WHO WE ARE

Freedom’s mission is to empower everyday Americans to move forward towards a better financial future. The company was founded in 2002 by Brad Stroh and Andrew Housser on the belief that by staying committed to helping people, you can ensure better financial outcomes for both the customer and the business. This philosophy still guides the vision of our growing company, which has helped millions of people find solutions for their financial needs.

What began with two people in a spare bedroom has expanded to a vibrant business that employs over 2,000 employees (known internally as “The Freedom Family”) in two locations: San Mateo, CA, and Tempe, AZ. When you visit either of our offices, you’ll understand why our employees have voted us the Best Place to Work for the last several years. We believe that success is only achieved by doing what’s right for our customers, our employees, and our communities.

Freedom Financial Network holds itself to four core values: to care for everyone around us, act with integrity every time, collaborate with everybody we work with, and get better at what we do every day.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Partnerships are central to our mission.  We partner with our clients to help improve the financial wellness of their members and customers.  We seek to expand our reach and deliver appropriate solutions for everyday Americans who are struggling and striving to improve their financial health. And we partner with each other to deliver the best experiences for prospective customers and clients to get them on a path to a better financial future. 

We seek a strong leader to oversee our partnerships to drive customer acquisition, build our brand and deliver enterprise value and optimal execution across Freedom’s product solutions. Strategic Partnerships have been identified as a top growth priority for Freedom Financial and have high levels of visibility with the executive team. Freedom has a multi-faceted partnership strategy that includes relationships with key consumer financial services companies such as LendingTree, Credit Karma, NerdWallet strategic relationships with wireless, affinity and insurance partners, and enterprise relationships with credit bureaus and bank partners.  We see significant growth opportunities to develop deeper, more impactful relationships with these partners. You will own a portfolio of strategic accounts and the P&L associated with these accounts.  You will contribute substantially to the growth of Freedom Financial.  You will do this by working closely with senior executives at Freedom and our partners to understand, align and define joint business objectives, data-driven strategies, and tactics and to own and drive high ROI results from these partnerships.   

THE ROLE

In this role, you will manage a portfolio of partners to grow our collective relationships to drive customer awareness, engagement, and acquisition.  Responsibilities include:

• Oversee and drive growth in partner channel through expanding and deepening relationships with key partners, improving targeting and messaging to drive more awareness and engagement, and collaborating with product organizations on both sides to develop more seamless and easy end-to-end experiences
• Manage key enterprise relationships with credit bureaus and bank partners that help maximize the value we receive and the value we create from these partnerships.  Develop a relationship strategy and working cadence with these partners that align our overall business and marketing strategy with our program priorities, coordinating across multiple internal and external client touchpoints to assure alignment and focus
• Own the ongoing positioning of Freedom with key influencers in these partner organizations including mapping the org structure, identifying the key influencers, developing and deepening those relationships, identifying any detractors, and having a strategy to handle
• Collaborate with internal constituents to deliver highly targeted content, tools, and experiences that drive partnership engagement and growth
• Analyze key performance metrics to identify actionable opportunities to improve and grow existing partnership programs
• Develop partnership structures and approaches to contracts/incentives that drive growth and alignment
• Communicate results and advocate for partner channel needs internally across creative, product, analytics, etc
• Collaborate with the Business Development team to drive alignment between the two organizations and support BD opportunities with new partnerships
• Establish an appropriate rhythm of business programs, analyses, and communications that drive consistency of engagement across partnerships

REQUIREMENTS / CHARACTERISTICS

The Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships will be an important leader in our organization.  Our partnerships team is responsible for an important strategic channel for Freedom that has the potential to be an even more impactful channel for the business.  This leader will drive that growth and impact.   

Candidate qualifications:

• A minimum of ten years of experience in consumer marketing and partnerships, ideally working with financial and credit-based products
• A track record of success growing businesses through partnerships and through optimization of marketing channels
• Experience working directly with credit bureaus and/or credit-based lenders or lending marketplaces
• An “owner-oriented” mindset with demonstrated experience owning and driving a P&L and a thirst for owning outcomes
• Strong business acumen coupled with outstanding analytic, project management, and communication skills
• Expertise in applying partner and account management skills to drive strategic and tactical engagement and demonstrable ROI
• A passion for achieving results through leading and leading cross-functional teams
• Curiosity and creative problem-solving skills and a desire to continuously improve
• An upbeat, optimistic, and infectious personality with a growth mindset