About The RoleG2 is looking for a Director, Growth Partnerships & Referral to build the partnerships engine that brings qualified software buyers to G2, Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice. As AI-mediated search reshapes how buyers research enterprise AI, agentic, and SaaS software, referral partnerships and affiliates become a critical opportunity of buyer acquisition alongside organic and paid channels.
This is a hybrid business development and growth marketing role spanning product-led partnerships, affiliate and media channel programs, and emerging buyer-discovery surfaces. This role's brief is to design and operate a portfolio that holds to that standard: repeatable, sustainable, mutually valuable, and measurably good for G2's traffic and revenue. The right candidate will be the strategic and operational owner who will design the program, launch it, and grow it into one of the top traffic sources across all four brands.
Detailed Responsibilities: Referral Strategy & Operating Model- Own the referral pillar's OKRs - buyer traffic, qualified traffic share, referral-attributed revenue, and source diversification - across all four brands.
- Define the partnership portfolio: which motions matter, at what depth, and how they differ by brand.
- Build a prioritization framework balancing quick wins (vendor badges, podcasts, review sites) against strategic bets (cloud marketplaces, VC/PE portfolio programs, AI buyer-discovery surfaces).
Partnership Portfolio Development & Management- Identify, prioritize, and develop a diversified portfolio of partnership types that will drive Buyer traffic or users - spanning ecosystem and channel partners, affiliate and media partners, content and community partners, distributed product-led referral channels, and emerging buyer-discovery surfaces.
- Source, evaluate, and structure deals across a range of commercial models - including rate-card and CPA media buys, affiliate commission and rev-share structures, strategic data and integration partnerships, and zero-cost product-led arrangements - selecting the right model for the partner and the motion.
- Negotiate and manage partnership agreements end-to-end, from initial sourcing through contracting, launch, performance management, and renewal or wind-down.
- Build the operating infrastructure to manage partnerships at scale - partner platforms, tracking and attribution, onboarding workflows, and a self-serve layer for the long tail.
Team, Measurement, and Cross-Functional Leadership- Drive scalable onboarding and enablement resources for integration partners, including technical documentation, sandbox environments, and integration guides.
- Work cross-functionally with Product and Engineering to support partner development and ensure smooth integration experiences.
- Establish the referral dashboard in partnership with Insights & Planning: traffic, revenue, GP by partner, partner-sourced pipeline.
- Establish reporting cadences for affiliate and ecosystem partnership performance across revenue, engagement, and growth metrics.
- Use data to identify top-performing partners, optimize incentive structures, and prioritize investment across ecosystem and affiliate programs.
- Partner closely with Performance Marketing, AEO/SEO, Lifecycle, and Buyer Product leaders - referral is a connective tissue role across the Buyer org.
- Stay ahead of market trends in affiliate marketing and ecosystem-led growth to continuously evolve G2's partnership approach.
- Room to build and lead a team, scaling as programs mature.
Minimum Qualifications:We realize applying for jobs can feel daunting at times. Even if you don't check all the boxes in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway.
- 8+ years in growth, partnerships, marketing, or business development at a B2B SaaS, marketplace, or media company - with at least 3 years carrying a revenue or traffic number.
- Track record of building a partnership, affiliate, or referral program from zero to material traffic/revenue contribution. You've structured commission models, negotiated rate cards, and made hard calls about which partners to fire.
- Marketing fluency: you've operated inside a marketing P&L, understand CPA/LTV math, and have made real media-buying decisions. Partnerships for you is a growth channel, not a corp dev function.
- Commercial instincts: you've negotiated partnership agreements ranging from rate-card media deals to multi-year strategic commitments, and you understand how to structure terms that age well.
- Range across audiences: credible with a partner PM and with a CRO, GP, or community founder; comfortable moving between affiliate platform operations, media-buying reviews, and executive partnership conversations.
- Technically curious - you don't write code, but you understand what integrations actually require and can hold your own with engineering teams on both sides of the table.
- Data-driven operator: you define metrics, build the dashboards, and let them redirect investment. Comfortable with attribution complexity without hiding behind it.
- High agency. You don't wait for a playbook - you write one, pressure-test it, and scrap it when it stops working.
What Can Help Your Application Stand Out:- Experience with affiliate networks at scale (Impact.com, PartnerStack, CJ, Awin), cloud marketplace partnerships (AWS, Azure, GCP, Salesforce), or B2B media buying / publisher ecosystems.
- Experience designing partnerships that build sustainable, repeatable value for partners - not just one-off sales-driven deals.
- Background in software marketplaces, review sites, or buyer-discovery platforms; familiarity with G2's category and buyer journey a plus.
- Exposure to AI-mediated search and emerging buyer-discovery surfaces - citation strategy, plugin/agent integrations, AEO. If you don't have direct experience here, demonstrate a strong POV on where this is heading.
- PE-backed or multi-brand company experience; comfortable operating across multiple brand P&Ls with different buyer profiles.
