Manager Strategic Partnerships

About the Role

This is a Partnerships Head India role responsible for building and scaling Xoxoday's merchant partner ecosystem for banking and enterprise clients across in India

The role owns end-to-end merchant partnerships from onboarding and commercial structuring to offer design, operational delivery, and performance governance. You will work closely with banks, card networks, enterprise clients, product, operations, and growth teams to build high-impact merchant-funded offer programs across dining, food, travel, entertainment, lifestyle, and services.

This is a builder + operator role requiring strong leadership, deep domain expertise in banking-led offers, and the ability to scale teams, processes, and outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

1. Merchant Partner Onboarding & Ecosystem Build

Own onboarding of merchant partners in India

Build a strong merchant portfolio across dining, food delivery, travel, hotels, entertainment, lifestyle, wellness, and services.

Structure onboarding processes including KYB, commercials, SLAs, offer mechanics, and operational readiness.

Ensure merchants meet banking-grade compliance, reporting, and delivery standards.

2. Banking & Card Offer Programs (Credit / Debit / Prepaid)

Design and execute merchant-funded offer programs for cards and enterprise rewards.

Build card-specific constructs (BIN-based, MCC-based, spend-based, campaign-led).

Own offer lifecycle from ideation to renewal.

Ensure strong T&Cs, redemption logic, fraud controls, and reporting.

3. Commercials, Bundling & Revenue Optimization

Lead negotiations on funding, revenue share, breakage, and expiry-led revenue.

Design bundled, seasonal, and card-tier-based offers.

Optimize redemption curves and margins.

4. Team Leadership & Target Ownership

Build and lead partnerships and operations teams.

Own targets for onboarding, coverage, utilization, and revenue.

Set review cadences, dashboards, and accountability.

Coach teams on banking-grade execution.

5. Offer Operations, Delivery & Governance

Own end-to-end offer delivery and uptime.

Define SOPs for onboarding, launches, and issue resolution.

Act as escalation owner for critical issues.

6. Merchant Training & Enablement

Train merchants on offer mechanics and CX.

Ensure SLA and compliance awareness.

Roll out standardized onboarding kits.

7. Quality Assurance & Mystery Audits

Run mystery calling and shopping programs.

Build QA scoring frameworks.

Improve or prune merchants based on audits.

Required Skills & Competencies

Deep expertise in banking merchant onboarding and merchant-funded offers.

Strong negotiation and commercial skills.

Proven leadership across geographies.

Strong stakeholder communication.

Experience

8-10 years in partnerships, banking offers, or loyalty ecosystems.

Prior experience with banks, fintechs, or loyalty platforms.

India and SEA experience preferred.

What Success Looks Like

Strong merchant coverage across categories.

Scalable banking offer programs live.

Minimal escalations and high reliability.

High merchant satisfaction and repeat campaigns.

Xoxoday recognized as a preferred banking offer partner.