Head of Partnerships
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Index Industries
Chicago, IL, US
Summary
Develop and execute a comprehensive partnerships strategy to connect Index Industries with leading fintech and blockchain infrastructure providers. Originate and close strategic deals while building the partnerships function from the ground up.
Job Description
Index Industries is a venture-backed startup, with a mission to build the financial infrastructure for a new era of real estate investing, one that opens the largest asset classes to investors across the globe. The company is currently in stealth and launching its first technology in 2026.
This is a founding-team-level, startup-phase role reporting directly to the CEO, you'll set the partnerships strategy from scratch, close the first wave of deals yourself, and lay the groundwork for a team as the function scales. Success depends on walking in with real, working relationships at the institutions that matter most.
What You'll Do
- Build and execute a partnerships strategy that connects Index Industries to leading fintech and blockchain infrastructure providers, exchanges, and stablecoin issuers.
- Originate, negotiate, and close strategic partnerships with companies covering commercial terms, integration scope, and go-to-market alignment.
- Serve as the primary relationship owner for key partners, acting as the trusted point of contact across business, product, legal, and compliance stakeholders.
- Identify and prioritize partnership opportunities (liquidity, custody, on/off-ramps, stablecoin settlement, exchange listings, co-marketing) that accelerate product and revenue goals.
- Work cross-functionally with product, engineering, legal, and compliance to structure deals that are commercially sound and regulatorily defensible.
- Represent Index Industries at industry events, conferences, and working groups to build the company's standing in the crypto and fintech partner ecosystem.
- Report directly to the CEO on partnership pipeline, deal economics, and market feedback; help shape overall company strategy given your market vantage point.
- Build the partnerships function from the ground up, processes, deal templates, CRM/pipeline tracking, and hire/manage team members as the role scales.
What You Bring
- 7+ years in business development, partnerships, or strategic alliances, with meaningful time spent in crypto, blockchain, or fintech.
- Existing, working relationships with decision-makers at major crypto/fintech institutions, direct experience with or connections into Circle, Coinbase, Kraken, or similar regulated exchanges and stablecoin issuers is required.
- Track record of sourcing, negotiating, and closing complex commercial partnerships end-to-end.
- Fluency in the mechanics of the space: stablecoins, custody, on/off-ramps, exchange integrations, regulatory considerations (money transmission, BSA/AML, state-by-state licensing).
- Comfort operating with startup-level ambiguity, you'll build the playbook, not inherit one.
- Excellent communication and negotiation skills; equally credible in a room with a CEO, a legal team, or a compliance officer.
- A strong personal network in the fintech/crypto space that translates into a warm pipeline from day one.
Nice to Have
- Prior experience at a crypto exchange, stablecoin issuer, custodian, or payments company.
- Experience building a partnerships or BD function from zero at an early-stage startup.
- Familiarity with U.S. money transmission licensing and crypto regulatory frameworks.
Why Index Industries
- Ground-floor leadership role with direct CEO access and real influence over company strategy.
- Competitive salary, meaningful equity, and benefits.
- The chance to define what partnerships looks like at a fast-moving fintech/blockchain company, rather than operate inside someone else's playbook.
40 years. Three generations. These are numbers we don’t stand behind casually. Together, they begin to paint a picture, one that—when broken down to brass tacks—is simply comprised of hard work day in and day out. But in the early spring of 2018, we zoomed out and began to realize that the Index brand simply didn’t ladder up to our core values. While they served us well for decades, our customers expect us to stay ahead of the curling wave of industry trends, and we needed an updated, modern brand and website to communicate just that.
From the aerospace to medical device industries and even all the way down to the textile industry, we’ve impacted supply chains. At the end of the day, though, we share one major attribute with our customers: We are the working class. Our histories and legacies are deeply woven together into a blue collar narrative. Even though our customers span an incredibly wide range of industries, we’re proud to have fostered personal relationships with many of them—a significant number of them have been steadily built for 40 years. We use these relationships as our guiding light at every turn in our decision making process from the top down, and so it was only natural that it took a front seat during the brand refresh conversation and is now fully reflected in our name.
This brand strategy serves as a 10k’ view of what we do. Simple, straightforward, no minced words is both who we are and what we do. Our business is driven by our customers, and not what any gut feeling says is right or wrong. That’s it, that’s all.
Founded
1977
Company size
11-50 employees
Industry
Wholesale
Org type
Privately Held
Headquarters
Ontario, California
40 years. Three generations. These are numbers we don’t stand behind casually. Together, they begin to paint a picture, one that—when broken down to brass tacks—is simply comprised of hard work day in and day out. But in the early spring of 2018, we zoomed out and began to realize that the Index brand simply didn’t ladder up to our core values. While they served us well for decades, our customers expect us to stay ahead of the curling wave of industry trends, and we needed an updated, modern brand and website to communicate just that.
From the aerospace to medical device industries and even all the way down to the textile industry, we’ve impacted supply chains. At the end of the day, though, we share one major attribute with our customers: We are the working class. Our histories and legacies are deeply woven together into a blue collar narrative. Even though our customers span an incredibly wide range of industries, we’re proud to have fostered personal relationships with many of them—a significant number of them have been steadily built for 40 years. We use these relationships as our guiding light at every turn in our decision making process from the top down, and so it was only natural that it took a front seat during the brand refresh conversation and is now fully reflected in our name.
This brand strategy serves as a 10k’ view of what we do. Simple, straightforward, no minced words is both who we are and what we do. Our business is driven by our customers, and not what any gut feeling says is right or wrong. That’s it, that’s all.
Founded
1977
Company size
11-50 employees
Industry
Wholesale
Org type
Privately Held
Headquarters
Ontario, California
