Partnerships Lead

Partnerships Lead

📍 Hybrid

(Preferred: Greenville, NC \| Open to Raleigh, NC)

🗓 Start Date:

Immediate

Impact Card is building the next generation of financial infrastructure for universities — connecting everyday spending with institutional funding, alumni engagement, and local economic ecosystems.

We’re hiring a

Partnerships Lead

to own and build one university market from the ground up. This is a high-ownership role with a clear path to scale into a broader leadership position as we expand.

What You’ll Do

• Own merchant partnerships for a single university market — from first outreach to activity
• Lead merchant onboarding and activation end-to-end
• Work directly with university stakeholders to integrate partners into campus channels, events, and communications
• Support go-to-market efforts locally and ensure strong early traction
• Help build the foundation of a repeatable, scalable partnerships engine
• Capture consumer sentiment on the product and program offering

What This Role Actually Is

You are the operator responsible for making a market work. This means building real relationships, creating real economic activity, and being on the ground enough to understand what drives behavior in a university ecosystem. You will start with one university — and if you execute, expand into multiple markets and grow into a company-wide leadership role.

Who You Are

• Driven and comfortable with intensity and ownership
• Builder mindset:  You prefer creating over maintaining
• Strong seller and relationship builder who can close and execute
• Thrives in ambiguity and moves fast without waiting for perfect direction
• Willing to be in-market and hands-on (this is not a passive role)

Nice to have:

• Ties to Eastern North Carolina or experience working with universities
• Former student-athlete
• Early-stage startup experience

Compensation

• Salary: $60K – $75K (based on experience and profile)
• Equity: Meaningful early-stage equity grant
• Performance bonuses included, tied to market growth and activation

Why This Role

• Direct ownership of a live market from day one
• Work closely with company leadership and university stakeholders
• Opportunity to build something tangible in a real community

If you want to build, own, and scale something from zero, this is that role.