Your First 30 Days as VP of Partnerships

There's a moment that happens in every new VP of Partnerships role, usually around day three.

You're sitting in your seventh onboarding meeting. Someone is walking you through a Tableau dashboard that hasn't been overhauled since Q2 2024. The sales team just promised a partner something that product says is "technically impossible." And you realize: Oh. This is why they hired me.

Not because everything was running smoothly and they needed someone to maintain the excellence. Because something wasn’t quite working, and they needed someone who knew how to take it to the next level.

Here's the thing nobody tells you: This is actually a great scenario for you (professionally)!

Your first 30 days aren't about pretending everything is fine. They're about earning the credibility to have a strong voice at the executive level.

And that's genuinely exciting if you're the kind of person who gets energized by seeing the direct impact of your work on a company’s results.

Here’s how I think about those crucial first weeks.

Hopping On Planes

Here's what makes a great partnership leader different from someone who's just filling a seat: You're going to see things that everyone else has stopped noticing.

Step 1? Go visit every major partner in person within the first 4 weeks.

You're going to sit across from your counterpart at LendingTree or NerdWallet, and they're going to tell you things that nobody internally knows. Maybe your API has been timing out and costing them millions. Maybe your predecessor promised features that never shipped. Maybe there's a competitor integration they love that you could learn from.

These conversations aren't uncomfortable truths to dread – they're opportunities to uncover that nobody else has. Every problem a partner shares is a problem you now have permission to solve.

You're not walking into these meetings to defend the past. You're there to build the future. And partners can feel that difference. They'll open up to you in ways they never would to someone who's been around long enough to be defensive about the status quo.

Building Your Internal Alliance

The same principle applies internally.