Partnership Manager- Merchant Partnerships & Loyalty

Overview

The client is strengthening its Loyalty function by embedding a dedicated Partnership Manager to accelerate merchant ecosystem expansion and drive commercially impactful cardholder offers. This role sits at the intersection of commercial strategy and execution—owning the end-to-end merchant partnership lifecycle from sourcing and onboarding through to ongoing optimisation. For the right candidate, this is an opportunity to directly shape a card issuer’s loyalty value proposition in one of the fastest‑growing payments markets in the GCC, with visible impact on cardholder engagement, portfolio spend, and revenue growth.

• Merchant Acquisition & Onboarding
  source, evaluate, and onboard new merchant partners across retail, dining, travel, e‑commerce, and lifestyle sectors, ensuring alignment with the client’s card portfolio strategy and customer segmentation.
• Relationship Management
  serve as the primary point of contact for existing merchant partners, conduct regular business reviews, resolve issues proactively, and identify upsell and cross‑sell opportunities to deepen partnerships.
• Offer Design & Commercial Negotiation
  design, negotiate, and optimise merchant‑funded offers such as cashback structures and loyalty rewards that drive cardholder engagement and measurable spend uplift.
• Market Intelligence & Competitive Benchmarking
  monitor competitor loyalty programmes, emerging merchant categories, and regional consumer trends across Qatar and the broader GCC to inform partnership strategy.
• Cross‑Functional Coordination
  collaborate with product, marketing, digital, risk, and compliance teams to ensure seamless offer execution, regulatory alignment and go‑to‑market delivery.

• New Merchant Partners Onboarded – number of new partners activated per quarter.
• Offer Redemption Rate – proportion of cardholders engaging with merchant offers.
• Incremental Card Spend Uplift – spend increase attributable to merchant‑driven offers versus baseline.
• Partner Retention – renewal rate of merchant partnerships at contract end.
• Average days from partner agreement to offer going live.
• Cardholder Engagement Score – composite metric of offer views, redemptions, and repeat usage.

• Merchant acquisition, partnership management or business development within card issuing, acquiring or payments.

• Loyalty programme design, management and optimisation, including points‑based, cashback and merchant‑funded offers.

• Understanding of interchange economics, scheme rules (Mastercard, Visa) and merchant‑funded offer mechanics.

• Banking, payments, fintech or card scheme environment experience.

• CRM platforms such as Salesforce, Hub Spot or equivalent for pipeline and relationship tracking.

• Loyalty management platforms such as Comarch, Collinson, Giift, Novus Loyalty or similar.

• Campaign management and offer publishing tools.

• Data analytics and reporting tools (Excel advanced, Tableau, Power BI or equivalent).

• Familiarity with digital channels, mobile banking apps and e‑wallets for offer distribution.

• Excellent negotiation, presentation and interpersonal communication skills.

• Strong analytical and data‑driven decision‑making capabilities.

• Ability to manage multiple partner relationships and competing priorities simultaneously.

• Stakeholder management across senior internal and external contacts.

• Commercially minded with the ability to balance strategic vision and tactical execution.

Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Finance or related field. MBA is a plus. Arabic language skills are preferred but not required. Certifications such as Certified Loyalty Marketing Professional (CLMP) or equivalent are a nice to have. Experience with A/B testing or Test & Learn methodologies for offer optimisation.

• Previous experience within banking, cards & payments or fintech – non‑negotiable for understanding scheme dynamics, interchange and cardholder value proposition design.

• Proven merchant acquisition and partnership management track record demonstrating sourcing, negotiating and managing commercial partnerships.

• Strong analytical capability – ability to interpret performance data, identify trends and translate into actionable partnership strategies.

• Professional English fluency – required for all internal and external stakeholder communication.