Director/VP of Corporate Partnerships (Sales)

Apolitical's mission is to make governments smarter for people and the planet and we reach over 40 million public servants through our partnerships with governments globally. We are the largest global network for governments, used by 500,000+ public servants in 160 countries to find and share best practices and gain skills on critical topics from AI to climate change to emerging technologies.

Governments use Apolitical to solve public sector transformation challenges - from AI augmentation to reskilling. We offer governments five interoperable components - research and analysis, workforce productivity tools, customisable training, vibrant learning communities and high impact convenings. Everything we do is powered by our unique global network and real-time data.

Apolitical is trusted by 60+ governments and leading organisations that work with governments. Governments include schools of government, departments, ministries and government adjacent bodies in the UK, Canada, India, EU, UAE, Brazil, Ethiopia, Singapore and more. Global foundation partners include the Bezos Earth Fund, Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, who view governments as key stakeholders in achieving systemic change.

Apolitical’s corporate partners include organisations such as Google, AWS and Microsoft who work with us at scale with governments and public sector bodies worldwide. 

Our Government AI Campus and our Government Energy and Climate Campus are examples of our success in bringing together corporate and philanthropic intent with great technology to deliver impactful government learning and capability building on a global scale.

About the role

Drive partnership revenue growth within our network of Corporate partners (e.g. Google, Microsoft, AWS), while developing and managing new strategic international relationships on behalf of Apolitical.

The Commercial Team drives revenue growth and strategic market expansion at Apolitical. Under the guidance of the Chief Commercial Officer, this team proactively identifies business development and sales opportunities worldwide, cultivates high-value partnerships globally, and ensures robust revenue performance in critical markets with partners ranging from national governments, to foundations and philanthropic organisations and corporate partners.

Through structured account management, business development, and compelling sales proposals, via a carefully managed pipeline architecture, the VP - Corporates turns market potential into tangible, recurring revenue, enabling Apolitical’s ambition of significant and sustained growth.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the growth strategy (identification, qualification, conversion), relationship management, and business expansion across relevant Corporate sector partners
• Manage and expand strategic existing partnerships, ensuring high customer retention, margin protection and revenue optimisation, across multiple existing accounts
• Collaborate closely with the Delivery function to align account strategy with seamless service delivery.
• Collaborate closely with the Insights and Comms function to position Apolitical as a thought leader and a strategic partner for corporates working with governments 

About you

To be successful in this role, we expect that you will likely have experience (5+ years) in a similar or equivalent role.

This is a great fit if you…

• Have a strong track record securing revenue and partnerships with Corporate partners
• Have a strong understanding of how corporates work with governments and bring an existing network with corporates
• Can demonstrate commercial acumen, effective judgement and compliance awareness, to enable strategic business goals
• Understand government process and security requirements
• Are a good professional communicator 
• Are a good project manager and can manage time across several workstreams
• Enjoys being a project manager
• Enjoy coordination and collaboration with a wide range of people
• Are proactive, agile and adaptable, balancing quality with pace
• Are passionate about government capability

This won’t be the right role if you…

• Work best with a limited number of work streams or projects
• Are looking for a position with direct reports. This is not currently a people-management position - though there will be lots of cross-functional working and support
• Are not performance-driven or don’t enjoy a target-oriented work culture

Don’t meet every single expectation? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. Apolitical is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Application Process

Apolitical uses Applied in our recruitment. Applied aims to overcome unconscious bias in recruiting. Instead of using your CV alone, we'll be asking you to answer questions to test skills needed for the role. The answers are then anonymised, and reviewed in a random order by members of our team. 

The Applied platform also asks some demographic questions before you start your application. These answers are never visible to the hiring team and don’t affect your application in any way. We only see summary statistics to help us check if our candidate pool is balanced and if everyone has an equal chance to get hired irrespective of their background. If you prefer, you can easily opt out of answering these questions.