Partnerships & Business Development Specialist in Oakland, California at Inovi, Inc.

About Inovi: Born in Silicon Valley, we’re a boutique AI infrastructure company building sustainable, next-generation digital infrastructure, end to end. From design through operation, our work is engineered for the performance, scale, and efficiency that advanced AI and computing demand, while strengthening the communities around us.

Location: Oakland, California — Hybrid, both remote and onsite as needed. Possible travel up to 25%.

Type: Full-time, exempt

Reports to: Marketing Leadership Team

Direct reports: none

Work Authorization: Due to client contractual obligations, all applicants must be a US Citizen or Permanent Resident

Position Summary

Inovi is seeking a hands-on Partnerships & Business Development Specialist to help turn strategic relationships into organized, executable business opportunities. This is not a traditional partnership-management role built around supervising a team. It is an individual-contributor position for someone who enjoys personally driving work forward, creating structure where it does not yet exist, and ensuring that important opportunities do not get lost between conversations and execution.

The ideal candidate has developed strong professional and operating disciplines within a sophisticated company or well-known brand and is now interested in applying that experience in a growth-stage environment where initiative, resourcefulness and speed matter.

Essential Job Function and Key ResponsibilitiesTeam Leadership

• Maintain and actively manage Inovi's partnership and business-development pipeline.
• Coordinate opportunities from initial discussion through qualification, internal review, agreement development, activation and ongoing relationship management.
• Prepare meeting agendas, briefing materials, presentations and follow-up communications.
• Capture decisions, actions, owners and deadlines and ensure commitments are completed.
• Conduct research on prospective partners, markets and business opportunities.
• Maintain CRM records, partnership documentation and relationship information.
• Coordinate NDAs, commercial agreements and related documentation with internal and external legal resources.
• Support the preparation of proposals, partnership concepts and executive presentations.
• Help develop repeatable processes, templates and tools for managing Inovi's partnership ecosystem.
• Support joint initiatives, events and partner activations.
• Create basic partnership reporting, dashboards and relationship scorecards.
• Use AI and modern productivity tools to accelerate research, analysis, writing, presentations and workflow management.

Your ideal background

• Approximately 3–6 years of professional experience in partnerships, business development, project management, sales operations, strategy, client services, legal operations or a related field.
• Experience within a recognized technology, infrastructure, professional services, financial services, telecom, energy or other sophisticated B2B organization is highly desirable.
• Strong written and verbal business communication skills.
• Excellent project-management and organizational discipline.
• Comfortable interacting with senior executives and external business partners.
• Proficiency with CRM, presentation, collaboration and project-management tools.
• Strong technology orientation and demonstrated proficiency using generative AI tools in day-to-day work to enhance workflows.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.

What success looks like

This position will be under a 90-day probationary period. You are someone who sees what needs to be done and takes ownership of getting it done. You are comfortable moving between executive meetings, research, CRM updates, presentation development, agreement coordination and partner follow-up in the same day. You bring the standards and discipline of a sophisticated organization but are energized by an environment where processes are still being built and where your individual contribution can have an.immediate impact.

Compensation is based on experience and skill.

Inovi is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Inovi will use e-Verify to confirm work authorization.