The Role
The Head of Partnerships will drive partnership strategy, manage hotel and vacation rental relationships, leverage analytics, and represent VacationRenter at industry events.
Summary Generated by Built In
About VacationRenter
VacationRenter is the fastest growing vacation rental search engine. We love travel, but not how time-consuming and complex it can be to find the right place to stay. So we reimagined a better way. We eliminated the need to search across several different sites and scroll through pages of irrelevant results just to find the perfect home away from home. We bring all the lodging options from the leading travel sites together in one place and showcase only the best results for each traveler.
VacationRenter was founded in 2018 and by 2020 had already driven over $1 billion in gross bookings, making us not only one of the fastest-growing websites across any industry but also the fastest-growing travel company, ever. Due to this strong growth, VacationRenter was named to SimilarWeb's 100 fast-growing websites of 2020 and 2024.
VacationRenter was born inside Wilbur Labs, a Miami-based startup studio. Founded by ex-Googlers, VacationRenter combines an intuitive user experience with data-driven automation to help travelers find the perfect vacation rental.
About This Role
VacationRenter is seeking a hands-on, data-driven Head of Partnerships to lead, manage, and grow the supply partnerships that fuel our platform. This role is pivotal in VacationRenter’s goal to build a diverse and high-performing supply ecosystem that provides travelers with the best selection of lodging options in the industry. Our platform includes both vacation rentals and hotels, and we are specifically seeking someone with deep expertise in hotel partnerships, distribution, and operations.
The ideal candidate understands hotel economics and mechanics and brings a strong network of industry relationships that can be leveraged to accelerate growth. This is a strategic and executional role for a self-starter who can own the partnership function end-to-end, without requiring direct oversight, and personally drive day-to-day execution to deliver results.
This role will report directly to the CEO. This is a full-time hybrid position, based in Dallas.
Role & Responsibilities:
- Define and drive the overall partnership strategy, setting priorities for strategic supply growth and ensuring alignment with VacationRenter’s business objectives
- Own and expand relationships with hotel and vacation rental supply partners, management companies, and connectivity providers to strengthen our inventory mix, competitive position, and partner satisfaction
- Build and execute a comprehensive partner acquisition and growth strategy leveraging internal and external data
- Leverage analytics to evaluate partner performance, uncover new opportunities, and develop & guide partner acquisition strategies
- Collaborate with product, engineering, and marketing to align partnership initiatives with company priorities
- Serve as the commercial and technical liaison for partner integrations, supporting API onboarding, diagnosing and resolving connectivity issues, and working with product and engineering teams to improve data flow, uptime, and feature adoption
- Provide leadership with actionable insights on market trends, competitor activity, and emerging opportunities
- Represent VacationRenter in various industry events, conferences, and associations
- Act as a player-coach: define strategic direction, personally lead negotiations, model growth opportunities, and manage partner performance data
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree (B.S. or B.A.) from an accredited college or university or equivalent career experience. MBA preferred
- 10+ years in partnership management, with significant experience in hotel and/or other lodging supply
- Proven success in driving strategy, contracting, and managing high-impact partnerships
- Strong analytical skills, comfortable using data to guide decisions and measure performance
- Independent, proactive, and capable of leading without direct oversight
- Excellent negotiation, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills
- Experience presenting to executives and influencing key decisions
- Proficiency with data visualization tools or dashboards (e.g., Looker)
Preferred Qualifications & Prior Experience:
- Early-stage startup experience
- International partnership experience
- Extensive network in the hotel and lodging ecosystem
- Familiarity with OTA, metasearch, and affiliate partnership models
Benefits and Perks:
- Competitive salary + equity
- Top-tier laptop provided
- 100% company-paid health benefits for base plan coverage, with the option to upgrade to higher-tier plans
- 401(k) with company match
- Unlimited, guilt-free vacation days
- Annual wellness stipend (gym + other wellness activities)
- Monthly house cleaning stipend
- Annual travel allowance
- Monthly cell phone & internet usage stipend
- Charity donation company match
- Employee referral bonus
- Team offsites/activities
Top Skills
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The Company
What We Do
The studio identifies big customer pain points and builds businesses to solve these problems. After an idea is validated in the lab, the studio brings in industry leaders with domain expertise to manage the company. Wilbur Labs continues to provide funding, shared resources, and operational support to ensure management is focused on solving problems that matter. Wilbur Labs was founded in 2016 by Phil Santoro and David Kolodny.
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