Do you have experience with online travel booking and/or ancillary performance?
Do you measure your success based on the success of your partners?
Then you may be the right fit for this position…
Job Title
Partnerships Manager
Starting Date
1 October 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter
Reporting to
COO and the Executive Management Team
Location
Based in Cape Town or elsewhere in South Africa (mostly remote)
About Hepstar
Hepstar is a Cape Town-based B2B TravelTech company focused on the supply and optimisation of travel ancillary products and services for airlines, online travel agencies, and travel technology companies, particularly products offered to customers during the online booking process. We are passionate about building and maintaining our proprietary technology stack, which enables our partners to increase ancillary attachment rates and revenue while giving customers access to services that improve their travel experience. We are data-driven and continuously learning more about customer behaviour and needs. (www.hepstar.com)
About the Role
The Partnerships Manager acts as the key link between our travel partners, Hepstar’s operations and tech teams, and the suppliers we aggregate. This role shares in project and account management duties as outlined below, reporting to the COO and periodically to the executive management team. The role will primarily focus on delivering projects, monitoring performance, identifying opportunities, and spearheading initiatives to improve revenue for the business and its partners.
Key Duties
Business Development
- Build and maintain strong client relationships, keeping the executive management team informed on client priorities and interests.
- Drive strategic initiatives from planning to execution, providing clear progress updates to the executive management team.
- Conceptualise new products, incentives, initiatives, and merchandising techniques for clients.
- Assist with onboarding new product supply concepts for possible adoption by Hepstar.
Project Management
- Brief the operations team on product setup, pricing, supplier eligibility rules, and marketing display, and oversee implementation to ensure projects are executed smoothly and optimised throughout their lifecycle.
- Develop product merchandising strategies for assigned clients and monitor their execution to ensure alignment with upsell and project objectives.
- Maintain developed and assigned supplier relationships to ensure ongoing support for services, projects, and clients.
- Address or direct queries and issues for timely resolution by the team.
- Build strong relationships with relevant stakeholders, understand their needs, and stay up to date with developments.
Performance Management
- Report on client performance to executive management and assigned clients at agreed frequencies and in an agreed format.
- Identify and initiate opportunities for assigned clients to add products or incentives.
- Develop an optimisation roadmap for assigned clients, agreeing on timing and priority of initiatives.
- Initiate and coordinate A/B tests to optimise client performance, liaising with project and data teams to ensure timely execution, analysis, and implementation of insights with clients.
- Report on optimisation initiatives and outcomes to clients, suppliers, and executive management, and create use case documentation for reference and sales support.
Awareness and Marketing
- Create and support client proposals, business cases, presentations, and other sales and marketing materials related to new products, initiatives, incentives, and merchandising techniques for existing clients.
- Source and create presentation material relating to newly developed concepts or products.
- Contribute to marketing and digital media activities for newly developed concepts or products.
Project Assistants
- Guide junior project assistants, building their skills and knowledge to progress into future Partnerships Manager roles.
Experience and Knowledge
- Experience working in or with the travel industry.
- Proven experience in business development, sales, partnerships, or a related role.
- Ability to interpret data, derive insights, and translate them into actionable strategies to improve product sales and performance.
- Experience in product marketing, content development, or user experience (UX) optimisation is advantageous.
- Exposure to team leadership or mentoring responsibilities.
- Experience in the insurance industry is a plus.
If you are interested: Please send your CV to layla@hepstar.com with the subject line: Partnerships Manager Application with a short cover email motivating your application. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.
