About this Head of Channel-Strategic Partners role at TENEX.AI
Head of Channel, AI Security Technology Partners
Revenue Department | On-site strongly preferred: Kansas City, Sarasota, Scottsdale
Company Overview
TENEX is an AI-native, automation-first, built-for-scale Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider. We are a force multiplier for defenders, helping organizations enhance their cybersecurity posture through advanced threat detection, rapid response, and continuous protection. Our team is composed of industry experts with deep experience in cybersecurity, automation and AI-driven solutions. Backed by leading investors, we are rapidly growing and seeking top talent to join our mission of revolutionizing the AI-Native MDR landscape.
We’re a fast growing startup backed by industry experts and top tier investors led by Crosspoint Capital Partners and also backed by Shield Capital, DTCP (formerly Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners), Deepwork Capital, and the Florida Opportunity Fund. Seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). As an early employee, you’ll play a meaningful role in defining and building our culture. Get in on the ground floor. We’re a small but well-funded team that just raised a substantial round – joining now comes with limited risk and unlimited upside.
Culture is one of the most important things at TENEX.AI. Explore our culture deck at culture.tenex.ai to see how we embody it, prioritizing the irreplaceable collaboration and community of in-person work.
About the Opportunity
TENEX is building a set of AI-native technology partnerships that give customers complete coverage in one motion. This role launches with two of them and will add more as the program grows. The first is an AI-native workspace security platform that sits on the endpoint and stops risky actions by people and AI agents before they become incidents. The second is an AI-native offensive security platform that continuously attacks a customer’s environment to find and close exploitable risk before real adversaries do. TENEX’s agentic SOC completes the picture: it investigates every alert, separates real threats from noise, and responds around the clock. Together, customers get prevention, continuous testing, and 24/7 detection and response from partners built for the AI era.
As Head of Channel, AI Security Technology Partners, you are the single point of accountability for these relationships, and the channel runs in both directions. You will enable TENEX’s sellers to sell our partners’ products to TENEX customers and prospects, and you will enable our partners’ teams to bring TENEX to theirs. You carry a revenue target and deliver it through others: by building the plays, enablement, and operating rhythm that make TENEX and partner teams successful at selling each other’s products.
What the Partnerships Deliver
For customers: one coordinated security program instead of disconnected tools, with prevention, proof of what attackers can actually reach, and a SOC that acts on what is found.
For our partners: a managed service that turns their findings and prevention events into action, which makes their platforms easier to buy for teams without a large in-house SOC.
For TENEX: new revenue from reselling partner products, new pipeline from partner-sourced deals, and stronger retention from customers who run more of their security program with us.
What You’ll Do
Own the partner relationships. Serve as TENEX’s primary liaison to each partner’s sales, partner, product, and executive stakeholders. Run joint business planning, QBRs, and executive alignment.
Enable TENEX to sell partner products. Equip TENEX inside sales and outside sales teams to position, price, quote, and close partner products with new and existing TENEX customers. Build the offers, packaging, sales plays, talk tracks, and training that make the resale motion easy to run.
Enable partners to sell TENEX. Equip each partner’s account teams to bring TENEX into their customer base and into new deals. Build the joint plays, enablement, and incentives that drive adoption.
Deliver the number through others. Own the revenue target for partner resale and partner-sourced TENEX bookings. Build and run the joint go-to-market plan, including account mapping, co-selling, and pipeline generation, and hold TENEX and partner teams accountable to it.
Be the escalation point for shared customers. Maintain senior relationships across joint customers so they get consistent value, fast issue resolution, and a clear path to expansion.
Lead program management across the partnerships. Own the cross-functional operating rhythm across Sales, SOC, Engineering, Customer Success, Finance, and Legal, including integration milestones, onboarding timelines, risk tracking, and reporting.
Run the partner initiatives inside TENEX. Support the internal steering cadence for each initiative: prepare materials, track decisions and action items, and keep owners accountable. Track certification, integration, contracting, and partner-enablement requirements so TENEX stays qualified to sell and deliver alongside each partner.
Build the playbook. Define the processes, enablement materials, and partner tooling that make a two-way technology channel repeatable, so you can bring on additional technology partners using the same model.
Report on performance. Track and communicate resale bookings, partner-sourced pipeline and bookings, attach rates, onboarding velocity, retention, and program health to TENEX leadership and partner counterparts. Your incentive plan is tied to partner revenue outcomes.
Coordinate joint GTM efforts. Serve as TENEX’s point person for joint marketing, events, and campaigns with each partner and with any other vendors involved in a combined offer.
Bring the market back to the product. Feed partner and joint-customer requirements into TENEX product, SOC, and engineering teams to strengthen integrations and shape the roadmap.
What You Bring
10+ years in channel, alliances, or strategic partnerships, with at least 5 years leading strategic partner relationships end to end.
A track record of carrying and hitting a revenue number delivered through partners, not through your own direct deals.
Experience running a two-way partnership: enabling your own sales team to resell a partner’s product and enabling a partner’s sales team to sell yours.
Experience building partner enablement that works: plays, training, packaging, and incentives that change seller behavior.
Strong program management skills. You’ve run complex, multi-stakeholder programs across internal teams and external partners, including steering committees and executive reporting.
Working knowledge of cybersecurity, preferably MDR, SOC, endpoint security, or offensive security and penetration testing.
Bonus Points
Experience partnering with or working inside an early-stage, high-growth security technology vendor.
Experience co-selling a managed service alongside a security technology product.
Familiarity with AI security, AI governance, insider risk, or continuous automated red teaming.
Experience at an early-stage or high-growth startup building a channel function from scratch.
Exposure to AI-driven or automation-first security operations.
Education & Certifications
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Information Systems, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
Relevant certifications such as PMP, Security+, Salesforce, or hyperscaler partner credentials are a plus.
Why Join Us?
Opportunity to own and scale TENEX’s AI security technology partnerships and build the model for every technology partner that follows.
Collaborate with a talented and innovative team focused on continuously improving security operations.
Competitive salary and benefits package.
A culture of growth and development, with opportunities to expand your knowledge in AI, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies.
