About Us

Minerva Project is a leading educational innovator and global provider of best-in-class education & professional learning offerings. Minerva partners with some of the most exciting leaders and pioneers across global higher education to dramatically improve the education that they offer and the way that their students learn. With every partnership, we focus on improving learning by intentionally cultivating the durable and transferable skills needed for academic, professional, and societal impact. Combining design expertise, advanced digital technology, and leading educational science, we collaborate closely to provide partner institutions with greater flexibility, expansion opportunities, and enhanced learning outcomes.

The Role

Minerva is looking for a Strategic Partnerships leader for North America who has a proven track record of success with both navigating high-touch complex partnership deals in addition to managing enterprise sales responsibilities, preferably selling into the seniormost leadership of higher education institutions. In this role, you'll have the opportunity to strategically help set the direction that will allow us to expand and scale our partnerships with bold education leaders across North America whose' institutions intend to build life-changing education and upskilling opportunities for their learners. We are on an exciting growth trajectory fueled by the substantial shift in learning needs and the increased demand for meaningful and fundamentally redesigned learning solutions. The Strategic Partnerships Director will be responsible for forging new relationships as well as scaling existing partnerships. Our Strategic Partnerships Director will report to the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships.

In this role, you will:

• Develop plans and strategies to drive new business and grow existing relationships with partners
• Work closely with the Marketing team to establish successful and coordinated account-based sales and marketing activities that drive top of the funnel interest
• Drive overall deal strategy and execution
• Collaborate with and align key internal stakeholders in the sales process including product, solution design, delivery, legal, and finance to negotiate and establish successful partnerships
• Execute and refine a repeatable, consultative sales processes which drives desired outcomes, and constantly identify improvements to the process
• Possess a strong network of education leaders and be known as a strategic thinker and collaborator
• Posses a solid understanding of the contemporary challenges with education and ideas about how to address them

Qualifications:

• 8+ years experience direct selling of strategically complex deals, ideally to senior leaders at higher ed institutions and other educational providers
• Ability to think creatively and develop non-traditional solutions to complex educational and business challenges
• Highly collaborative, with a demonstrated ability to align cross-functional, internal partners (e.g. Solution Design, Marketing, Delivery, Product) towards shared goals
• Expertise in developing, measuring and successfully rolling out sales strategies and processes
• Comfort using a CRM system to track and manage all deal activity
• Excellent written and oral presentation, and strong story-telling skills with the ability to synthesize and react to sophisticated client asks
• Ability to speak publicly on matters of contemporary relevance across the sector
• Must be able to work independently and travel
• Strong negotiation skills and a growth mindset
• Startup experience and comfort with ambiguity are critical