Head of Partnerships
About Safari AI
Safari AI's vision is to Automate Action of the leading companies in the physical economy, from Entertainment, Live Venues, QSR's, Retail and beyond. The company uses computer vision AI to Measure, Alert and provide AI-generated Recommendations at the operations of leading enterprises such as Merlin/Legoland, 7-11, Tanger Outlets, Charlotte Hornets, Calgary Flames, and more. This year, Safari AI's platform will begin to use this data and to suggest to clients how they can optimize their operations to generate higher throughput, more revenue and optimize staff deployment.
Safari AI is venture-funded and expects to raise its Series A in 2026.
Leadership & Culture
Safari AI is co-founded by Ali Vahabzadeh & Kaiwen Yuan, two leaders who have meaningful exits under their belts and have managed large, high-performing Go To Market and Engineering teams. The company is headquartered in Miami with the Engineering team based in Vancouver with some distributed team members.
About You And How You Succeed At Safari AI
You're excited about building a product and creating a market that hasn't been done before. You have a strong bias toward action when you are stuck but are not afraid to ask for help when you need to. You're a high agency contributor, eager to test new ways of doing things and take advantage of the freedom and culture an early stage startup can afford you. You want to lead the company's engagement with category leaders in a variety of industries, solving some of their biggest challenges.
About the Role
Our computer vision platform turns existing camera infrastructure into real-time operational intelligence for large venues such as stadiums, airports, theme parks, casinos, and smart infrastructure.
As Safari AI expands beyond founder-led sales, we are building a Strategic Partnerships function to accelerate distribution through the ecosystems already embedded in these environments — including video management systems, camera manufacturers, system integrators, ticketing platforms, venue operators, smart infrastructure providers, consulting firms, PE and infrastructure investors, and architecture and engineering firms.
What You'll Do
Build the Partnership Ecosystem
Identify, develop, and manage strategic relationships across the venue and infrastructure ecosystem. Create distribution through joint go-to-market motions, technology integrations, referral pipelines, co-selling, and strategic introductions into owner, operator, and investor networks.
Drive Strategic Integrations
Work with Safari AI product and engineering teams to identify integration opportunities — VMS platforms, infrastructure systems, venue operations tools — that reduce deployment friction and increase product value.
Build Repeatable Playbooks
Develop frameworks for partner onboarding, co-marketing, joint sales strategies, and referral motions across both technical and professional partners.
Shape Early-Stage Influence
Build relationships with consulting firms, PE and infrastructure funds, and architecture and engineering firms that influence capital allocation, technology selection, and venue design before an end customer formally enters a buying process.
Requirements
• 4+ years in strategic partnerships, alliances, or ecosystem development
• Strong understanding of enterprise technology and services ecosystems
• Experience with system integrators, infrastructure technology, enterprise software, or professional services firms
• Ability to engage both technical teams (integrations, platform strategy) and non-technical stakeholders (consultants, investors, operators)
• Entrepreneurial mindset suited to an early-stage startup
• Strong executive-level communication skills
Experience in sports venues, infrastructure technology, smart buildings, security technology, consulting, infrastructure investing, architecture, engineering, or enterprise SaaS is a plus.
What Safari AI Offers
• Shape the ecosystem strategy of an emerging Vision AI company
• Direct collaboration with founders and senior leadership
• Competitive salary and meaningful early-stage equity
• Unlimited vacation, comprehensive health benefits, and 401k
Why bet on Computer Vision and Safari AI?
- Huge opportunity hiding in plain sight: leveraging already-installed cameras to automate and real-time action on operational data
- Already the market leader in enterprise CV by working with industry leaders with billions in revenue
- Large chasm between customer knowledge and market availability, i.e. customers don't know what is available in the market...yet.
- Early leader in computer vision; everyone is small and unbranded (i.e. no Amazon or Google in the room to compete with)
- Very modular, allowing Safari AI and its customers to invent whole new use cases on a regular basis
- Developed the tech and data pipelines over three years and invested several million dollars and is now ready to scale