Account Director – Strategic Partnerships

About the team/role

This role reports to the Head of Partnerships and is responsible for leading Checkr's most complex and high-stakes partnership negotiations — structuring net new and renegotiated agreements that drive sustainable, mutually beneficial growth across our most strategic alliances. You'll set the commercial and contractual foundation for Checkr's alliance portfolio, owning end-to-end negotiation strategy for deals with significant product integration components and incentive structures designed to ensure Checkr and its partners grow together. Working closely with Strategic Partner Managers, Finance, Revenue Operations, and the Executive team, you'll lead some of Checkr's most strategic partnership negotiations across the BD org.

What you'll do

• Set end-to-end negotiation strategy for complex, multi-year partnership agreements — both net new and renegotiations of long-standing relationships — ensuring commercial terms reflect the long-term interests of both parties
• Architect deal structures with meaningful product integration components, building frameworks with aligned incentives so that partner growth and Checkr growth are directly and mutually reinforcing
• Partner closely with Strategic Partner Managers to translate deep relationship context and GTM strategy into negotiation positioning, ensuring deals are grounded in the full reality of each partnership
• Develop and stress-test financial models and deal scenarios with Finance and RevOps, quantifying the value and trade-offs of key terms to inform internal alignment and negotiation positioning
• Build and sustain executive-level alignment — at both Checkr and the partner — to accelerate decision-making and navigate organizational complexity across long-standing and newly formed relationships
• Define repeatable negotiation frameworks and playbooks for the BD org, raising the commercial bar for how Checkr structures, evaluates, and closes its most strategic partnership agreements

What you bring

• 8+ years of total experience, including 4+ years leading complex, high-value commercial negotiations in a partnerships, business development, alliance management, or corporate development context
• Demonstrated expertise structuring deals with significant product integration components — you know how to negotiate data rights, integration commitments, and technical milestones as core commercial levers
• Proven track record renegotiating long-standing strategic partnerships — rebuilding commercial terms in ways that deepen trust, realign incentives, and create durable mutual value without burning the relationship
• Strong financial acumen with the ability to build and pressure-test deal models, understand P&L implications, and translate complex contract terms into clear business outcomes in partnership with Finance and RevOps
• A partnership-first commercial mindset — you approach negotiation as a craft of building long-term structures that benefit both parties, with a career that reflects deepening and transforming complex relationships rather than transactional deal-closing
• An A-player mindset with a strong bias for action: you raise the bar, move with urgency, stay resilient through ambiguity, and take ownership to deliver meaningful outcomes.