Jess is a product-minded, strategic business leader with 13 years of go-to-market experience across senior business development, commercial & partnership roles. Her functional expertise includes defining company strategy, launching new products and services, building durable partnerships with clients and vendors, and accelerating company growth. Jess’s industry domains include global employment (HR Tech), fintech and banking ecosystems, data infrastructure, APIs, collaboration platforms, payments & remote leadership. Jess’s career includes high-impact positions at three growth-stage unicorns (Series A-D, $1-15B+ valuations) and top global financial services & technology companies.

She was recently the Senior Director of Partnerships & Strategy at Oyster, a leading global employment platform, where she built and led a team to manage 250+ product, channel & marketing partnerships, as well as a profitable affiliate program. Prior to joining Oyster, Jess was a Business Development Lead at Plaid, the top US fintech providing infrastructure for the digital financial ecosystem. She led data partner strategy and industry relations with the largest US banks, was featured on American Banker & Breaking Banks podcasts and was named one of ‘Plaid’s breakout stars’ by Business Insider in 2021. Jess started her career as an equity sales trader at Goldman Sachs, where she managed a multi-billion dollar portfolio of American and European clients. She later joined Symphony, a secure collaboration platform, as a founding member of the sales team to develop and execute 0-to-1 sales, account management and partnership strategies, including closing the first enterprise client. Jess also served as a Senior Business Development Manager at Apple, where she oversaw Apple Pay e-commerce adoption for the retail segment.

In 2022, Jess was featured by the New York Times for her career & lifestyle design. She has a passion for culture and enjoys getting involved with local communities through volunteering, and practices health & wellness advocacy, dance, hospitality, cooking, writing, and photography. She believes in being virtuous, determined, grounded, and an overall good human.