Head of Partnerships San Francisco preferred

Forward Future
· San Francisco preferred

Forward Future is one of the fastest-growing AI media companies.

Across our properties — The Future Today, our daily newsletter;
The Future Live, our weekly show;
Forward Future on You Tube; and  — we reach millions of people every month who want to understand what's happening in AI and how to put it to work.

In a world flooded with hype, we break down what's real, what's fluff, and what actually matters. Our job is to make the future legible.

We work with companies like Google, Perplexity, Microsoft, Cursor, and Intel to help them reach an audience of professionals, builders, executives, and early adopters shaping how AI gets used.

We're looking for a Head of Partnerships to help us grow that side of the business.

This is a full-cycle sales role.

You’ll be responsible for building relationships with advertisers and partners, identifying opportunities, developing campaigns, closing deals, and helping turn one-off advertisers into long-term Forward Future partners.

You’ll sell across our portfolio, including newsletter sponsor ships, You Tube integrations, custom content, events, and larger cross-platform partnerships.

This isn't a high-volume transactional sales job.

Our best partnerships come from understanding what a company is trying to accomplish and building something that genuinely works for them and for our audience.

You’ll work directly with Forward Future's founders and content team and have significant ownership over how we build our commercial business.

• Own the sales cycle — Manage opportunities from first conversation through signed contract, including prospecting and developing new advertiser relationships, qualifying inbound opportunities, running discovery calls, building proposals and media plans, negotiating pricing and terms, closing new business, and managing renewals and expanding existing accounts.
• Build relationships with the AI ecosystem — Develop relationships with marketing leaders, founders, agencies, and growth teams across AI, technology, SaaS, and adjacent industries. You should become someone our partners trust — not just someone who reaches out when inventory needs to be sold.
• Sell ideas, not just inventory — Understand a partner's goals and recommend the right combination of Forward Future products to achieve them. Sometimes that will be a newsletter placement. Sometimes it will be a You Tube integration. Sometimes it will be a larger campaign spanning multiple channels. The goal is to build partnerships that perform, not simply fill available slots.
• Grow existing accounts — Some of our biggest opportunities will come from companies already working with us. You’ll identify ways to turn successful campaigns into larger, recurring relationships and develop a strong book of repeat business.
• Own your pipeline — Maintain a disciplined pipeline and reliable forecast. You’ll be expected to know what is likely to close, when it is likely to close, what is blocking a deal, and where the next opportunities are coming from. We care about results, but we also care about building a predictable sales engine.
• Bring the market back to the company — You’ll be one of the people talking most frequently with companies trying to reach the AI market. We want those conversations to influence what we build. You’ll help us understand what advertisers want, where budgets are moving, what products are resonating, and where Forward Future has opportunities to create new commercial offerings.

You’re probably a strong fit if you:

• Have 3–7+ years of experience in media, advertising, sponsorship, SaaS, or partnership sales
• Have experience owning a full sales cycle and consistently closing business
• Are comfortable selling deals in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
• Know how to build relationships rather than simply run a sales script
• Can communicate clearly with founders, CMOs, marketing leaders, and agencies
• Are highly organized and disciplined about follow-up and pipeline management
• Can write a strong proposal without needing someone else to turn your thinking into a deck
• Are comfortable operating in a fast-moving…