

What you will do

• Lead, coach and develop a pod of Affiliate Managers, with weekly 1:1s, book reviews and performance conversations
• Own your pod's trial commit, forecast and pacing, and report weekly on wins, risks and asks
• Be the escalation point for sensitive affiliate situations and resolve them at your level when possible
• Manage the endorsement motion: scope and negotiate endorsement agreements, verify deliverables, and move contracts and payouts through approvals on time
• Monitor and grow the variety of affiliates, building the next wave of top producers
• Coach AFMs to focus on quality lead generation, quality trial conversion and trial-to-paid
• Partner with Land and Activation teams on clean affiliate handoffs into Expand
• Build, document and improve Expand playbooks, SOPs and onboarding
• Work with Business Development, Product Marketing, Events, Compliance, Legal, Finance, Accounts Payable and RevOps on programs, co-marketing, recognition and payouts
• Partner with Compliance so affiliates follow the Affiliate Program Policies, and bring investment recommendations to leadership

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in affiliate, partner, channel, creator/influencer or strategic account management, ideally in SaaS
• 3+ years of direct people management leading partner, affiliate or account managers
• Experience owning a multi-million dollar partner or affiliate book with forecast accountability
• Track record of owning and growing a large book of high-value partner, affiliate, creator or channel relationships with measurable revenue impact
• Proven people leadership, including hiring, onboarding, coaching and holding accountable a team, including early-career people
• Comfort managing high-profile partners, including tough negotiations and emotional escalations
• Strong analytical skills, including reading forecasts, spotting cohort trends and building pacing views
• Experience with partner incentive structures, commission programs, tiered recognition and endorsement-based partnerships
• Operational rigor in building repeatable processes and documentation
• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to influence senior internal stakeholders and external partners
• Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, high-growth environment

Nice to have

• Experience with affiliate platforms and tools (FirstPromoter, Tipalti or similar), CRMs and BI tools such as Tableau
• Familiarity with the marketing agency, SMB SaaS or creator economy space
• Working knowledge of FTC endorsement guidelines and affiliate compliance
• Experience with international partner markets

Before you apply

• Willingness to travel for affiliate events and key relationship meetings (approximately 1-2 times per quarter) is part of the role

About the company

HighLevel is an AI-powered business operating system that gives agencies, entrepreneurs and SMBs tools to build, automate and scale. It has over 2,000 team members across 10+ countries and operates as a remote-first organization.