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SVP of Partnerships

About Skillz

Skillz is the leading mobile games platform connecting players in fair, fun, and meaningful competition.

The gaming industry is larger than movies, music, and books, with more than 2.7 billion gamers playing monthly and 10 million developers worldwide. Mobile is the fastest-growing segment of the gaming market, expected to increase from $86 billion last year to $161 billion in 2025.

As the first publicly-traded (NYSE: SKLZ) mobile esports platform, Skillz has pioneered the future of the gaming industry. The Skillz platform helps developers build multi-million dollar franchises by enabling social competition in their games. Leveraging its patented technology, Skillz hosts billions of casual esports tournaments for millions of mobile players worldwide, and distributes millions in prizes each month.

Through its philanthropic initiatives, Skillz has harnessed the power of its platform to transform the way nonprofits engage with donors, enabling anyone with a mobile device to support causes such as the American Red Cross, Susan G. Komen, American Cancer Society, and NAACP by playing in Skillz tournaments.

Skillz has also earned recognition as one of San Francisco Business Times’ Best Places to Work, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, Parity.org’s Best Companies for Women to Advance, a two-time winner of CNBC’s Disruptor 50, one of Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups, and the #1 fastest-growing company in America on the Inc. 5000.

Who we’re looking for:

Skillz is seeking a driven business development executive to focus on building deeper and broader relationships crossing the mobile and technology industries while scaling a high performing business development team. This leader will have a history of generating value for new technology ventures and success with cross disciplinary deals in the carrier, OEM and/or mobile technology space.

Reporting to one of the company’s founders, the SVP of Partnership will shape the company’s path forward to capitalize on new revenue generating business partnerships and category expansion opportunities outside the immediate game developer ecosystem, and supported by the company’s unique IP portfolio surrounding competitive game play and other community-driven experiences powered by “gamification” engines. S/he will grow, scale and develop a world class business development process and team to meaningfully expand and further diversify Skillz’ core business.

What you’ll do:

• Drive broad deal mix – Leading with creativity and agility, identify and drive optimal deals for each unique situation. Synthesize multiple sources of information to develop a coherent understanding of market opportunities, emerging customer needs, and the competitive landscape. Identify, evaluate, prioritize, negotiate, and close strategic deals such as acquisitions, investments, JVs, and other partnerships in an aggressive timeframe.
• Drive efficient and effective deal-making and partner support process – Build and manage a process for effective partnership due diligence (business and technical). Drive the relationship building process at multiple levels between partners and Skillz to ensure commitments are delivered against. Work with our internal teams to ensure organizational understanding of partner requirements; influence roadmaps accordingly.
• Develop lasting partnerships – Develop and lead ongoing partnership efforts with distribution partners, mobile carriers, OEMs, and more. Develop business models to analyze deal performance; measure and monitor results to ensure partnerships are high-performing on an ongoing basis.
• Scale the team – Grow, scale and develop a world class Business Development team.
• Drive international expansion – Develop and execute GTM strategy into international markets.

Your Skillz:

• Minimum 15 years of relevant business development experience.
• Minimum 7 years of people management experience; growing, scaling, and mentoring.
• Prior partnership experience across diverse verticals and markets.
• Proven track record of qualifying, scoping and closing revenue generating partner programs.
• Ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment and deliver on key milestones.
• Outstanding ability to establish and maintain a strong deal pipeline.
• Skilled at structuring and negotiating complex partnerships.
• Experience defining strategic long-term organizational goals.
• Excellent executive communication and presence with senior management.
• Previous growth stage company experience is beneficial.l
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline; MBA from top school strongly preferred.

Skillz embraces diversity and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. As part of our commitment to diversifying our workforce, we do not discriminate on the basis of age, race, sex, gender, gender identity, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, citizenship, veteran status, or disability status, and we operate in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance .