Alliances

Elise Carbone leads Global Partners & Alliances at Deltek, with a partner network spread from the US to Australia and Southeast Asia.

She didn't start in sales: HR first, then consulting, then building a partner, sales and marketing team from scratch at a startup that Deltek acquired 11 years ago.

In this episode, we get into what it actually takes to run a global partner organization: why partner ops is the backbone, how to measure influence and not just sourced leads, how to keep sellers on your side, and where AI is already changing the job.

What we cover:
- Partnerships aren't just relationships. Joint planning, shared targets and real QBR are what make them work.
- Partner ops is the operating system of your partner org
- Keep 70% of your playbook global, flex the other 30% by country and culture.
- Sourced leads are easy to count. Influence is where partners bring the real value, and nobody has cracked how to measure it yet.
- Don't pay sellers less on partner deals. If you do, they'll stop seeing the value of partners.
- AI won't replace partner managers. But an AI conflict check that answers partners in 30 seconds beats waiting for a new PRM.

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Connect with Elise: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisecarbone/
Connect with Maxime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships

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Video available on Youtube: https://youtu.be/JsggQiv44P4

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In this new episode of Alliances, my guest Hami Neisari is one of the smartest and top Tech partnerships operator in the world.

Hami has spent seven years at Aircall watching the tech alliances job get rebuilt underneath him. He started out doing what he calls a BDR on steroids, building relationships with HubSpot, Salesforce and Zendesk.

Today he runs Tech Alliances and New Bets from inside the CRO org, and he splits his week between the partnerships that already pay work well and programs that did not exist a year ago.

Voice spent years as the channel everybody wanted to shrink because it was expensive and needed humans on the phone, and then AI agents turned it into the hottest thing in customer communication.

Aircall sits right in the middle of that shift with 23,000 customers and more than 300 integrations, and Hami is the guy who decides which of those integrations still deserve time and money. He is refreshingly honest about the parts nobody has figured out yet, himself included.

What we get into:

• Why the readiness of GTM teams to work with partners is going down, and why his answer is upstream comarketing that lands reps on the deal with a pre-qualified opportunity already in hand.
• What MCP actually changes on the ground, from connection times dropping from a few weeks to a few hours
• Why he expects his team to get more senior without getting bigger, and why he wants people walking into every meeting with an artifact they built.
• How he runs the integration portfolio like an investment manager, checking whether Aircall grows with each partner or quietly declines with them.
• What New Bets means in practice, with six programs running on half of the team's time and a clear rule for killing the ones that don't take off.
• Why partnerships stays a people business, and why he thinks the loudest voices in the space are not always the best operators.

If you run partnerships and you are wondering what your job looks like in eighteen months, start here.

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Guest: Hami Neisari - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamineisari/

Host: Maxime Imbert - https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships/

Share it around you and rate us five stars, it is what helps the show get discovered.

Check the video on Youtube: https://youtu.be/-DKNg1AiI0I

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Dans ce nouvel épisode d'Alliances, je reçois Mickael Eymauzy, Lead Field Marketer chez Alan.

Après 16 ans dans des fonctions commerciales, il a basculé il y a deux ans et demi sur un métier que la plupart des boîtes françaises n'ont pas encore nommé : le field marketing.

Sa cible ? L'expertise comptable. Un secteur qu'il ne connaissait pas du tout quand on lui a confié le sujet.

Aujourd'hui il pilote un secteur et lead une équipe de sept field marketers répartis par verticale, du retail à l'hôtellerie restauration en passant par la fonction publique et la tech.

Ce qu'on aborde :

• Le métier en clair : deux objectifs (notoriété et ouverture de portes),
• Comment pénétrer un secteur dont on ignore tout, et pourquoi Alan choisit ses segments pour deux raisons opposées,
• La vraie différence avec un sales : chercher des patterns dans un marché plutôt que traiter des comptes un par un,
• Le job interne que personne ne voit : un partenariat signé mais pas communiqué aux sales ne produit rien,
• Mesurer les MQL et l'ARR, et accepter que la brand awareness échappe en partie au reporting,
• La culture IA d'Alan : 90% des 950 collaborateurs utilisent l'IA chaque jour, et pourquoi ça ne fait pas gagner du temps,
• La BD de 18 pages sur la transparence des salaires, envoyée en papier aux 200 plus gros cabinets

Un épisode utile si vous construisez une fonction hybride entre marketing et commerce, ou si vous cherchez à installer une marque sur un secteur où vos leviers sales classiques ne prennent pas.

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Retrouvez Mickael Eymauzy sur LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickael-eymauzy-9a05242b/

Retrouvez Maxime Imbert : https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships

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Dans ce nouvel épisode d'Alliances, je réunis trois partenaires et grands experts autour d'une des décisions les plus difficiles dans une organisation: faut-il construire, s'associer ou acheter ?

