Senior Director, Business Development and Partnerships
Zus Health
About this role
WHO WE ARE
Zus Health is an AI-native healthcare data platform that brings fragmented patient information together to make it complete, current, and actionable. Through our nationwide data network, platform, and intelligent workflows, we help providers, value-based care organizations, payers, life sciences, and digital health companies drive business results, strengthen provider trust, and improve operational efficiency. Founded in 2021 by Jonathan Bush, co-founder and former CEO of athenahealth, Zus is building the foundation for a more connected, precise, and effective healthcare system.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
We're looking for a healthcare-savvy, get-stuff-done leader to own and scale Business Development & Partnerships at Zus. Reporting to our COO in the Commercial Org, you'll set the partnerships strategy. You'll sit on the commercial leadership team and present to the senior leadership team on partnership strategy and results.
You'll own three connected mandates:
- Strategic and product partnerships: company-making relationships with healthcare technology platforms, cloud and enterprise software leaders, EHR and integration vendors, diagnostics, life sciences, payers and leading academic and cancer centers.
- Channel and ecosystem: repeatable, partner-led distribution that grows pipeline and revenue at a scale direct sales can't reach alone.
- Data partnerships: the lab, pharmacy, claims, encounter and network sources that make the Zus record the most complete in the market.
You'll start as a player-coach and build a team as motions prove out. You'll work closely with executives at some of the most compelling companies in the worlds of healthcare and technology. You'll shape joint strategies, negotiate deals that work for both sides, and turn partnerships into repeatable motions that grow Zus into new products and markets.
AS A LEADER ON OUR COMMERCIAL TEAM, YOU WILL OWN
STRATEGIC AND PRODUCT PARTNERSHIPS
- Build and run Zus's strategic partner map: who we partner with, in what order, and why. Make the hard calls on where to invest and where to walk away.
- Open and lead C-level relationships at companies many times our size, and structure deals that change our trajectory: embedded and OEM, joint offerings, co-development, data licensing and strategic investment.
- Manage coopetition with judgment. Many of the best partners might also look competitive with us somewhere, and some are also customers. You’re capable of navigating complex partner relationships and aligning the parties behind shared strategic goals.
- Partner with the CEO, COO and board on corporate development: market mapping, inbound strategic interest, and evaluating acquisitions that extend the product and network.
CHANNEL AND ECOSYSTEM
- Build partner-led go-to-market across EHR and practice management vendors, CRM and cloud marketplaces, analytics platforms, AI-native clinical companies, and services firms. Use whichever model fits: referral, resale, embedded, marketplace or co-sell.
- Set the rules of engagement with direct sales: deal registration, conflict resolution and compensation, so partner deals move as fast as direct ones.
- Build enablement, co-marketing and co-sell playbooks with Sales, Solutions Engineering, Marketing and Customer Success.
- Own partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline and revenue targets.
DATA PARTNERSHIPS
- Own the portfolio of sources behind the Zus network: labs, pharmacy, claims, ADT and encounter feeds, HIEs, national networks and TEFCA participants.
- Improve coverage, freshness and quality while keeping the unit economics healthy.
- Negotiate data rights, permitted use, licensing models and compliance terms (BAAs, DUAs), then launch and run them with Legal, Product and Engineering.
- Find the datasets that open new products and markets, including the clinical depth that real-world evidence and life sciences use cases require.
ACROSS ALL THREE
- Bring partner and market insight into the product roadmap so integrations and data investments track to product-market fit.
- Represent Zus at conferences, industry groups and policy forums. Stay ahead of interoperability rules, TEFCA, information blocking and AI policy.
YOU'RE A GOOD FIT BECAUSE
- You've led partnerships or business development at a tech or health tech company. You have a track record in both product, channel/GTM partnerships and data acquisition or licensing.
- You can hold both business and technical conversations with ease: APIs, integrations, workflows, data models, and security and compliance. You know what makes a partnership actually work in production.
- You know the healthcare data ecosystem well: the EHR/EMR landscape, interoperability networks and HIEs, CMS, TEFCA, claims and pharmacy data flows, lab data, and payer/provider dynamics.
- You're a strong negotiator who designs win-win deals and understands data licensing economics, revenue share, and the commercial and legal structures behind them.
- You create compelling stories and materials, lead complex cross-functional work without formal authority, and use data to decide where to invest
- You've driven channel revenue through referrals, resellers, and other strategic GTM approaches, and you know how to put partner enablement, co-marketing, and co-sell into practice.
- You have executive presence and are a network and bridge builder.
- You set strategy and close deals yourself, and you're energized by a company where the playbook is still being written.
- Bonus points: corporate development or M&A experience, a real-world data or life sciences partnership background, or time on the partner side at a large platform company. You won't have done all of this. If you've done most of it at scale and want to do the rest here, we'd like to talk.
WE WILL OFFER YOU…
- Competitive compensation that reflects the value you bring to the team a combination of cash and equity
- Robust benefits that include health insurance, wellness benefits, 401k with a match, unlimited PTO
- Opportunity to work alongside a passionate team that is determined to help change the world (and have fun doing it)
Please Note: Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds often don’t apply unless they meet 100% of the job criteria. While we have worked to consolidate the minimum qualifications for each role, we aren’t looking for someone who checks each box on a page; we’re looking for active learners and people who care about disrupting the current healthcare system with their unique experiences.
We do not conduct interviews by text nor will we send you a job offer unless you've interviewed with multiple people, including the Director of People & Talent, over video interviews. Job scams do exist so please be careful with your personal information.
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