Director of strategic partnerships

Schellman is a Top 50 CPA firm and a leading provider of attestation and compliance services. Our professional services focus on security and privacy audits, assessments, and certifications. Schellman has become one of the largest cybersecurity assessment firms in the United States without providing any traditional accounting services. We are an accredited multi-framework ISO Certification Body for security, privacy, business continuity, and quality; a globally licensed PCI Qualified Security Assessor and a top provider to clients serving the federal DoD space as a leading FedRAMP 3PAO and the first assessment firm authorized as a CMMC C3PAO. Our specialty and expertise remain in providing best in class Cybersecurity and IT Audits and Attestations. Our culture, approach with clients, and dedication to our values has led us to consistently be a Great Places to Work certified company and rated as a Best Firms to Work For by Accounting Today and a Glassdoor Best Places to Work. We deeply appreciate our employees, as shown by our first core value – People Come First. This is demonstrated in our culture, benefits, and how we handle business. Come see what makes Schellman special!

This is a fully remote position based in the United States.

Schellman sits at the center of a large ecosystem it has never formally operated as a GTM channel. As Director of Strategic Partnerships, you will design the partner strategy, stand up the operating infrastructure, and personally build the relationships that turn Schellman's ecosystem into a predictable and durable source of growth and joint client success. This is a build-from-scratch role for an operator who is comfortable being architect, relationship owner, and administrator all at once. The mandate is to convert the current ecosystem into an intentional, measurable partnerships engine that drives meaningful revenue growth for Schellman and for our partners, and that improves outcomes for the clients we share.

Essential Functions:

• Define the partner strategy and segmentation for Schellman across the ecosystem archetypes that are realistic and compliant for an independent assessment organization including: cloud Hyperscalers, global systems integrators, cybersecurity/advisory consulting firms who guide clients into readiness and the private-equity and venture sponsor channels.
• Build an ideal partner profile and a tiering model that prioritizes partners by shared client base, market-segment fit and mutual value.
• Make build/deepen/exit decisions for the informal relationships Schellman already holds and turn the best of them into structured, governed partnerships.
• Create partner-driven demand generation programs, co-marketing opportunities, and marketplace placements, that produce qualified pipeline through mutual value rather than financial incentives.
• Own partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline as the primary commercial output of the function, working with Sales and Service Delivery to define attribution, deal-registration hygiene, and hand-off in the CRM.
• Continuously monitor industry trends, competitive shifts, and emerging technologies (for example new GRC platforms, AI/model companies) to keep the partner portfolio current and surface new opportunities beyond the initial strategy.
• Serve as a key voice to the CRO and executive leadership on partner performance by establishing an operating cadence that gives the cross-functional stakeholders visibility into pipeline, market dynamics, emerging strategic opportunities and revenue outcomes.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Working fluency in the GRC/compliance, cybersecurity, or cloud ecosystem, and the ability to speak credibly to CISOs, Chief Privacy Officers, and GRC leaders.
• Proven cross-functional operator who can build trust with a delivery/technical organization and align sales, marketing, and operations.
• Strong commercial, analytical, and negotiation skills, with the judgment to structure partnerships that create value without financial incentives.
• Partnerships-operations fluency: comfort running high-volume partner administration (registrations, certifications, training tracking, portal management) and standing up a recurring partner steering-committee or status-review cadence as the portfolio grows.
• Knowledge of Schellman's target verticals (High Tech, Financial Services, Healthcare/Life Sciences, Retail & Consumer, Industrial/Defense) and frameworks (SOC, FedRAMP, CMMC, ISO, PCI DSS, HITRUST, Penetration Testing, Privacy, ESG, and AI assessments).

Education, Work Experience and Certifications

• 5+ years in strategic alliances, partnerships, channel, or business development, including significant ownership of partner-sourced or partner-influenced pipeline/revenue.
• Demonstrated experience building or substantially scaling a partner function, program, or portfolio, ideally as a first or early partnerships hire.
• Hands-on understanding of at least one Hyperscaler partner motion (AWS, Microsoft, OCI or Google Cloud).
• Experience in a professional services, cybersecurity, compliance, or consulting firm environment, with an understanding of independence rules and constraints.

Schellman is an equal opportunity employer (EOE) and strongly supports diversity in the workplace; therefore, providing equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other legally protected basis, including arrest and conviction records, in accordance with applicable law. Schellman uses E-Verify in our hiring process.

At Schellman, we strive to provide a flexible and balanced environment and therefore offer the opportunity to work remotely, unless otherwise stated in the job requirements. Connecting, collaborating and continuous education are also highly valued and therefore we require some travel annually for our Internal Service Delivery roles, which can include in-person training, team meet-ups, and strategy meetings. Service Delivery team members will also be required to travel based on business and client needs.