Interview with Kyle Stamey: building lasting business partnerships with trust

At Carter Murray, we connect exceptional partnerships professionals with leading businesses across all sectors.

In this edition of our interview series, Patrick Sommerfelt speaks with Kyle Stamey – Director of Partnerships, North America at ContractPodAI. Kyle shares his career journey, his approach to building impactful partnerships and the skills needed to succeed in this critical role.

Kyle is an experienced leader in partnership and alliance management with extensive experience driving strategic growth. Kyle leads partnerships in North America for ContractPodAI – an innovative leader in the legal tech space.

Before this, he served as Director of Partner Sales at LivePerson and Xerox. Kyle is known for his ability to scale high-impact partnerships and deliver results across key verticals in tech and digital transformation.

Can you tell us about your role as a Partnerships Director?

For ContractPodAI I have two primary responsibilities: support and grow a select group of existing partners and proactively engage with interested partners to potentially add to our ecosystem. To support our existing partners my primary focus is sales alignment, ongoing enablement and field engagement between our own teams and our partner’s teams. For prospective partners I work to ensure our interests are clear and aligned with value for both parties (and our respective clients) in forming an alliance.

Can you tell us about your career to date?

In 2008, I unknowingly entered the field of partners/alliances/channels by taking a role at D&H Distributing in Harrisburg PA. At the start I was handed a phone and list of resellers in the Philadelphia area to renew/start/expand their book of business with us, eventually moving from managing a territory to supporting our strategic relationship with HP.

After D&H I was with Xerox for five years, in the field supporting their partners in the NY metro region. Xerox was a company with a fantastic legacy in a brutally competitive industry and provided a great hands-on selling and partnership experience.

I left Xerox for an opportunity with LivePerson, a leader in the digital customer engagement and conversational AI space, where I spent the next seven years moving from Channel Manager to Regional Director Partnerships, North America. I’m looking forward to building upon what I accomplished and learned thus far to drive revenue and partner value with ContractPodAI.

What attracted you to working in partnerships?

Working in partnerships is a blend of multiple disciplines – sales, account management, marketing, business development.

As mentioned above, I largely entered this capacity accidentally, but I couldn’t be happier with the choice and outcomes. Working in partnerships is a blend of multiple disciplines – sales, account management, marketing, business development – which helps keep your work continuously challenging, forcing you to develop a diverse set of skills and ultimately driving growth in your career.

What do you enjoy most about working as a Partnerships Director?

Building relationships that outlive roles/companies/deals/projects. Tech is a broad industry, but partners and alliances are a much smaller section of it. Once you’ve built a relationship it can typically follow you as you move into a new role, or a new company. The relationship (and the inherent trust within it) will also enable you to pursue non-traditional challenges and use cases that exist outside of a company’s primary area of focus.

What skills does a Partnerships Director need to succeed?

If a partner trusts and depends on you, they’ll be open to engaging with you and be receptive to the value you’re proposing.

To work with you, partners need to be able to trust and depend on you. Trust is built over time by working side by side on complex deals and opportunities. Dependency is a function of follow-through (being responsive), taking ownership and being consistent. If a partner trusts and depends on you, they’ll be open to engaging with you and be receptive to the value you’re proposing.

How do you stay updated on industry trends and changes?

I find that continuously engaging with partners who are leaders in their respective spaces provides a great window into trends in the industry. Beyond this – reviewing select publications, attending industry-specific events and consuming US news publications are helpful.

What advice do you have for those trying to get ahead in the industry?

Balancing these priorities and finding creative solutions that satisfy all parties is paramount.

Ultimately partner sales is a sales role – doing the necessary work to achieve results will help get you ahead. In partnerships you’ll be consistently juggling priorities – yours, your partners, the clients, your company’s.

Balancing these priorities and finding creative solutions that satisfy all parties is paramount. Additionally, you need to ensure you’re bringing value to engagements with your partners. If you do the work and bring value, partners will respect your time and input and be open to engaging.

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