Apolitical
Senior Partnerships Manager
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Senior Partnerships Manager
Overview
Visa sponsorship: UK national or visa holder preferred, but not a dealbreaker.
Background checks: Due to the non-partisan nature of the work we do with global governments and partners, all employees need to pass background checks, verifying your identity, education (if relevant), work history, sanctions, criminal record, adverse financial history, right to work, media and social media.
You can expect to hear from us, no matter the outcome, by: 3rd August 2026.
Salary expectations: We aim for transparency on salary bands. If our range is misaligned with your expectations, we’d welcome an open conversation as early as possible.
About Apolitical
Apolitical's mission is to make governments smarter for people and the planet and we reach over 40 million public servants through our partnerships with governments globally. We are the largest global network for governments, used by 500,000+ public servants in 170 countries to find and share best practices and gain skills on critical topics from AI to climate change to emerging technologies.
Apolitical is scaling our partnerships with global governments (e.g. UK FCDO, Estonia Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, Brazil ENAP), foundations (e.g. Rockefeller Foundation, Bezos Earth Fund), and corporates (e.g. Google). We’re hiring a Senior Partnerships Manager to steward some of our most important global relationships and help set the standard for excellent partnership delivery across the company.
In this role, you’ll combine brilliant relationship management with delivery grip, commercial instinct and strategic judgement. You’ll manage complex contracts and turn partner needs into actionable plans, coordinate delivery across internal teams, and navigate senior stakeholder conversations with confidence. You’ll spot risks and opportunities early, help shape where partnerships could grow, and turn what you hear externally into useful insight for Apolitical’s teams. You’ll help partners understand the value and future potential of our work, while helping Apolitical improve how we deliver, grow and tell our story.
Success will be measured by the strength of partner relationships, delivery outcomes, renewals and referrals, and the improvements you embed into how we deliver and manage strategic partnerships.
Tasks and remit
You’ll spend your time across four main areas:
- Strategic relationship management: Build trusted relationships with senior partners, navigate complex conversations and represent Apolitical with warmth, confidence and judgement.
- Delivery grip across complex work: Turn contracts, partner needs and internal dependencies into clear plans, decisions and momentum, especially where delivery is complex, evolving or requires careful coordination across different teams.
- Partnership growth and strategic awareness: Spot risks, opportunities and strategic signals in partner conversations. Play a critical role in identifying where an account could grow, where we should tell a bigger story, and when the right next step is to bring in Commercial, Product or senior leadership.
- Impact storytelling and evidence: Oversee data and evaluation reports, translating evidence and partner insight into compelling stories, useful decisions and clear next steps. Help partners and internal teams understand the value, impact and future potential of our work, including in support of resell and referral opportunities.
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What you will be doing
- Translating complex contracts, partner needs and commercial commitments into clear delivery plans, milestones, owners and decisions.
- Owning day-to-day account leadership for selected strategic partnerships, including senior stakeholder management and partner communications.
- Coordinating delivery across internal teams with professionalism, clarity and rigour.
- Building trusted relationships with senior partner stakeholders, including navigating challenging or ambiguous conversations.
- Spotting risks, blockers and opportunities early, and escalating or resolving them with good judgement.
- Identifying where partnerships could deepen, expand or be reframed, and bringing in the right internal people at the right time.
- Helping shape the story of what Apolitical can offer, especially when partner needs are bigger, more complex or more strategic than the original ask.
- Translating high volumes of information across partner needs, delivery realities and commercial priorities into clear recommendations.
- Overseeing evaluation and reporting, using qualitative and quantitative evidence to show impact and improve future delivery.
- Helping raise the bar across the Partnerships team by improving processes, sharing learning and modelling excellent account management.
What you won’t be doing
- Working in isolation; this role requires cross-team collaboration.
- Following a rigid playbook; you’ll be expected to improve how we deliver as you go.
- Simply passing messages between partners and internal teams; you’ll be expected to translate, prioritise and drive useful action.
- Saying yes to every partner request; you’ll need the judgement to reshape asks, protect scope and find the right route forward.
Onboarding milestones
Within one month, you will…
- Take ownership of one or more strategic partnerships in delivery.
- Build trust with your counterparties in partner teams and understand the history, commitments, risks and opportunities in your accounts.
- Familiarise yourself with our internal systems for delivery, commercial, product and evaluation.
- Establish clear internal rhythms with the teams needed to deliver your accounts or projects well.
Within three months, you will…
- Lead end-to-end delivery on major projects, coordinating across multiple teams and senior stakeholders.
- Develop account plans with a commercial lead that identifies delivery milestones, stakeholder priorities, risks, renewal and cross sell potential.
- Be regularly feeding useful partner insight into the right teams.
- Identify ways to optimise delivery processes or account management that help the wider partnerships team.
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Within six to nine months, you will…
- Contribute to account renewals, upsells, and referrals.
- Be trusted internally as someone who brings clarity to complex partner situations and knows when to escalate, reshape or drive forward.
- Embed improvements into delivery or account processes used across the team.
- Help Apolitical better understand how partner needs should shape our products, services and growth strategy.
About you
This is a great fit if you…
- Excel at building strong, trusting relationships with senior stakeholders internally and externally and can navigate complex relationships with warmth, confidence and good judgement.
- Love making complex, multi-stakeholder projects run smoothly to ensure the best outcome for the partner.
- Bring commercial and strategic instinct: you may not be a salesperson, but you naturally spot where work could be bigger, sharper or more valuable.
- Absorb a lot of information quickly, connect dots across domains, and translate complexity into a clear, compelling narrative in the moment.
- Are adaptable across contexts, able to work with governments, foundations, corporates and internal teams without needing everything to follow the same pattern.
- Are hands-on in solving problems and thrive on accountability.
- Have shipped and run complex work over time, for example a programme, product, service, partnership or major account, and have the judgement that comes from seeing things through beyond launch.
- Do not need to be deeply technical, but can recognise when work has genuine complexity and know when to bring the right people in.
- Are comfortable working with data and evaluation to evidence impact and improve delivery.
- Care deeply about Apolitical’s mission and the impact of better government.
This likely won’t be the right role if you…
- Prefer working in narrow functional silos, as this role requires constant collaboration and context switching.
- Want a fixed playbook. Our processes are evolving, and you’ll be expected to shape and improve them.
- Are uncomfortable with ambiguity, as you’ll often need to create clarity from complex or shifting priorities.
- Are uncomfortable balancing partner needs with commercial realities, internal constraints and delivery trade-offs.
- Need a fully defined product, process or scope before you can make progress.
Don’t meet every single expectation? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. Apolitical is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
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