About Gusto
At Gusto, we're on a mission to grow the small business economy. We handle the hard stuff — payroll, health insurance, 401(k)s, and HR — so owners can focus on their craft and their customers. With teams in Denver, San Francisco, and New York, we support more than 500,000 small businesses nationwide and are building a workplace that reflects the people we serve.
All full-time employees receive competitive base pay, benefits, and equity (RSUs) — because everyone who helps build Gusto should share in its success. Offer amounts are determined by role, level, and location. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.
AI is a fundamental part of how work gets done at Gusto. We expect all team members to actively engage with AI tools relevant to their role and grow their fluency as the technology evolves. AI experience requirements vary by role and will be assessed during the interview process.
The Opportunity
Gusto Embedded Payroll (GEP) is one of Gusto's highest-growth bets — a platform business that enables software companies to offer Gusto-powered payroll directly within their own products. We're looking for a Head of Partner Growth to lead the team responsible for making our embedded partners successful: driving go-to-market execution, growing partner revenue, and building the operational and strategic frameworks that will scale this business toward $100M+.
This is a player-coach leadership role. You'll manage a cross-functional team spanning Partner Success Management (PSM) and Partner enablement— while also staying deeply hands-on with our most strategic partner relationships. You'll own the partner growth playbook end-to-end: from GTM planning and launch sequencing through ongoing optimization, escalation management, and executive relationship development.
Gusto's partnerships organization focuses on evaluating and executing strategic partnerships in new categories. Gusto Embedded Payroll allows us to bring our people platform to thousands more businesses than those we serve directly and will play a key role in Gusto's growth.
What It's Like to Work in This Role
Lead & Develop
Build, lead, and develop a high-performing team of Partner Success Managers and Partner Enablement
Set the operational rhythm for the partner growth function — including planning cadences, escalation workflows, and performance management
Coach team members on partner strategy, executive communication, and cross-functional navigation
Drive Enablement with the ideation, creation, and execution of enablement frameworks and materials.
Drive AI fluency across the team — embedding AI tools and workflows into day-to-day partner operations, GTM planning, and internal knowledge management to accelerate output and decision quality
Strategize & Plan
Own the partner growth strategy across the GEP portfolio, including partner segmentation, prioritization, and resource allocation
Develop and maintain per-partner operating plans with clear success metrics, in collaboration with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Sales Enablement
Build repeatable GTM playbooks — covering co-marketing motions, sales enablement, content roadmaps, and launch sequencing — tailored to each partner's distribution model and ICP
Translate portfolio-level data (revenue, attach rates, funnel performance) into strategic narratives for leadership
Operate & Execute
Drive success for our partners and their end customers through adoption, activation, and retention of Gusto-powered embedded products
Own the full marketing funnel and sales motion with partners — from top-of-funnel demand generation through conversion, onboarding, and expansion
Manage complex, high-stakes partner relationships directly — including contract negotiations, executive escalations, and cross-functional alignment on roadmap priorities
Lead partner incident response and escalation management wit
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