Director, Partnerships (6-month fixed-term)

Job description

Kindred is a members-only home swapping platform that unlocks the ability to live a travel-rich lifestyle through the power of community. By exchanging primary residences with trusted peers, renters and owners alike can match with Kindred spirits and explore new destinations without breaking the bank. Kindred is revolutionizing the “third option” of travel accommodation, compared to short-term rentals and hotels. Since launching in 2022, Kindred has grown to a global community of 300,000 members across 150+ cities and puts home swapping on the map as a radically more affordable, responsible, and connected way to travel. To support that momentum, Kindred has raised over $150M in capital from some of the most credible investors in Silicon Valley, including Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, New Enterprise Associates, Bessemer Venture Partners, Caffeinated Capital, Elad Gil, and founders of companies like Opendoor, Figma, ClassPass, and more. Kindred’s co-founders are proven leaders from the early team at Opendoor ($15B+ exit), who have each built and scaled products that today generate $1B+ annual revenue combined. We’re looking for the world’s top builders, executors, and believers to help us make travel more meaningful. You can learn more about us in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescawalton/2026/02/03/home-swap-startup-kindred-raises-125-million-in-fresh-funding-as-travelers-seek-creative-ways-to-save-money/ and The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/realestate/is-your-apartment-nice-enough-for-this-home-swapping-app.html. THE ROLE At Kindred, every member is both host and traveler, with hosting being the vehicle for earning credits towards travel. This makes hosting our hardest and most important growth lever: rather than recruiting a separate supply side, we're asking our own members to take the harder, higher-trust step of opening their home. That's a behavior best unlocked through trust—people are far more willing to open their home to, and swap with, others they already share a real bond with: an alma mater, an employer, a sport, a cause, a professional community. The goal of this Founding Partnerships leader is to define and build a partnerships function for the business—setting the strategy, defining success metrics, and validating the operating model for scale via direct partnership execution during the 6-month contract period. You'll take ownership of our active inbound partnership pipeline, build out a systematic outbound strategy, and structure deals engineered to contribute meaningful supply growth to the platform. This is a lean team, and we're looking for someone adept at shifting between both strategy and execution: sourcing, pitching, negotiating, and closing deals yourself from day one, while defining the operating model, metrics, and organizational roadmap for the function to scale. We're structuring this as a contract-to-hire engagement, with the goal of at least 2 signed, meaningful partnerships by the close of the 6 months. YOU WILL - Own and close Kindred's inbound partnership pipeline: Evaluate, prioritize, and drive to signature a set of active inbound partnership leads from organizations and communities with large, pre-established member bases. - Build Kindred's outbound partnerships strategy: Define priority verticals (e.g., sports and fitness communities, professional and alumni networks, large employers, social clubs, mission-aligned associations, etc.), build a target account list, and codify a repeatable, vertical-specific partnership offering and pitch. - Design deals that bottom-line impact: Strategically structure partnerships with terms calibrated towards high-trust behaviors within in the funnel to unlock marketplace liquidity - Lead full-cycle deal execution: Source, pitch, negotiate, and close partnerships end-to-end, then manage the relationship through launch and into ongoing performance management. - Shape Circles strategy alongside partnership strategy: Leverage Circles (Kindred’s recently launched in-product sub-communities) as a way in to relevant organizations; additionally, support tentpole Circles launches with partnerships channel support to drive Circles acquisition and activation goals - Build Kindred’s partnerships playbook: Create reusable frameworks, pitch materials, and outreach sequences by vertical so the partnership motion can scale beyond this initial engagement. - Report on pipeline health and performance: Track partnership-sourced host activation, cost per activated host, and payback against Kindred's marketplace health targets, and share ongoing progress with Growth leadership and the broader team. - Integrate Partnerships into the business: Define cross-functional working model spanning Circles GTM, Lifecycle Marketing, Product, and Legal teams to ensure the function becomes a scalable growth engine embedded throughout the business YOU MAY BE A FIT FOR THIS ROLE IF YOU - Have 12+ years of experience in partnerships, business development, or growth roles, ideally at a high-growth consumer marketplace, membership, or community-driven platform. - Have direct experience building and scaling a partnerships function from the ground up at a high-growth consumer startup. You know what it takes to go from a handful of scrappy deals to a repeatable, systematized motion. - Have a proven track record sourcing, negotiating, and closing partnerships that drove measurable supply or demand growth on a two-sided marketplace. Extra credit if that supply was a harder, higher-friction behavior to unlock (e.g., listing a home, a car, or other high-trust asset). - Know how to structure a deal around the behavior you actually want rather than top-of-funnel vanity metrics like leads or sign-ups. - Are a strong, credible external-facing negotiator, comfortable pitching and closing deals directly with executives, community leaders, or organization decision-makers. - Are highly comfortable operating with ambiguity and building from scratch: this is a lean, high-ownership role where you'll be sourcing your own pipeline, building your own materials, and closing your own deals from day one. - Bring sharp judgment on prioritization. Able to size and rank a wide range of potential partners and communities and focus energy on the highest-leverage few. - Are a clear, structured communicator who can synthesize deal economics and pipeline health for an executive-level audience. - Are available to commit to a focused, full-time 6-month engagement, with flexibility to extend or convert to a full-time role based on performance and business needs. BONUS POINTS IF YOU - Have direct experience with home-sharing, home-swap, or similarly high-trust marketplace models (e.g., Airbnb, Turo, Vrbo, Peerspace, or similar). - Have closed partnerships with large membership organizations, associations, unions, alumni networks, or corporate employee communities. - Have experience partnering with product teams to translate a partnership into a bespoke product experience