Arnaud dirige la Connectivité chez Pennylane, la plateforme financière B2B des entreprises et de leurs experts-comptables.

Charlotte est DGD chez Defacto, la fintech du financement du BFR, avec près de 20 000 entreprises financées pour plus d'1,5 milliard d'euros.

Philip pilote les Partenariats Stratégiques chez Chift, la plateforme d'intégrations financières et comptables qui propose une API unifiée

Dans cet épisode, nous abordons :

• La vraie matrice de décision build vs partner vs buy : le time-to-market et le core business comme axes qui décident de tout
• Pourquoi le choix n'est jamais figé : un partenariat s'internalise, une commodité se rebuild, et c'est sain
• Comment Pennylane a cassé les silos en réunissant produit, engineering et partenariats dans une seule BU
• Les différents niveaux d'intégration de Defacto, du redirect simple au natif, pour s'adapter à chaque partenaire
• Ce que la réforme de la facturation électronique change vraiment : la conformité comme commodité à brancher
• Pourquoi l'IA fait shipper plus vite mais élève les enjeux de gouvernance, et pourquoi les alliances resteront humaines

Une conversation cash sur les intégrations, les écosystèmes et l'avenir des partenariats dans les 18 prochains mois.

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- Retrouvez Charlotte : https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-gounot-30464783/

- Retrouvez Arnaud : https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnauddessein/

- Retrouvez Philip : https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipsch/

Vous pouvez me retrouver ici : https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships

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Dans ce nouvelle épisode d'Alliances, j'ai reçu pour la seconde fois Romain Goueffon, Head of Partnership et Field Sales chez Qonto, pour parler d'un sujet critique pour des milliers de SaaS qui ont un module Facturation : la réforme de la facturation électronique.

Qonto compte déjà plus de 600 000 clients, dont 300 000 qui ont choisi leur plateforme agréée, et plus de 100 000 factures électroniques sont déjà passées par leur canal. Le sujet de fonds de cet épisode, c'est l'alliance entre les plateformes agréées (PA) et les éditeurs de logiciels.

Devenir PA soi-même coûte entre 2 et 5 millions d'euros, plus 1,5 million par an de maintenance.

Pour un SaaS vertical avec un module de facturation, ça n'a aucun sens. La bonne stratégie, c'est de s'adosser à un partenaire régulé.

Ce que Romain partage dans cet épisode :

• Pourquoi un éditeur qui ne se met pas en conformité avant septembre risque tout simplement de disparaître, ses clients allant choisir une autre solution

• Comment bien choisir sa plateforme agréée : fit technique, fit humain, fit marché et surtout solidité du partenaire, avec l'exemple mexicain où 30 à 35% des acteurs ont disparu en quelques années

• Le modèle Qonto Embed et la logique d'embedded finance : intégrer la conformité en deux clics via API sans refaire toute son infrastructure

• Pourquoi Qonto a fait le choix de ne facturer ni ses clients ni ses partenaires sur la facturation électronique, et comment ça booste l'acquisition et la rétention

• Le rôle clé des experts comptables dans l'éducation du marché : 9 sur 10 recommandent leur outil, mais seulement 1 client sur 3 a choisi sa plateforme

• Comment structurer une équipe partenariats de 8 personnes entre business developers, partnership managers et une équipe field sales qui fait remonter les insights terrain au produit

Forcément, on termine sur l'IA, et là c'est passionnant. Qonto est devenue une boîte AI first, c'est un OKR de l'entreprise.

Romain explique comment ses équipes cherchent et testent des cas d'usage IA, comment il bloque deux heures chaque vendredi matin avec ses équipes pour expérimenter, et pourquoi pour lui c'est autant un gain de qualité qu'un gain de vitesse.

Certainement un troisième épisode à venir avec le GOAT des Partnerships...

Tu as aimé cet épisode ?

Pour le voir sur Youtube : https://youtu.be/saZheDi3JA4

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Romain : https://www.linkedin.com/in/romain-goueffon-6a5472a9/

Maxime : https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships

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I sat down with Chris Lavoie (Partnership Mastermind) and Peter Lorant (ex-HubSpot, Zendesk, Google, Workday and SAP ) to have an open discussion on AI and the impact on partner teams

Chris runs Partnership Mastermind, training 500+ partnership pros. Peter spent 30+ years at the biggest tech companies. He's seen every tech revolution. This one's the biggest.

Here's what hit different:

• Inbound is dead, partners is one of the answer: Marketing boards are panicking. The pipeline from inbound? Gone. Companies are flipping couch cushions for demand. Partnerships is the only channel with real conversion. But here's the catch: no more hiring sprees. Revenue per FTE is king. Lovable does $3-6M ARR per employee. You do more with less, or you're out.

