Partnerships Manager

Bridgement is breaking down the barriers to access finance for small businesses in South Africa. Traditional loans from banks and other lenders have a slow application process, have strict criteria, require a lot of documentation, and inflexible terms. In contrast, we use cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence to offer flexible finance online, with a 2-minute application, no documentation required, and a decision in a matter of hours. We’re a well-funded fintech start-up, backed by Capricorn and the greater Yellowwoods group, best known for their investments in and ownership of Nandos, Hollard, Clientèle, Direct Axis, and Budget Group. However, we are still near the start of our journey because we aim to issue over a billion Rand in finance to small businesses within a decade.

As a Partnerships Manager, you will be responsible for the development and management of commercial relationships with our existing and new partners that refer small businesses in need of finance to us. Such partners include small business advisors (e.g. accounting firms), lead generation affiliate businesses, and other larger enterprises that have access to many small businesses. This will require you to build trusted relationships with our partners and educate them about Bridgement’s service, the opportunity for their business as well as the opportunity for the businesses they refer to us. Occasional travel to partner sites will be required. Strategic partnerships are critical to delivering Bridgement’s vision and strategy. As Partnerships Manager, you will be responsible for developing and implementing our partnerships strategy.

You will be:

• Qualifying, on-boarding and maintaining relationships with each partner
• Evaluating and presenting new opportunities for partnerships
• Initiating new partnership discussions and navigating your way to the key decision-makers in the partner’s business
• Managing communications and relationships with partners and continually engaging partners to build market awareness
• Handling queries from partners
• Responsible for account management with each partner, including building and nurturing effective working relationships with stakeholders at all levels
• Developing and implementing a strategic plan to keep partners engaged and continually referring businesses to Bridgement and to achieve revenue targets for the partnerships channel
• Tracking and analysing the performance of each partnership
• Providing the executive team with regular updates on the pipeline of new partners and on relationships with and activity from existing partners
• Representing Bridgement at industry/networking events, expos and conferences
• Liaising with Bridgement’s marketing team to coordinate and deliver joint marketing activities with our partners

Requirements