Director of Strategic Partnerships

We power people’s progress.

At Preply, we’re all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalised learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact.

We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started. As a category-defining company, we’re shaping what the future of learning looks like at global scale.

Every Preply lesson sparks change, fuels ambition, and drives progress that matters. Joining Preply means helping define the future of education at global scale, and building something that truly matters for millions of people, every day.

Meet the team!

This role sits at the intersection of growth, product, brand, payments, and supply, and reports directly to our Chief Operating Officer. You’ll work closely with leaders across every major function to develop a unified strategic partnerships vision that touches the entire Preply business. It’s a high-visibility role with full ownership to build the partnerships function from the ground up - backed by executive alignment, existing tech infrastructure, and a business primed for scale.

What you’ll be doing

We’re looking for a builder - someone who will define, lead, and own Preply’s strategic partnerships function end to end. You’ll be the person shaping how we partner with external platforms, products, institutions, and marketplaces to unlock distribution, brand reach, user engagement, and long-term commercial value.

You’ll:

• Design and lead a partnership strategy spanning brand co-marketing, product integrations, fintech/payments, B2C and B2B distribution, education institutions, and supply-side partnerships.

• Identify and secure high-impact, multi-faceted partnerships such as global-scale digital platforms, mobile-first ecosystems, education networks, and fintech/payment infrastructure players.

• Collaborate with cross-functional leaders in Product, Engineering, Growth, Brand, Payments, and Supply to surface and activate meaningful partner opportunities.

• Unify existing one-off or team-specific partnership efforts into a single, forward-looking function.

• Own the full lifecycle: from scoping and pitching to negotiation, execution, and performance tracking.

• Leverage Preply’s existing tools and help define what product and engineering support is needed as the function matures.

• Build and scale a team over time, once early traction is established.

What you need to succeed

• Marketplace fluency: You’ve operated in a multi-sided platform or global-scale digital business, and understand how to structure partnerships that create value for users, partners, and the platform itself.

• Strategic and commercial range: You can lead complex negotiations, build custom partnership models, and identify win-win opportunities that go far beyond templated BD playbooks.

• Product-oriented mindset: You can collaborate closely with product and engineering teams to design embedded, scalable integrations.

• Growth and GTM thinking: You know how to align partnership strategy with user acquisition, brand expansion, and monetization goals.

• Cross-functional influence: You’ve worked across Brand, Product, Marketing, Legal, and Finance to get partnerships over the line and into production.

• High ownership and execution drive: You’re excited to roll up your sleeves and build from zero, not just manage a mature function.

• Excellent communication and storytelling skills: You can confidently pitch, present, and persuade - internally and externally.

• Comfort in ambiguity: You’re energized by a blank slate and thrive in high-growth, fast-evolving environments.

Why you’ll love it at Preply
Open, collaborative, dynamic and diverse culture

• Generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com

• Learning & Development budget, including time off for your self-development

• Competitive financial package with equity, leave allowance and health insurance

• Access to free mental health support platforms

• Not in New York? We offer an attractive relocation package to join us in our Preply NYC Hub

• Opportunity to shape the lives of learners and tutors from over 175 countries through language lea