Description
About O’Reilly Media
O’Reilly’s mission is to change the world by sharing the knowledge of innovators. For over 45 years, we’ve inspired companies and individuals to do new things—and do things better—by providing them with the skills and understanding that’s necessary for success.
At the heart of our business is a unique network of experts and innovators who share their knowledge through us. O’Reilly Learning offers exclusive live training, interactive learning, a certification experience, books, videos, and more, making it easier for our customers to develop the expertise they need to get ahead. And our books have been heralded for decades as the definitive place to learn about the technologies that are shaping the future. Everything we do is to help professionals from a variety of fields learn best practices and discover emerging trends that will shape the future of the tech industry.
Our customers are hungry to build the innovations that propel the world forward. And we help you do just that.
Diversity
At O’Reilly, we believe that true innovation depends on hearing from, and listening to, people with a variety of perspectives. We want our whole organization to recognize, include, and encourage people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, religions, sexual orientations, and professional roles.
About the Team
Our Corporate Development team at O'Reilly is a vibrant, energetic, and dedicated group committed to driving the company's growth and profitability. We are a small team of strategic thinkers, relationship builders, and technology enthusiasts who are passionate about creating and nurturing partnerships that advance O'Reilly Media's corporate and product development initiatives.
Our mission is to identify, develop, and establish strategic partnerships that enhance our capabilities and deliver exceptional value to our customers, partners, and internal stakeholders. We work closely with various functional leaders across the organization, including product development, engineering, sales, legal, and finance, to ensure alignment with our strategic goals.
Our core values revolve around collaboration, innovation, and integrity. We believe in open communication, the power of diverse perspectives, and the importance of building trust within our team and with our partners. We are driven by results and continuously strive to exceed expectations.
What sets our team apart within O'Reilly is our unique blend of business acumen, technological expertise, and deep understanding of professional technical and business learning. We are not just about closing deals; we are about forging meaningful, long-lasting partnerships that open new markets, accelerate market share growth, and make O'Reilly's product offering highly competitive and successful.
As a member of our team, you will have the opportunity to work in a dynamic, fast-paced environment where every day brings new challenges and opportunities. You will be part of a global organization that values your unique skills and experiences and offers opportunities for professional growth and development.
About the Role
You will serve as the Director of Business Development focused on content and technology partnerships that enhance our capabilities and value delivery to customers, partners, and internal stakeholders. This position reports directly to the Chief Corporate Development Officer and will lead the identification, development, and establishment of strategic partnerships that align with and advance O’Reilly Media’s corporate and product development initiatives to achieve corporate growth targets.
In your role, you’ll actively build and nurture relationships with external content and technology partners, and be a trusted advisor to and work in collaboration with many functional leaders throughout the organization, including product development, engineering, sales, legal, and finance.
Your focus is to identify relevant opportunities and recruit high-potential partnerships that deliver content and/or technical capabilities with solutions that address unmet market needs, accelerates market share growth, opens new markets, and generally makes O’Reilly’s product offering highly competitive and successful, resulting in the company's growth and profitability.
A successful candidate will possess a unique combination of skills, bringing together a depth of practical knowledge in professional technical and business learning spanning various modalities, firm understanding of and experience with sales processes, and a strong understanding of technology and systems integration possibilities, all rooted in an understanding of current and future technology trends and their implications as they pertain to professional learning.
This role will challenge you to bring those skills together to identify opportunities and potential content, technology, and service partners, build out proposals, and use your sales and negotiation skills to progress initial conversations into formalized contractual relationships. You’ll get to take these ideas full-circle, partnering with external partners and internal functional leads to drive the implementation and ensure a smooth transition from idea to operation.
Top candidates will have worked in a structured and rigorous environment, whether in a corporate culture, later-stage startup environment (e.g. reporting to an executive leadership team), product management and/or consulting agency. Candidates must have demonstrated the ability to think strategically about business, product, and technical challenges, convey compelling data-driven decisions, and work collaboratively to build consensus with both internal and external stakeholders.
A keen sense of ownership, drive, and scrappiness is a must, as is the ability to successfully bridge external partner relationships and O’Reilly’s global organization to achieve results.
Salary Range: $180,000 - $200,000
What You’ll Do
- Develop and implement strategic business development plans aligned with corporate objectives to expand the company's customer base and ensure its strong market presence.
- Identify emerging markets and market shifts while being fully aware of new products and competitive service offerings.
- Identify, establish, and nurture relationships with potential external partner organizations.
- Build and maintain strong, trusted professional relationships with functional area leads.
- Work closely with identified external partners, senior-level leaders, and internal stakeholders to ideate, quantify, and develop impactful, multi-faceted growth opportunities that are aligned with the company’s strategic objectives.
- Use business acumen to ascertain opportunities likely to be most beneficial to the company by analyzing market performance and sourcing disparate data sets.
- Consult with partner leaders / stakeholders on business case development, creation of enablement strategies, budgeting, resource allocation and implementation strategy.
- Develop business plans for internal use at the appropriate level of detail to effectively communicate the plan vision across internal stakeholders. These will include market analysis, value proposition, description of the initiative, high level implementation plan, organizational considerations, scenario-based financial forecasts and projections, and risks.
- Create partner-facing proposals and move conversations from idea stage through negotiations to close partnership deals.
- Develop and negotiate contracts in partnership with senior management and legal teams.
- Work closely with external partners and internal stakeholders to ensure alignment and engagement on partnership implementation, milestone achievement, and projected outcomes.
- Develop go-to-market strategies in partnership with external partner and internal stakeholders, and tenaciously promotes O’Reilly partner offerings through cooperative initiatives.
- Own and manage key relationships with partner(s), transitioning operational and/or business ownership when and as appropriate.
- Provide transparency through regular reporting on important metrics, including opportunities, status, alignment, technical and business feasibility, progress against projected impacts, and goal attainment.
- Keep up-to-date on current and future technology and business industry market trends.
What You’ll Have
Required:
- Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, or a related fields
- In lieu of degree, equivalent education and/or experience may be considered
With Bachelor's degree:
- 8-10 years of experience in Partnerships, Channel Sales or Business Development roles
- Proven track record of identifying new business opportunities and closing deals
- Contextualized understanding of current and future technology trends and their implications
- Practical knowledge in professional technical and business learning spanning various modalities
- Strong understanding of technology and systems integration possibilities
- Firm understanding of and experience with sales processes
- Strong business acumen with a strategic thinking and planning ability
- Excellent negotiation and leadership skills
- Outstanding communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to build relationships with internal stakeholders
- Strong analytical skills and business acumen to help guide various analyses
- Demonstrated creativity in solutions designs
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, matrixed team environment
- Strong problem-solving abilities and a willingness to think "outside the box" to find innovative solutions
- Classically trained in one or more sales and marketing methodologies such as the Challenger Methodology
Preferred:
- A Master's of Business Administration is a plus
