Job SummaryThe Senior Director of AI Sign Translation Partnerships identifies, prioritizes, and grows relationships across four distinct partner categories - Services, ISV, Hardware, and Channel - that together will carry AST's technology into enterprise and government accounts.
This is a 0-to-1 role: much of this ecosystem does not yet exist at AST. You will build the target lists, make the first calls, run the early conversations, and turn the strongest relationships into structured pilots, referral agreements, and co-sell motions. You'll work closely with the VP of GTM to translate partner activity into pipeline and, over time, build out a small partnerships team.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities- Partner Segmentation & Targeting: Build and maintain a prioritized target list of partners across four categories, informed by AST's ideal customer profile and product roadmap.
- Category Coverage: Own outreach, relationship development, and pipeline for:
- Services - GSIs (e.g., Accenture, Deloitte), SI/RSI/industry specialists (e.g., Slalom), accessibility consultants (e.g., Deque, New Editions), media services (e.g., ASG, Tata Communications), and translation services (e.g., U.S. Translation)
- ISV - communications platforms (e.g., Zoom, Webex, Google Meet, Slack), LMS providers (e.g., Docebo, Blackboard), accessibility ISVs (e.g., accessiBe, AudioEye), media ISVs (e.g., Blackmagic, Grass Valley, Avid), and enterprise software platforms (e.g., Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, SAP)
- Hardware - OEM hardware (e.g., Apple, Dell, HP), media hardware (e.g., DaVinci), and kiosk vendors (e.g., Nixdorf, NCR, Zebra, Micros)
- Channel - resellers/VARs (e.g., SHI, TD-Synnex), distributors (e.g., CDW, Carahsoft), hyperscalers (e.g., AWS, Google, Microsoft), and government contractors (e.g., GSA)
- Partner Development: Run structured discovery conversations with prospective partners, qualify fit, assess mutual value, and move the strongest relationships into pilots, referral arrangements, or joint go-to-market plans.
- Commercial Structuring: Draft and negotiate partnership terms - referral fees, reseller agreements, co-sell frameworks, and integration commitments - in coordination with the VP of GTM and Legal.
- Playbook & Enablement: Build repeatable playbooks per partner category (outreach templates, qualification criteria, onboarding steps, objection handling) as the ecosystem scales.
- Pipeline & Reporting: Track partner pipeline, conversion, and pilot outcomes; report progress and category-level insights to the VP of GTM on a regular cadence.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with Product, Legal, and Marketing to ensure partner commitments align with the roadmap, contracting standards, and brand.
- Other duties as assigned.
Supervisory ResponsibilityThis position has no supervisory responsibilities.
Travel RequirementsTravel Requirements: 25-50%
EducationMinimum 4 Year / Bachelors Degree In a related field
Experience6 years In partnerships, channel, or business development roles, with exposure to more than one type of partner motion (e.g., both channel/reseller and ISV/technology partnerships).
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities- Comfort with ambiguity: proven ability to build a partner program from scratch - target lists, outreach, and playbooks - rather than executing against an established one.
- Multi-threaded execution: able to run parallel outreach and relationship-building motions across several distinct partner categories at once.
- Commercial fluency: comfortable structuring referral, reseller, and co-sell agreements, and negotiating with partner counterparts at varying levels of seniority.
- Executive presence: able to represent AST credibly with partner executives, while also being hands-on enough to run early-stage outreach personally.
- Mission alignment: genuine interest in accessibility technology and its impact on the Deaf and Hard-of-hearing community.
- Relevant industry exposure a plus: accessibility, enterprise collaboration/ communications software, media technology, or public sector/government channel experience.
