Head of Partner Growth, Embedded Payroll

The Opportunity

Gusto Embedded Payroll (GEP) is one of Gusto's highest-growth bets — a platform business that enables software companies to offer Gusto-powered payroll directly within their own products. We're looking for a Head of Partner Growth to lead the team responsible for making our embedded partners successful: driving go-to-market execution, growing partner revenue, and building the operational and strategic frameworks that will scale this business toward $100M+.

This is a player-coach leadership role. You'll manage a cross-functional team spanning Partner Success Management (PSM) and Partner enablement— while also staying deeply hands-on with our most strategic partner relationships. You'll own the partner growth playbook end-to-end: from GTM planning and launch sequencing through ongoing optimization, escalation management, and executive relationship development.

Gusto's partnerships organization focuses on evaluating and executing strategic partnerships in new categories. Gusto Embedded Payroll allows us to bring our people platform to thousands more businesses than those we serve directly and will play a key role in Gusto's growth.

What It's Like to Work in This Role

Lead & Develop

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing team of Partner Success Managers and Partner Enablement
• Set the operational rhythm for the partner growth function — including planning cadences, escalation workflows, and performance management
• Coach team members on partner strategy, executive communication, and cross-functional navigation
• Drive Enablement with the ideation, creation, and execution of enablement frameworks and materials.
• Drive AI fluency across the team — embedding AI tools and workflows into day-to-day partner operations, GTM planning, and internal knowledge management to accelerate output and decision quality

Strategize & Plan

• Own the partner growth strategy across the GEP portfolio, including partner segmentation, prioritization, and resource allocation
• Develop and maintain per-partner operating plans with clear success metrics, in collaboration with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Sales Enablement
• Build repeatable GTM playbooks — covering co-marketing motions, sales enablement, content roadmaps, and launch sequencing — tailored to each partner's distribution model and ICP
• Translate portfolio-level data (revenue, attach rates, funnel performance) into strategic narratives for leadership

Operate & Execute

• Drive success for our partners and their end customers through adoption, activation, and retention of Gusto-powered embedded products
• Own the full marketing funnel and sales motion with partners — from top-of-funnel demand generation through conversion, onboarding, and expansion
• Manage complex, high-stakes partner relationships directly — including contract negotiations, executive escalations, and cross-functional alignment on roadmap priorities
• Lead partner incident response and escalation management with structured, cross-functional workflows

Build for Scale

• Create and expand the feedback loop between partners, their end users, and Gusto's internal product, marketing, engineering, and operations teams
• Design frameworks, templates, and processes that enable the team to manage a growing partner portfolio without linear headcount growth
• Identify and implement AI-powered workflows and tools that improve team efficiency, partner reporting, and knowledge management

What We're Looking For

• 12-15 years of experience, with 8+ years in a people management role and 7+ years in partner-facing or channel-facing roles
• Partner-side perspective: Has operated on the partner or channel side of the table — understands how partners evaluate, prioritize, and activate embedded or referral relationships
• Farmer mentality: Wired to grow and deepen existing partner relationships through trust-building, strategic account planning, and proactive expansion — not just hunting new deals
• Methodical operator: Builds repeatable playbooks, escalation frameworks, and operational rhythms rather than relying on one-off heroics. Strong systems thinker
• GTM playbook experience: Hands-on experience building go-to-market plans from scratch — including co-marketing, keyword strategies, content roadmaps, and launch sequencing
• Full-funnel fluency: Understands the complete marketing and sales journey from demand gen through conversion, activation, and retention. Can diagnose where a partner motion is leaking value and prescribe the right intervention
• AI fluency: Actively uses AI tools (e.g., LLMs, automation platforms) to accelerate workflows, improve decision quality, and build team capability. Comfortable leading an AI adoption agenda within a team
• Executive communicator: Strong ghostwriter and strategic communicator who can represent the partnership function credibly with C-suite stakeholders — both internally and at partner organizations
• Strong sense of ownership and resilience: Thrives in ambiguity, takes initiative, and drives outcomes without waiting for permission
• Exceptional written and verbal communication: Can shift register fluently between partner-facing emails, internal Slack, leadership documents, and board-level narratives

Strong Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with embedded or platform business models (APIs, developer tools, B2B2B)
• Knowledge of payroll, HR tech, or fintech software ecosystems
• Experience managing partner P&Ls, cost-to-manage models, or portfolio-level financial analysis
• "Gets" the building-mode opportunity — has scaled a partner function from early stage, not just inherited a mature program

Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at:
$230,215 - $270,500 in San Francisco, CA; New York, NY
$195,745 - $230,000 in Denver, CO; Phoenix, AZ; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Las Vegas, NV

If you are outside of the geographic areas above, your application will not be considered at this time.

Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above.