About the Role :

- At Cashfree Payments, we are building the next generation of intelligent financial and payment experiences powered by AI.

- We are looking for an Associate Director - AI Partnerships to help drive strategic collaborations across the AI ecosystem and unlock new opportunities at the intersection of payments, automation, commerce, and enterprise technology.

- This role will work closely with Product, Business, Engineering, and Leadership teams to identify, build, and scale partnerships with AI platforms, startups, enterprise technology providers, and ecosystem enablers.

- The ideal candidate should be comfortable navigating evolving technologies, building strategic relationships, and translating emerging AI capabilities into business impact.

What You'll Do :

- Identify and build strategic partnerships with AI companies, platforms, developer ecosystems, and technology providers.

- Work closely with internal stakeholders across Product, Engineering, GTM, and Strategy teams to evaluate AI-led business opportunities.

- Drive partnership discussions, commercial negotiations, and alliance frameworks with external partners.

- Explore AI use-cases across payments, merchant operations, customer experience, risk, compliance, and automation workflows.

- Build joint go-to-market initiatives and ecosystem collaborations with AI partners.

- Enable co-innovation opportunities including pilots, integrations, and solution partnerships.

- Track emerging AI trends, startups, and market developments relevant to fintech and digital payments.

- Create partnership narratives, business cases, and strategic recommendations for leadership teams.

- Collaborate with product teams to translate market feedback and ecosystem insights into scalable opportunities.

- Represent Cashfree in industry conversations, ecosystem events, and strategic AI engagements.

What You'll Need :

- 8-10 years of experience in strategic partnerships, business development, consulting, enterprise technology, fintech, or ecosystem roles.

- Strong understanding of AI/GenAI landscape, SaaS platforms, APIs, automation ecosystems, or emerging enterprise technologies.

- Experience working with cross-functional stakeholders across business, product, and technology teams.

- Ability to build and manage senior-level external relationships and strategic alliances.

- Strong commercial acumen with experience in partnership structuring and business negotiations.

- Excellent communication, storytelling, and stakeholder management skills.

- Comfortable operating in fast-moving and evolving environments with high ownership.

- Analytical and structured problem-solving mindset with the ability to evaluate strategic opportunities.

- Prior exposure to fintech, payments, SaaS, cloud, developer ecosystems, or AI-led products will be an added advantage.

- Curiosity to explore emerging technologies and identify meaningful business applications.