Partnerships Manager, Zen Educate
£60-80k
OTE
+ commission + equity.
More information about location
5 days a week in office
Education recruitment platform
Open for applications
Education recruitment platform
201-500 employees
Open for applications
£60-80k
OTE
+ commission + equity.
More information about location
5 days a week in office
201-500 employees
Company mission
To make a positive impact and bring about meaningful change within the education recruitment sector.
Role
Who you are
- You don’t need to have worked in education before - we’ll teach you that. But you’ll thrive if you’re:
- A consultative B2B seller with experience managing multi-stakeholder deals
- Skilled at building relationships with senior leaders and driving long-term partnerships
- Strategic and commercially sharp - you balance mission with metrics
- Highly organised and proactive, able to manage complex accounts and multiple renewals
- Confident leading presentations, negotiations, and executive-level discussions
- A collaborative team player who shares insights and lifts others up
- 💡 You’ll love this role if…
- ✅ You want to combine serious commercial growth with social impact
- ✅ You enjoy strategic selling and influencing senior stakeholders
- ✅ You thrive in fast-paced, scaling environments where you can shape the playbook
What the job involves
- As a Partnerships Manager you’ll own the full partnership lifecycle: from outreach and negotiation through to activation, expansion, and renewal
- You’ll work with senior stakeholders across MATs - CEOs, CFOs, HRDs - to understand their priorities, design solutions, and show the impact Zen can deliver
- Personalised and thoughtful outreach to school and MAT leaders
- Build and manage relationships with trust central teams to secure Preferred Supplier Agreements (PSAs)
- Lead consultative discovery conversations with MAT decision-makers, understanding their recruitment setup, challenges, and goals
- Develop tailored proposals and presentations that demonstrate Zen’s impact and ROI
- Partner with Account Managers and Regional Leads to ensure smooth activation of new PSAs across individual schools
- Conduct termly reviews with central teams to monitor performance, address challenges, and identify growth opportunities
- Track and lead renewal conversations, ensuring every trust stays engaged and grows their use of Zen
- Stay ahead of sector trends (DfE funding shifts, MAT growth, competitor movement) to inform strategy and conversations
- It’s a strategic, high-impact role where relationship-building meets execution - and every deal you close delivers tangible value to schools
Application process
- Intro chat – Meet our talent team
- Partnerships interview – Let’s talk strategy, outreach, and stakeholder management
- Practical task & role play – Show us how you’d approach a real trust partnership
- Culture chat – Meet the wider team to ensure a great fit both ways
- If it’s a yes, we’ll move fast — no endless waiting around
- Due to the high volume of applications, we regret that we are unable to provide individual feedback on initial submissions
Our take
With UK schools under immense financial pressure, Zen Educate is providing a smarter approach to education staffing. Recruitment in schools often relies on inefficient and expensive practices. Zen Educate is focused on tackling the pain points in the industry and providing a way to ensure schools get the best teachers possible.
It provides an online platform as an alternative to recruitment agencies, which is the only online platform accredited by the UK's Department of Education, helping schools fill staffing needs quickly and cost-effectively. Schools using the platform have reportedly saved 20-30% on supply cover costs.
On top of this, the company has also raised significant funding to support acquisitions in the UK and the US, plus the expansion of its operations and offering.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Aug 2025
$17.7m
SERIES B
May 2024
$37m
SERIES B
Total funding: $103.1m
Company benefits
- Macbook and tech equipment provided
- Regular "lunch 'n' learns" every month on a range of topics
- Investment in your professional development
- Regular socials
- Ownership in the company
- Pension scheme
- 25 days of holidays + all UK public holidays off
- Central London dog-friendly office with perks like fresh fruit, bike parking, showers, and an on-site gym and café
- Life insurance
- Vitality health insurance and benefits
- Cycle to Work Scheme
- Electric Car Scheme
Company values
- Commit to the mission- We commit to our mission, our customers, and our teams. We work hard because we care more
- Choose greatness over comfort- Greatness and comfort rarely coexist. We seek greatness. We understand success takes grit & determination so we seek colleagues that possess it
- Act like an owner- We all take responsibility for driving the company forward and making it a success. If we see something that could be better, we fix it. We offer stock options to all employees
- Help each other be better- Every person at Zen is someone we can respect and learn from
- A culture of trust- We hire people who are great at their jobs and we let them get on with it while being there to lend a hand when needed
- Challenge the status quo- We take action when we can see opportunities for improvement. We are in it to make our customers' lives better and to fix a broken system
- Embrace learning over perfection- We make decisions quickly and we don't hesitate. We may disagree with a decision, but we support the team and the mission by committing to it. We embrace making unknowable mistakes and learning from them
Company HQ
HQ, London
Articles
Leadership
Slava Kremerman
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously a member of the Leadership Team at Nutmeg a FS startup, they also worked at Barclays and Aon.
Oren Cohen
(Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer)Ran the UK office of Optimizely, a Silicon Valley tech company. Prior to this, they worked at G-STAT and Intel.
Salary benchmarks
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Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Zen Educate
- At Zen, we strive to build a culture of equity and inclusion, where everyone is respected, valued and appreciated for their unique traits, experiences and perspectives. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive and equitable environment where our team can thrive, regardless of age, ethnicity, race, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, disability, religion or beliefs. We value our differences and believe that practices of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion help us create a fairer, more compassionate environment for all
- We welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and different experiences and perspectives — just like the staff who teach through Zen and the children at the schools we work with. We believe in hiring the best people from the widest pool and creating an inclusive culture where people’s voices are heard and all our team can look forward to coming to work
- We are committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of our community and promoting an equitable and inclusive environment for all. We seek out diverse opinions, beliefs, and experiences because they collectively make us stronger; we’ve had former teachers, pilots, fundraisers, engineers, lawyers, marketers, social media experts and more join our team
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