Director, Strategic AI Partnerships

About the role

Bandwidth , a prior "Best of EC" award winner, is a global software company that helps enterprises deliver exceptional experiences through voice, messaging, and emergency services. Reaching 65+ countries and over 90 percent of the global economy, we're the only provider offering an owned communications cloud that delivers advanced automation, AI integrations, global reach, and premium human support. Bandwidth is trusted for mission-critical communications by the Global 2000, hyperscalers, and SaaS builders! At Bandwidth, your music matters when you are part of the BAND. We celebrate differences and encourage BANDmates to be their authentic selves. #jointheband

Responsibilities

• Market Evangelism: Identify and penetrate "Big AI" accounts (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, etc.) and emerging innovators in the Real-time Voice/LLM space to position Bandwidth as the premier platform for high-scale, low-latency voice integration.
• Data Strategy & Licensing: Design and execute the framework for licensing Bandwidth's unique voice data assets for AI training, ensuring compliance, ethical standards, and high commercial value.
• Strategic Relationship Management: Navigate complex organizational structures to build "at-level" partnerships with C-suite executives, Product Leads, and Head of Research counterparts.
• Product-Market Feedback Loop: Act as the "voice of the AI customer" internally. Gather technical requirements and friction points to collaborate with Product and Engineering teams on rapid iterations of our AI feature set.
• Ecosystem Mapping: Stay at the bleeding edge of AI trends (Text-to-Speech, Speech-to-Text, and Real-time Voice) to identify new areas where Bandwidth can create "moats."
• Market Making: Define the "Voice for AI" category for Bandwidth. This includes creating partnership structures that prioritize technical integration and long-term ecosystem alignment over short-term transaction volume.
• KPIs in this role include:
• Primary: Number of formalized partnerships and technical integrations secured with Tier-1 and Tier-2 AI players.
• Secondary: Revenue generated through data licensing and platform usage.
• Strategic: Quality of product feedback loops and successful internal iteration on AI-specific features.
• Working Conditions:
• Works in a normal office environment with occasional travel required.
• Location Agnostic: Open to remote candidates, however relatively frequent travel to Bandwidth HQ in Raleigh will be required as well as the ability to work effectively in a distributed environment, maintaining high visibility with the CSO and internal product teams regardless of time zone.
• What You Need:
• Education:
• Bachelor degree

Requirements

• 10+ years in Business Development, Strategic Partnerships, or Product Management within the SaaS, Cloud Infrastructure, or AI sectors.
• Experience at a "frontier" tech company or within a high-growth AI/SaaS environment is critical.
• Knowledge:
• A deep, intuitive understanding of the AI stack, including how LLMs use data and the requirements for real-time voice synthesis/recognition.
• The "Founding" Mindset: Proven track record of taking a "zero-to-one" product or vertical to market. You must be comfortable with ambiguity and building your own playbook.
• Relationship Excellence: Demonstrated ability to open doors at Tier-1 tech companies and negotiate complex, multi-million dollar contracts that involve both technical and legal stakeholders.
• AI Technical Fluency: A deep understanding of how AI engines are built, how they consume data, and the specific infrastructure requirements (latency, throughput, reliability) for voice-driven AI.
• Partnership Savvy: A track record of closing complex, multi-faceted partnerships where "success" was defined by strategic alignment and technical integration rather than just raw revenue.
• Communication: Exceptional ability to translate between deeply technical engineering requirements and high-level business strategy.
• Autonomy: As a remote-capable role reporting to the CSO, you must be a self-starter who can maintain high visibility and drive results without a local team.
• Bonus Points:
• Education:
• MBA, technical degree or both (Computer Science, Data Science, or Electrical E

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