Manager, Affiliate Programs

About us HighLevel is an AI-powered business operating system that gives agencies, entrepreneurs and SMBs the infrastructure to build, automate and scale. Today, HighLevel supports SMBs across 150+ countries, fueling community-driven growth rooted in real customer outcomes. To date, businesses operating on HighLevel have generated over $7 billion in ecosystem value, demonstrating the impact of shared infrastructure at scale. By centralizing conversations, automation and intelligence into one system, we help businesses move faster, reduce complexity and execute efficiently. Behind the platform, HighLevel powers more than 4 billion API hits and 2.5 billion message events daily. With 250 terabytes of distributed data, 250+ microservices and over 1 million domain names supported, our architecture is built for performance, resilience and long-term scalability. Our people With over 2,000 team members across 10+ countries, HighLevel operates as a global, remote-first organization built for speed and ownership. We value initiative, clarity and execution, creating space for ambitious people to build systems that support millions of businesses worldwide. Here, innovation thrives, ideas are celebrated and people come first, no matter where they call home. Our impact Every month, HighLevel enables more than 1.5 billion messages, 200 million leads and 20 million conversations for the more than 1 million businesses we support. Behind those numbers are real people building independence, expanding opportunity and creating measurable impact. We’re proud to be a part of that. Learn more about us on our YouTube Channel or Blog Posts Who You Are:HighLevel is seeking an experienced Manager, Affiliate Programs to lead a pod within our affiliate expansion team, the part of the affiliate program that helps HighLevel's highest-producing affiliates scale and stay motivated. At HighLevel, affiliates aren't a side channel. They drive the majority of our net-new trials. Expand owns affiliates who have already proven they can produce (100+ lifetime trials) and turns them into long-term partners who stay, scale, and move up our recognition ladder. You've done this before at scale. You've owned a book of high-profile, high-personality partners (creators, influencers, agency owners, educators with big audiences) and you know how to protect those relationships while still holding the line on policy, compliance, and the numbers. You've built and led a team of affiliate, partner or account managers, and you've grown people who were newer to the role into confident operators. You're the person who handles the hard conversation yourself. When a top affiliate is frustrated, you absorb it, resolve it with the data and the standard, and only escalate when it truly needs a Director or VP decision. You’re also incredibly empathetic and action-biased, able to help take things across the finish line and coach up a large team of Affiliate Managers to run independently with a large book of business. This role will work side by side with our existing Expand Manager and the Director, Affiliate Programs to scale the Expand motion, diversify our growing base of partners, and build the playbooks and systems our growing team needs. : What You’ll Be Doing: Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary team spanning affiliate events and community, affiliate marketing and creative, program operations, and affiliate compliance, running weekly 1:1s, lane reviews, and performance conversations. Own the programmatic team’s activation and engagement goals across the full affiliate base, including activation rate, engagement scores, initiative participation, and event and asset reach. Report weekly on wins, risks, and asks, and course-correct fast when a program is underperforming. Plan and run a year-round calendar of hosted affiliate events, activation activities, promos, campaigns, and more. Be able to analyze and improve all initiatives and provide insight to leadership. Oversee the affiliate asset library: swipe copy, creative, landing pages, and training content, making sure affiliates always have current, on-brand, and compliant materials to promote HighLevel. Own affiliate recognition programs, including awards, Commander experiences, and Summit moments, and represent HighLevel with affiliates in person. Lead the affiliate compliance function: enforce our Affiliate Program Policies and endorsement requirements, oversee content reviews and violation resolution, and handle sensitive compliance conversations with affiliates at your level whenever possible. Work cross-functionally with Business Development, Product Marketing, Events, Enablement, Legal, Finance, Accounts Payable, RevOps, and our internal teams to deliver programs and clean affiliate handoffs. What You’ll Bring: A track record of building and running one-to-many partner, affiliate, creator, or community programs that reached thousands of partners with measurable activation and engagement impact. Proven people leadership: you’ve hired, onboarded, coached, and held accountable a team with different specialties, including people early in their careers. Hands-on experience running events end to end, from small workshops to large in-person experiences, including budgets, vendors, and post-event reporting. Experience running partner promos, campaigns, and content or asset programs with a strong eye for quality and brand. A working knowledge of affiliate compliance and FTC endorsement rules, and experience building or operating controls, policies, and audit documentation. Comfort handling tough conversations with high-personality partners, including policy violations and escalations, while staying calm, fair, and firm. Strong analytical skills. You can define program KPIs, build a reporting view, read engagement and cohort data, and turn it into a clear plan. Operational rigor. You build repeatable processes and documentation instead of relying on tribal knowledge. Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to influence senior internal stakeholders and external partners. Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, high-growth environment where priorities shift and you’re expected to make good calls with imperfect information. Willingness to travel for affiliate events and key relationship meetings (approximately 2-3 times per quarter). Experience/Education/Certifications Required: 8+ years of experience in affiliate, partner, channel, creator/influencer, community, or partner marketing programs, ideally in SaaS. 3+ years of direct people management experience leading a team across multiple functions (for example events, marketing, operations, or compliance). Experience owning program KPIs and budgets for a partner or affiliate base of thousands. Preferred: Experience with affiliate platforms and tools (FirstPromoter, Tipalti, or similar), CRMs, and BI tools such as Tableau. Familiarity with the marketing agency, SMB SaaS, or creator economy space. Direct experience with FTC endorsement guidelines, affiliate compliance programs, or SOX-style controls and audits. Experience planning large-scale in-person events or conferences. Experience with international partner markets.