Government Relations Lead

Job description

ABOUT MIDDESK: Middesk is building the data and intelligence infrastructure that helps businesses work together with confidence. We started by creating a comprehensive platform for understanding businesses, bringing together authoritative and proprietary data to help customers verify business identities, onboard customers faster, and manage risk throughout the customer lifecycle. Today, Middesk is used by more than 700 banks and fintechs, and in 2025 we verified more than 7 million companies. We've also expanded beyond business verification to help companies form, register, manage, and maintain their businesses, supporting more than 50,000 companies in setting up over 100,000 accounts required to hire employees, run payroll, and stay compliant. Middesk came out of Y Combinator, and is backed by Sequoia Capital, Accel, Insight Partners, and Canapi. We're proud to be named on the Forbes Fintech 50 and Best Startup Employers lists. ABOUT THE ROLE: At Middesk, we view government agencies as partners in our mission to accelerate trust between businesses. As our first Government Relations Lead, you’ll shape the strategy and build the relationships that allow us to operate, scale, and accelerate our growth across every state in the country. This role sits at the intersection of policy, operations, and growth. You’ll partner closely with our Legal and Product Operations teams to remove blockers in real time, while simultaneously cultivating relationships with agency stakeholders so that Middesk’s work is understood, welcomed, and protected before friction ever arises. You’re a player-coach who operates with a high degree of independence: credible enough to get in the room with the right people, action-oriented enough to own the work, and strategic enough to build playbooks that scale. WHAT YOU’LL DO: Protect and enable the business - Build relationships with government stakeholders, ensuring that every relevant state agency understands who Middesk is, what we do, and why it’s legal and valuable - Become the go-to internal expert when our team needs to engage with the government - moving quickly and independently to resolve time-sensitive issues with state Departments of Labor and Revenue - Serve as an internal legislative alert service: always scanning for policy changes—at the state or federal level—that could affect any part of our business Build internal and external strategies that scale - Design and develop the strategy, playbooks, and frameworks that make our government relations work repeatable and sustainable - across states, agencies, and over time - Collaborate with the Product Partnerships team to improve our data acquisition and identify which state relationships to prioritize - Identify and pursue opportunities for Middesk to connect directly to government systems - Maintain a network of lobbyists and government consultants who can extend our reach where we need outside expertise - Keep Sales informed on relevant policy and regulatory developments that affect our go-to-market narrative WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR: - 6+ years of experience in government relations, public policy, or public affairs, with meaningful time spent at the state or local level - Experience devising and executing public policy campaigns at the state or local level. You know how the game is played and have the wins to show for it - A real network: lobbyists, agency consultants, and government contacts at the state level you can actually call on – relationships you have built and maintained, not just inherited - Exceptional communicator: you write with clarity and precision, speak with authority and warmth, and can adapt your style whether you're briefing an executive, navigating a conversation with a state agency official, or rallying an internal team. People trust you quickly, and you know how to keep that trust. - Strong judgement, and comfort with ambiguity and speed. You’ve worked in startups or similarly fast-moving environments, and you know how to build processes while still executing - A player-coach mindset: you’re not here to set strategy from a distance, you’re here to do the work and bring your partners along - Creative problem-solving and natural relationship-building. You can get in the room, hold the room, and leave with the outcome you needed - Cross-functional fluency: you can translate a government relations issue into a product opportunity or a sales enablement story