Senior Business Development Manager (Channel Partnerships)

Convera is seeking a commercially driven Senior Business Development Manager to generate net-new pipeline and win strategic channel partnerships across North America. This is a dedicated proactive new business development role, focused on creating and converting new opportunities rather than managing established partner portfolios. 

The near-term priority is workforce payments, with primary emphasis on payroll and pension and selected opportunities across travel and expense and global mobility. The role will target partners with recurring cross-border payment flows and a strong strategic fit with Convera’s network reach, compliance capabilities, foreign exchange expertise, local payout rails, and relationship-led service model. 

Key responsibilities 

• Net-new pipeline generation: Build a continuously growing, high-quality pipeline across payroll, pension, travel and expense, and global mobility partners, with primary focus on payroll and pension.
• Territory strategy: Develop and execute a North American account and territory plan based on addressable whitespace, strategic fit, corridor opportunity, competitive position, and route to revenue.
• Ideal partner targeting: Prioritise partners with a large customer book, recurring cross-border flows, attractive corridor mix, mature KYC practices, limited high-risk exposure, and influence over payables or receivables.
• Prospecting and market development: Create opportunities through targeted outbound activity, executive networking, referrals, advisers, technology ecosystems, conferences, and coordinated marketing.
• Consultative discovery: Understand the partner model, end-customer journey, payment flows, statutory-payment needs, FX economics, technical requirements, implementation dependencies, and commercial value.
• Value proposition: Lead with Convera’s strengths in global network and currency coverage, compliance, FX expertise, local payout rails, hedging capabilities, and relationship management.
• Complex sales leadership: Own opportunities from initial engagement through qualification, business-case development, solution design, commercial negotiation, contracting, and internal approval.
• Anchor partnerships: Identify strategically important partners that can provide brand value, market credibility, learning, or co-development potential in addition to direct revenue.
• Cross-functional orchestration: Mobilise Product, Solutions Consulting, Technology, Legal, Compliance, Pricing, Finance, Operations, Implementation, and Marketing to progress opportunities and resolve barriers.
• Disciplined handover: Transition signed partners to the appropriate implementation, partner activation, and account-management teams with clear commercial commitments, success measures, and ownership.
• Selective future-vertical development: Maintain informed coverage of marketplace and AP automation opportunities, but pursue selectively and in line with product and technology readiness.
• Sales discipline: Maintain accurate CRM data, next steps, qualification, forecasting, risks, and commercial assumptions; use insight to improve conversion and sales velocity. 

Measures of success 

• Pipeline creation: Value, quality, coverage, and progression of net-new qualified pipeline.
• New partner wins: Signed partnerships and contracted revenue potential in priority workforce-payment verticals.
• Strategic fit: Proportion of pipeline aligned to the target partner profile, priority verticals, and North American growth agenda.
• Commercial quality: Sustainable economics, FX capture opportunity, scalable operating model, and clear route to downstream customer adoption.
• Execution: Forecast accuracy, stage progression, internal alignment, and clean handover after signature. 

What you bring 

• Experience: 7+ years in B2B business development or enterprise sales, ideally within payments, fintech, payroll, pension, HR technology, SaaS, or financial services.
• Proactive new business development track record: Demonstrated success creating pipeline from the ground up and closing complex net-new business.
• Channel sales: Experience selling through partnerships, platforms, intermediaries, or embedded distribution models, including an understanding of downstream customer economics.
• Payments knowledge: Understanding of cross-border payments, mass payments, local payout rails, foreign exchange, hedging, compliance, and partner-led payment models.
• Technical confidence: Ability to sell integrated and API-enabled solutions credibly while matching the solution to current product capability and implementation readiness.
• Commercial acumen: Strong skills in qualification, opportunity sizing, business cases, pricing, negotiation, and multi-party deal structuring.
• Executive influence: Confidence engaging senior commercial, product, technology, finance, treasury, compliance, and operations stakeholders.
• Ways of working: High ownership, persistence, sound judgement, curiosity, a