Partner Sales Manager

About the role

You'll own Kong's partner business in India. That means recruiting the right partners, building real go-to-market motion with them, and driving sourced incremental revenue — not slideware pipeline. You'll be the single point of contact for anything partner-related: for our field sellers who need partner help on a deal, for partners who need a path into Kong, and for leadership setting the regional strategy. The ecosystem spans channel resellers, technology partners, GSIs, and hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP). You'll work across all four. This is a senior individual contributor role. You'll run India as your own business, in close partnership with the India sales leader.

What you'll do

• Own the India partner number. Sell Kong's full portfolio — products, renewals, professional services, support — through and with focus partners.
• Build the joint GTM plan with the India sales team. Identify and sign new partners where there are gaps.
• Drive partner-sourced pipeline. Set targets, run the cadence, hold partners (and yourself) to them.
• Build joint assets with focus partners — reference architectures, blueprints, solution briefs that field teams on both sides actually use.
• Run joint marketing events that generate pipeline, not just logos on a banner.
• Get inside your partners' business. Understand how they make money, where Kong fits, and what it takes to win together. Then pull in the right cross-functional support — enablement, CX, marketing, ops — to make the projects land.
• Build a focus partner plan for India and execute it with sales engineering, SDRs, customer success, and marketing alongside you.

What you bring

• 8+ years in partner, channel, or alliances sales, with a track record of driving GTM across channel, GSI, and hyperscaler partners.
• Existing relationships with India's regional and national system integrators. You can name the partners you'd start with on day one.
• A bias toward net-new, sourced business — not just tagging partners onto deals you'd close anyway.
• Comfort running many partners and many activities in parallel without losing the thread on any of them.
• Experience selling infrastructure, developer platforms, or API/AI technology to enterprise buyers in India.

Nice to have

• Prior PSM or partner leadership experience at an API, integration, or open-source-led company.
• Hyperscaler co-sell experience (AWS ISV Accelerate, Azure IP Co-sell, GCP Partner Advantage).
• Network across India's GCC / capability-center buyer base.

#LI-SP1