Head of KOL

Building the Future of Open Finance Payward - the parent company behind Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, Payward Services and CF Benchmarks - has spent the last 15 years building one of the most modern and globally accessible financial infrastructure platforms in the industry, built to advance an open, global financial system. The team Founded in 2011, Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing crypto platforms, trusted by over 10 million individuals and institutions across the globe. It offers spot trading, margin, futures, staking, and OTC services, with products built for both individual investors and institutional clients. We seek an experienced leader, native to crypto and with significant experience in KOL business development and team management to lead our global affiliate program. The opportunity - Build out and lead Kraken’s global KOL strategy and execution, including managing a BD team focused regionally. - Scale processes to source, contract, and manage KOLs. This will include technology, agency relationships, and commercial planning. - Ensure compliance with financial influencer laws around the world with the appropriate disclaimers, content monitoring, and compensation terms. - Enable the KOL BD team to negotiate deals that are attractive in a competitive KOL space and deliver strong ROI to Kraken. - Attract top KOLs across a variety of categories including futures, margin trading, spot trading, and prop trading. - Develop scalable strategies that arm KOLs with positioning and messaging that highlight Kraken Pro’s differentiators. - Identify opportunities to develop local-first ideas with KOL partners that generate attention, are persuasive vs competitors, and drive a strong CTA. - Define and evolve global program benefits for KOLs to deepen engagement and drive feedback loops that help scale affiliate marketing. - Measure results of KOL partnerships; adjust strategy and deal structures. What you bring - 5+ years in the crypto space, with experience building out a KOL program - Significant experience with crypto KOLs, especially traders - A proven track record in growing new users in a highly competitive and regulated environment. - Experience working with partners in regions all over the world - Advanced crypto knowledge including how crypto products work, crypto revenue models, and crypto players in different regions. - Existing relationships with crypto and adjacent industry influencers. Candidate expected to bring a strong network. - Experience with software to manage KOLs across a deal’s lifecycle and scaling processes to handle hundreds of KOLs - Experience across a large product suite, with an eye for leveraging different KOLs to promote multiple topics and products - Strong experience in marketing analytics, including how to measure partnership success - We will strongly assess creative thinking; we are looking for people that have growth ideas grounded in logic and data, while being capable of supporting their ideas and persuading others to enact them