Partnership Manager – Merchant Partnerships & Loyalty

Role overview

This is an on-site assignment in Doha, Qatar for a 18-month period. Candidates should be ready to relocate and work from Doha for the full engagement. Applicants who are already based in Qatar and hold a valid work permit are especially welcome.

The position is for a Partnership Manager supporting a project for a regional banking client. The role sits within the bank’s loyalty and cards area and focuses on expanding the merchant network tied to the card portfolio so that cardholders receive offers they genuinely use. It is a relationship-led, commercially oriented role suited to someone who has personally handled merchant partnerships in cards, payments, or fintech.

You will be accountable for the full merchant partnership journey, from identifying and onboarding partners to negotiating offers and sustaining productive long-term relationships. The role has a direct effect on cardholder engagement, portfolio spending, and revenue outcomes.

Key responsibilities

Your main focus will be sourcing, evaluating, and onboarding merchant partners across retail, dining, travel, e-commerce, and lifestyle categories, ensuring each partner aligns with the card programme strategy and target customer base.

After onboarding, you will manage the relationship as the primary contact, conducting regular business reviews, resolving issues early, and identifying ways to strengthen the partnership and increase value for both sides.

You will design and negotiate merchant offers, cashback structures, and loyalty rewards, while also handling the commercial terms such as revenue share, exclusivity, and co-funding. All activity must remain aligned with regulatory requirements and card-scheme rules.

Another important part of the role is market intelligence. You will monitor competing loyalty programmes, new merchant categories, and consumer behaviour across Qatar and the wider region, then use that insight to build a focused partnership pipeline.

You will also measure the effectiveness of partnerships and offers against set targets, convert performance findings into actionable recommendations, and work closely with product, marketing, digital, CRM, risk, and compliance teams to take offers live successfully.

Experience and mandatory requirements

The role requires 5 to 8 years of relevant experience in partnership management, merchant acquisition, or loyalty programme management within banking, cards and payments, or fintech.

Applicants should have a clear record of sourcing, negotiating, and managing commercial merchant partnerships from start to finish.

Strong commercial judgement and analytical ability are essential, including the capability to interpret performance data and use it to guide partnership decisions.

Professional-level English communication skills are required for both internal discussions and external stakeholder engagement.

Candidates must be available to start immediately or with only a short notice period.

Preferred qualifications and capabilities

It is an advantage to understand interchange economics, card-scheme rules, and the mechanics behind merchant-funded offers.

Experience with loyalty models such as points, cashback, merchant-funded, and coalition programmes is preferred.

Hands-on use of CRM systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, or similar tools for pipeline and relationship tracking will be beneficial.

Familiarity with loyalty management platforms and campaign or offer-publishing systems is also desirable.

Comfort using analytics and reporting tools such as advanced Excel, Tableau, Power BI, or equivalent will strengthen your application.

Arabic language skills are a plus because they can broaden merchant reach across the region.

A relevant degree is preferred, and an MBA or loyalty-marketing certification would be an added advantage.

Experience with test-and-learn or A/B methods for offer optimisation is also useful.

What success in this role looks like

Success will be reflected in a consistent pipeline of new merchant partners being signed and activated, higher cardholder engagement and redemption of offers, clear increases in card spend linked to merchant offers, improved partner renewal rates, and a shorter gap between partner signing and offer launch.

Application note

To be considered, candidates should send an updated CV together with a brief summary of the merchant partnerships they have personally sourced and negotiated, as well as the loyalty or offer programmes they have managed.