Partnerships Lead – Trip-Ease

About Trip-Ease

Trip-Ease is building Nigeria's premier multi-modal transport integration platform. Our mission is simple: make travel planning across buses, rides, and other transport options seamless for millions of Nigerians. We're building the supply and distribution foundation that will power reliable bookings, better operator partnerships, and broader access to transport options across cities and intercity routes.

Role overview — the mission

The Partnerships Lead will drive strategic partnerships and fleet growth to accelerate Trip-Ease's mission of becoming Nigeria's leading multi-modal transport marketplace. In this role, the focus spans pre-launch partner acquisition and post-launch scaling, ensuring a strong foundation for both independent and institutional operator networks, as well as distribution channels that drive user adoption and bookings.

The ideal candidate is a resourceful commercial operator who can negotiate, execute, and scale partnerships in a lean, fast-moving environment. They will manage the full partnership lifecycle from prospecting and onboarding to integration, performance monitoring, and growth optimization.

Must-have: Demonstrated experience in startups and marketplace tech platforms, with a track record of building and scaling partner or operator networks in a tech-driven, high-growth environment.

Pre-Launch Responsibilities

Before Trip-Ease officially launches, the Partnerships Lead will:

1. Independent Transport Operators (Target: 100)

• Identify and engage ~100 independent driver/operators across priority intercity and commuter routes.
• Conduct in-person meetings, site visits, and partner onboarding activities across Lagos and other priority routes to ensure readiness for launch.
• Build relationships, explain Trip-Ease's value proposition, and secure commitments to join the platform at launch.
• Conversion goal: Successfully onboard ~60 independent operators by launch.
• Collect operational, fleet, and route data to ensure smooth onboarding and integration.

2. Institutional Transport Partners (Target: 60)

• Prospect and engage ~60 institutional fleet partners (bus companies, shuttles, aggregators).
• Negotiate preliminary commercial terms, integration requirements, and operational SLAs.
• Conversion goal: Onboard ~30 institutional partners to the platform by launch.
• Prepare integration roadmaps and co-marketing plans for launch activation.

3. Pre-Launch Enablement & Readiness

• Work closely with Product/Engineering to ensure partners are ready for technical onboarding (ticketing, pricing, APIs).
• Align with Marketing to develop launch-ready activation campaigns targeting operator audiences.
• Maintain a pre-launch partner pipeline and progress dashboard for leadership review.

Post-Launch Core Responsibilities

A. Distribution & Commercial Partnerships (50%)

• Build, manage, and scale a pipeline of distribution partners (corporates, campuses, commuter communities, travel agents, event partners, aggregators).
• Close deals that drive app downloads, bookings, and partner-led campaigns.
• Structure commercial agreements (commission, revenue-share, incentive models, volume rebates) to align partner and Trip-Ease growth objectives.
• Collaborate with Marketing to design and implement co-marketing campaigns that convert partner audiences into active users.
• Track, analyze, and optimize partner performance based on ROI and contribution to bookings.

B. Fleet Growth & Operator Partnerships (40%)

• Identify, approach, and onboard bus and transport operators (intercity, intra-city, shuttles) across Nigeria.
• Negotiate operator commercial terms, SLAs, and integration roadmaps (commission, settlement cadence, cancellations).
• Coordinate technical integration with Product/Engineering (API onboarding, data flows, testing).
• Ensure operational readiness: ticketing/pricing alignment, partner training, verification, and quality checks.
• Monitor operator performance and retention, implementing interventions to improve utilization and satisfaction.

C. Cross-functional Coordination & Governance (10%)

• Sync with Operations to ensure partners are fully operational and service quality is maintained.
• Align with Marketing on partner activation briefs, creative assets, and reporting cadence.
• Maintain updated partnership documentation: MoUs, contracts, SLAs, commission schedules.
• Build partner dashboards and report weekly/monthly commercial KPIs to leadership.

Competencies & behaviours

• Commercial negotiator — closes deals that balance aggressiveness with sustainable unit economics.
• Relationship builder — trusted by operators and channel partners; maintains long-term commercial ties.
• Operator & integrator — can translate partner needs into product/technical requirements and drive execution.
• Data-informed — measures partner ROI, experiments with commercial structures, and iterates.
• Team collaborator — works effectively with Ops, Marketing and Product to convert deals into bookings.

Required qualifications & experience

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Transport, or related field (or equivalent practical experience). MBA or advanced business qualification is a plus.
• Experience: 3–6 years in partnerships, business development, or commercial roles — preferably within transport, logistics, mobility, marketplaces or SaaS.
• Commercial track record: Demonstrable history of closing B2B partnerships, structuring commercial deals (commission/revenue-share models), and managing partner relationships to measurable outcomes. Provide a portfolio or short case examples if available.
• Technical collaboration: Experience coordinating or managing technical integrations (API onboarding, product handoffs, or working with engineering/product teams) is desirable.
• Analytical capability: Comfortable with partner economics modelling (commission %, settlement cadence, contribution margin etc.), and using simple dashboards, Excel/Sheets or basic SQL for partner performance analysis.
• Communication & negotiation: Strong written and verbal communication skills; proven ability to negotiate commercial terms and present to senior stakeholders.
• Startup-ready / resourceful operator: Evidence that you can build and scale partnerships without large teams or big budgets — for example, by creating cold-outreach pipelines, closing deals using non-cash incentives (co-marketing, revenue-share), or activating partners through low-cost, high-impact tactics.
• Location & mobility: Nigeria-based, comfortable with hybrid working (remote start with transition to Lagos hub) and regular travel for partner engagement.

Preferred skills

• Prior experience onboarding transport operators, ticketing systems, or working with aggregators.
• Familiarity with Nigerian transport regulatory environment and local operator networks.
• Experience with CRM/partnership tools (HubSpot/Salesforce), contract management (DocuSign/Google Workspace), and basic SQL or spreadsheet modelling.
• Track record designing co-marketing programs or reseller/channel models.

Tools & capabilities

• CRM & pipeline: HubSpot / Salesforce or equivalent — for partner lifecycle management.
• Pitch deck and Proposal Tools: Canva, Slidesbean, Gemma AI, PowerPoint etc.
• Contract & document management: Google Workspace, DocuSign or similar.
• Analytics & reporting: Google Sheets/Excel, basic SQL or BI dashboards — to measure partner KPIs, CAC by channel and LTV impact.
• Integration coordination: familiarity with API onboarding process and working with engineering/product teams.
• Communication & presentation: slide decks, partner one-pagers, and commercial proposals.