• AI tooling is eating partner tech: Partner tools always got the scraps. Marketing gets $2, Sales gets $3, Partnerships gets $1. Now Salesforce launched headless agentic experiences. The future? No logging into 20 tools. Agents run workflows, partner tech becomes APIs. If your moat is UI, you're cooked.

• SI partners are in freefall: 71% of CIOs cut SI budgets to fund AI (Anthropic, OpenAI). The $100K implementation projects? Agents do that now. SIs used to wait for vendor playbooks. That's over. No handbook anymore. Workflows change weekly. Get technical fast or lose 30-40%

• The top 1% go all in: Peter's HubSpot playbook: let a thousand flowers bloom. Everyone experiments, documents, votes every 2 months on top 3 use cases, codifies, trains everyone. Mass personalization unlocks the long tail. Chris's advice: audit your month. What took 10 hours AI does in 10 minutes? Copywriting, follow-ups, prioritization.

• The messy middle: We overestimate short-term, underestimate long-term. Everyone works harder, not less. But efficiency gains are real. Experiment, don't freeze. This isn't hype. This is the reset.

Did you enjoy this episode?

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Watch at the episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/7nWDmv70Z3U

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• Chris: https://https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-lavoie-phd-aaaa4111b/

• Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/palorant/

• Maxime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships/

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#partnerships #AI #partnerstrategy #SaaS #agenticAI #inbound #gtm

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I'm Maxime Imbert, Operating Partner Partnerships. I help B2B SaaS, AI native companies and Fintech build partnership strategies that actually drive revenue. Strategy call: https://calendly.com/maxime_imbert/30min

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In this episode, I sit down with Germain Bahri, co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Zazu, a neobank for SMEs in South Africa and Morocco.

We go deep on how to build a fintech from scratch in emerging markets and why partnerships aren't optional, they're survival.

Germain spent years at the core of Europe's fintech wave, Bankable, Solaris Bank and saw models like Qonto, Pleo, and Shine scale from the inside.

He and his co-founder took everything they learned, packed their bags, and moved to South Africa to build the Qonto of Africa.

A bet in markets where the infrastructure is half-built, the banks are 20 years behind, and the playbook doesn't exist yet. Zazu launched in South Africa first: 3M SMEs, formal economy, solid payment rails. Then they expanded to Morocco to own the MENA region.

They're now scaling to thousands of customers through one strategy: partnerships. Because in these markets, you can't brute-force growth with ads and sales teams. You need distributors who already own the trust and the base.

Here's what Germain breaks down:

• Why they partnered with Access Bank as their Baas provider

• The distributor playbook: payment providers, legal/accounting tech, e-commerce platforms embedding Zazu into platforms with hundreds of thousands of merchants.

• The reality of building in Africa: PCI DSS compliance ignored by local partners, banking UX still need to be improved, education hurdles around neobanks

• How they hired an AI agent startup in South Africa. They loved the use cases so much they joined Zazu full-time

• Key advice for fintech founders: find the C-level decision maker early, make sure incentives are aligned, quantify everything (no press release partnerships), and start with a small POC to build inertia

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• Germain: https://www.linkedin.com/in/germainbahri/

• Maxime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships

• Zazu: https://www.get-zazu.com

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ #partnerships #fintech #africa #neobank #zazu #distributors #banking #growth #southafrica #morocco

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In this episode, I sit down with two people who've lived on both sides of the VC partnership game. Abhishek Lahoti, Head of Platform at Highland Europe, and Roman Lobas, former VC platform operator and now co-founder of Icebreaker.

Abhishek spent 6+ years at Dropbox, then moved into VC at Sapphire Ventures before landing at Highland Europe, where he runs the full platform operation from talent and events to partnerships and enablement. Roman has led partnerships at growth-stage companies specifically targeting the VC channel, and has made every mistake in the book so you don't have to.

The VC partner motion is massively underestimated. A lot of companies either never touch it or blow it in the first call.

Done right, 10 solid VC relationships can generate a sustainable, high-quality revenue stream with better close rates, faster sales cycles, and lower CAC than almost any other channel.

No fluff, just the raw, honest playbook for how to actually crack this channel.

Here's what they break down:

• The right timing to contact a VC and Who to contact in the firm

• The discount conversation: 15% minimum, 20-25% sweet spot, 50%+ kills your pricing credibility

• Never kick back revenue to a VC: give them deal flow and senior introductions instead

• Pipeline is the real KPI, not number of VCs signed and don't expect anything in month one

• The biggest mistakes: sending a hit list on call one, expecting a 30-min intro to generate 50 warm leads overnight

• Be a sniper, not a machine gun: 5 deeply researched targets beat 200 cold blasts every time

This episode is a straight shot of reality for any partnerships person who wants to build a VC motion that actually drives revenue.

