Business Development & Partnership Manager (Merchant)

Summary

At Apple, extraordinary people come together to do their life’s best work. Together, we create products and experiences people once couldn’t have imagined, and now can’t imagine living without. Apple Pay is seeking a Business Development & Partnership Manager to join the Wallet, Payments & Commerce (WPC) team to grow and strengthen strategic Merchant partnerships. This role is ideal for a dynamic, results-oriented individual who thrives in high-growth, fast-paced environments and excels at building and scaling impactful partnerships across the global payment ecosystem.

About the role

Engage at senior levels with merchant partners and guide executives internally and externally through partnership vision and tactical execution. Build compelling business cases including market segmentation, competitive analysis, financial modeling, and long-term growth strategy.

Partner cross-functionally across Product, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Legal to drive integration, testing, launch, and ongoing optimization. Influence product roadmap through insights gathered from partners and the broader payments landscape. Provide regular executive-level updates on partnership strategy, performance, and growth opportunities. Some travel may be required.

Responsibilities

• As a Business Development & Partnership Manager you will be responsible for the end-to-end partnership lifecycle from identifying and evaluating strategic partners to leading cross-functional execution, to ultimately drive Apple Pay feature acceptance.
• You will engage senior levels internally and externally, shape partnership vision, influence product strategy, and ensure seamless go-to-market execution.
• Success in this role requires strong commercial judgement, analytical rigor, and the ability to navigate complexity with professionalism, integrity and an urgency to “make things happen”.
• You are energized by solving challenging problems, mapping process flows, and asking “what if?” to proactively identify and resolve issues before they impact customers.
• You balance strategic thinking with disciplined execution and bring empathy to every stakeholder relationship.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5-7+ years of professional experience in financial technology at a merchant or digital payment company.
• Strong analytical skills; ability to evaluate opportunities from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives.
• Demonstrated success scaling new business programs internationally.
• B.A. / B.S.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to develop and leverage collaborative relationships to drive broad adoption of Apple Pay services and functionality.
• Experience working with e-Commerce Product Teams.
• Experience building and presenting executive-level business cases.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to influence without authority.
• Self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced environment and manages ambiguity while delivering projects to completion with minimal guidance.
• Deep understanding and passion for payments, emerging technology and e-commerce.
• Strong problem solving, conflict resolution, time management, and organizational capabilities.
• Energetic and collaborative team player who feeds off of goal setting and achievement.
• Proficiency with Apple products and applications preferred.
• 5-7+ years experience in the mobile payment industry.
• MBA