Partnerships & Ecosystem Lead

**Partnerships & Ecosystem Lead - Colosseum** **Compensation: Equity-Based Partnership - No Fixed Salary - We’re an early-stage startup looking for founding team members to join us at the ground level and help build the company from the beginning. - This is an equity-based partnership, with no fixed salary. - We’re looking for someone who wants meaningful ownership, a say in the company’s direction, and the chance to grow alongside the business. - Gilgamesh is an operator-led go-to-market lab based in Bangalore. Colosseum is our platform for operators to prove their skills through real-world contests and for companies to discover talent through demonstrated work. The role in one line: You connect companies with operators who can prove what they can do: bring companies and real industry briefs onto Colosseum, grow the operator community, and turn contests into lasting partnerships and talent discovery. What you will do - Build and maintain a live map of target companies, colleges, and operator communities: who decides, who influences, and what each side needs from Colosseum. - Open and manage company relationships with founders, hiring leaders, and functional heads. Develop partnerships around industry briefs, contests, sponsorships, talent discovery, and hiring. - Build relationships with colleges, placement teams, faculty coordinators, student bodies, and operator communities to bring strong participants onto the platform. - Turn company needs into clear contest briefs, working with our product and practitioner teams on deliverables, evaluation criteria, timelines, and participant experience. - Run the partnership and contest calendar end to end: outreach, agreements, launch, participant communications, event logistics, follow-up, and company handoff. - Help companies use contest results to discover and engage operators. Keep the process grounded in demonstrated work and evidence. - Coordinate with our product and review teams so AI-assisted verification is useful, consistent, and supported by practitioner judgment. - Handle PR for partnerships, launches, contests, and winners. Draft announcements and LinkedIn stories, manage media relationships, and work with our content team so every public claim passes review before it ships. - Keep the CRM honest. Log conversations, commitments, contest briefs, agreements, and follow-ups, with a weekly pipeline by stage. - Report weekly, one page: outreach, meetings held, partnerships signed, contests launched or completed, operators activated, coverage earned, and decisions needed. Who fits - 5 to 8 years in partnerships, corporate relations, talent acquisition, campus relations, community building, PR, or B2B business development. Placement-cell, recruiting, or talent-platform experience is a strong plus. - A warm network on at least one side - companies, colleges, or operator communities and the drive to build the other from scratch. - Fluent written and spoken English. Kannada, Hindi, or Telugu is a plus. - Comfortable in a founder’s office, a placement-cell meeting, and an operator’s WhatsApp thread in the same week. - Organised to a fault: strong CRM habits, timely follow-up, and clear documentation. - Comfortable drafting with AI tools under a human review gate, and honest about what needs checking. - Interested in fair, evidence-led ways to assess skill and help people earn recognition through their work. What success looks like: 30 days: Target company, college, and community map built; first 20 conversations held; CRM live and clean; first contest brief defined. 60 days: Company partnerships signed; first industry brief or sponsored contest scheduled or launched; first public announcement or LinkedIn placement earned. 90 days: A repeatable monthly rhythm of company partnerships, contests, operator participation, and coverage—with a forecastable pipeline and a playbook someone else could follow. Reach out to likith@gilgamesh.in or DM me if interested.