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Abhishek's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alahoti/

Roman's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roman-lobas/

Maxime's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships

#partnerships #venturecapital #VC #b2bsaas #partnermotion #ecosystem #growth #alliances #startups

I'm Maxime Imbert, Fractional Head of Partnerships. I help B2B SaaS and Fintech generate revenue by leveraging strategic partnerships. Strategy call: https://calendly.com/maxime_imbert/30min

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In this new episode of Alliances, I welcome Charlotte Thoumy, Head of Partnerships at Fipto, for a deep dive into how stablecoins are revolutionizing and reshaping the entire payment ecosystem.

Charlotte has been in the blockchain and crypto space since 2018. She built her expertise through partnerships roles at Paymium, FTX, and now leads partnerships at Fipto, a bridge making stablecoins accessible, safe, and compliant for B2B players.

Fipto is dually licensed (Payment Institution in France + VASP licenses) and spent 3 years building an API-native platform connecting traditional finance with the crypto world.

At Fipto, Charlotte has signed major partnerships with payment giants like Worldline, TeraPay, and Kyriba, proving that stablecoins are moving from experimentation to mainstream adoption.

With Bridge's $1B acquisition by Stripe signaling massive market validation, PSPs are racing to integrate stablecoin rails and Charlotte is at the forefront of this transformation.

In this episode, she shares:

• The two core flows: stablecoin sandwich vs. stablecoin payments (native rails)

• How Fipto bridges traditional finance and crypto: payment accounts, wallets, custody, and deep liquidity

• Why it took 3 years to build: banking partnerships, crypto custody, liquidity engines, security, compliance

• Worldline partnership: settling merchants in stablecoins - TeraPay partnership: 18-month journey from testing to holding everything in stablecoins

• Kyriba partnership: launching with stablecoin sandwich, evolving to native stablecoin payments for corporate treasuries

• Why PSPs are forced to adopt stablecoins

• The gap between closing partnerships and activating them

• How to create demand with PSPs: evangelization, mapping teams, building use cases

• Working cross-functionally: aligning product, compliance, sales, partnerships, marketing, and tech

A transformative episode on building partnerships in the stablecoin revolution and bridging traditional finance with the future of payments.

Did you enjoy this episode? 👉 Like, comment, subscribe and rate 5 stars on all platforms

Watch at the episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/F7JAqdq8kWk

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Charlotte: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-2b683a81/ Maxime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships Fipto: https://www.fipto.com/

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#partnerships #stablecoins #fintech #payments #crypto #blockchain #crossborder #fipto #worldline #terapay #kyriba

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I'm Maxime Imbert, Fractional Head of Partnerships. I help B2B SaaS and Fintech build partnership strategies for Go-to-Market success.

Contact me and book a call: https://calendly.com/maxime_imbert/30min

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In this strategic episode, I welcome Peter Lorant, Global VP of Partner Business Development at HubSpot, for a masterclass on building partner ecosystems in the AI era for B2B SaaS.

Peter has a unique 35-year career through IBM, Google, Workday, Zendesk from sales to marketing, partnerships, and COO.

After leading alliances at Workday, he became COO at Zendesk before returning to partnerships at HubSpot.

Peter leads a 6,000+ partner ecosystem, their number one channel in LTV to CAC.

With 250,000+ customers, HubSpot scales through partners. Growing 20%+ annually as a $3B company, partner-first wins.

In this tactical episode, Peter shares:

• Change management when he joined HubSpot

• Partner-sourced deals trump all attribution sources

• Training 2,500+ reps on co-selling

• Using AI to detect rep infractions before they happen

• The shift to AI era B2B SaaS

• HubSpot's AI training: crowdsource, vote, codify, scale

• Best customer context wins AI + consumption pricing challenge

• Future: consolidation and AI-native companies

• Trust through transparency during major changes

• Career wisdom: collect skills, manage your manager

A transformative episode on building Partner Led Growth while navigating B2B SaaS's biggest shift.

Did you enjoy this episode?

👉 Like, comment, subscribe and rate 5 stars

📹 Watch the episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/vplR85bI8No

Thank you for your support!

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Where to find Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/palorant/

Where to find Maxime: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximeimbert-partnerships

To discover HubSpot's Partner Program: https://www.hubspot.com/partners

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Find a new episode of Alliances every month to get the best techniques for developing your alliances and partnerships.

#partnerships #alliances #hubspot #ecosystem #AI #b2bsaas #partnersales #coselling #attribution #changemanagement #leadership

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I'm Maxime Imbert, Fractional Head of Partnerships. I help B2B SaaS and Fintech companies build and implement their partnership strategy to succeed in their Go-to-Market and generate substantial revenue in the medium term. Building your ecosystem is a tremendous lever for exponentially increasing your revenues. I've made this my profession to help as many Fintech and B2B SaaS companies as possible. Evaluate your strategy: https://calendly.com/maxime_imbert/30min

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