Senior Director of Partnerships

Hi there!

We're Sweed , a product-driven startup building an all-in-one cannabis retail platform . We’re looking for a Senior Director of Partnerships to build and grow our partnerships function.

About Us

At Sweed , we’re reimagining how cannabis retailers operate. Our enterprise-grade platform combines POS, eCommerce, Marketing, Analytics and Inventory Management into a single, seamless solution—eliminating the need for multiple third-party tools.

We believe in simplicity, efficiency, and innovation . That’s why we build for scalability and performance , making life easier for cannabis retailers while driving real business growth.

Why We’re Doing This

At Sweed , we believe in the medicinal potential of cannabis. It has been shown to help with chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and many other conditions. Despite the lingering stigma, we see cannabis as a powerful tool for improving lives.

The industry is evolving rapidly , and we’re here to drive that transformation—making cannabis retail more efficient, accessible, and customer-friendly.

Where We Are Now

We’ve been on the market for 7 years , continuously growing and refining our product.

Our focus is on earning customer trust , which means constantly improving our delivery processes and rolling out new features . At the same time, we navigate the complex legal landscape of the cannabis industry, ensuring our platform remains compliant and future-proof.

Team Structure

Our total team size is over 200 people :

• The development team is distributed globally and organized into cross-functional product teams. These teams typically consist of 8–12 members, including front-end and back-end developers, QA specialists, and analysts.
• Meanwhile, our CEO, account managers, and customer success team are based in the USA , working closely with us to align product development with business and user needs.

About the role

Partnerships are still a largely untapped growth channel for Sweed. We have strong relationships across the cannabis ecosystem, but we do not yet have a mature partner program or a dedicated person responsible for turning those relationships into a consistent and measurable source of business.

As our Senior Director of Partnerships , you will build Sweed’s partner ecosystem from the ground up. This is a senior, hands-on role for someone who can define the strategy and personally execute it—from mapping the market and approaching potential partners to launching programs and generating qualified opportunities.

Your primary focus will be building relationships with organizations and professionals who influence how dispensaries open, grow, and select technology. These may include cannabis consultants, licensing attorneys, accounting firms, agencies, associations, construction and hardware providers, technology companies, and other service providers.

The commercial outcome is the priority. We are not looking to collect partner logos or sign agreements that never become active. We want partnerships that consistently generate qualified leads, new dispensary doors, pipeline, and revenue.

Initially, this will be a hands-on individual contributor role without a dedicated team. As the partner channel demonstrates traction and commercial impact, you will have the opportunity to define the structure and build a team around the function.

Day-to-day, the critical elements of this role include:

Developing and executing Sweed’s partnership strategy across priority markets

Mapping the organizations and professionals that influence dispensary openings and technology decisions

Personally sourcing, approaching, and activating new partners

Identifying the partner categories and markets with the greatest commercial potential

Building referral, reseller, co-selling, co-marketing, and strategic partnership models

Creating a clear value proposition and commercial model for each priority partner category

Managing Sweed’s most important partner relationships

Moving relationships from informal networking to consistent lead and pipeline generation

Training partners on Sweed’s product, pricing, qualification process, and competitive positioning

Creating partner onboarding materials, playbooks, and regular engagement cadences

Working with Sales to ensure partner-generated leads receive timely and effective follow-up

Collaborating with Marketing on partner campaigns, webinars, events, state launches, and regional activations

Partnering with RevOps to build HubSpot processes, dashboards, and reporting

Establishing clear rules for attribution, lead ownership, referral eligibility, incentives, and dispute resolution

Tracking active partners, qualified leads, partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline, new doors, and contribution to ARR

Evaluating partner performance and focusing resources on relationships that generate meaningful results

Recommending the team and resources required to scale the function

Beyond the experience above, here’s what we’re looking for in your background:

8+ years of experience in B2B SaaS partnerships, channel development, business development, or another revenue-generating commercial role

Demonstrated success building a partner, referral, reseller, or ecosystem-led growth motion from an early stage

A strong personal track record of generating qualified pipeline and revenue through partner relationships

Experience personally sourcing and activating partners—not only managing an inherited portfolio

Strong understanding of sales processes, lead qualification, attribution, and CRM discipline

Experience creating partner programs, commercial models, and operating processes where little previously existed

Ability to combine strategic thinking with hands-on execution, including research, outreach, networking, negotiation, and follow-through

Strong relationship-building skills and credibility with senior external stakeholders

High ownership, independence, urgency, and accountability

Strong verbal and written English communication skills

Willingness to travel and represent Sweed at industry events and in priority markets

Nice to have:

Deep knowledge of the cannabis retail ecosystem and an established network of consultants, agencies, attorneys, associations, service providers, and technology companies

Experience in cannabis technology, restaurant technology, hospitality technology, retail technology, POS, payments, or another competitive vertical SaaS market

Experience building partner channels for multi-location brick-and-mortar businesses

Experience supporting both new store openings and migrations from competing platforms

Strong working knowledge of HubSpot and partner attribution models

Experience structuring bundled deals involving software, payments, and services

Experience working with consultants, associations, agencies, and service providers that influence technology decisions

In this role, success looks like:

A clear partnership strategy and operating model are established

Priority markets and partner categories are identified

A portfolio of active partners consistently generates qualified leads

Sweed gains greater access to new dispensary openings and strategically important retail doors

Partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline is clearly tracked in HubSpot

Referral, attribution, and incentive processes are transparent and scalable

Low-performing relationships are identified early, and resources remain focused on partners producing real results

Partnerships make a measurable contribution to pipeline and ARR

A clear plan is developed for scaling the channel and building a dedicated partnerships team

Proactivity — you take initiative and create momentum without waiting for detailed instructions

Commercial thinking — you focus on pipeline and revenue, not simply the number of signed partners

Adaptability — you can build structure and d