How Partnerships Became the Connective Tissue of a Business

I joined Aero as Head of Marketing, part of the senior team launching the brand for the first time in the UK and European markets. A few weeks in, the world came to a halt. The approach I had been building, which included events and activations alongside brand partnerships, had to be completely redesigned almost overnight.

With events off the table indefinitely and broad awareness campaigns feeling tone deaf in a moment when travel had essentially stopped, we had to find a different way in. We redirected our focus and budget into private channels, working closely with travel agents who already had the trust of the kind of traveler Aero was built for. We co-marketed with brands whose customer base genuinely aligned with ours, Dr. Barbara Sturm among them, creating partnerships that extended into the in-flight experience itself rather than stopping at the point of booking. The logic was straightforward. If we could not reach people through public moments, we would reach them through the private relationships and communities that already shaped how they traveled and what they chose.

That constraint turned out to be one of the most formative experiences of my career. It forced a level of discipline and intentionality that I do not think we would have arrived at otherwise. And the approach it produced, building the right relationships with the right brands and communities rather than chasing reach, became the foundation of how Aero grew. Partnerships were not a channel we added alongside the marketing work. They emerged directly from it, and eventually grew into something more fundamental than either.

Building in Europe

We built a network of relationships with brands whose audiences and ours occupied the same world. Names like Nobu Hospitality, Six Senses, Soho House, and Dr. Barbara Sturm, chosen because a recommendation from a brand their members and clients already trusted carried a weight that no paid channel could touch.

The European launch gained traction. The partnerships were generating real revenue. And something more interesting was happening beneath the surface. The function was not just driving bookings. It was shaping how the brand showed up in the market, informing which routes made commercial sense, and building the kind of credibility with premium audiences that compounds over time rather than needing to be rebuilt with every campaign.

Taking what worked to the US

When Aero turned its attention to the United States, the company asked me to lead the full commercial launch, expanding my remit beyond marketing to encompass business development, sales strategy, and market entry. The more interesting question though was not about the scope of the role. It was about the approach.

We already knew what worked. In Europe, the partnerships that had driven the most meaningful results were not with the biggest names or the widest reach. They were with closed communities, members clubs, hospitality groups, brands with deeply loyal and highly connected audiences who trusted the curation implicitly. So rather than rebuilding from scratch in a new market, we took that framework and applied it deliberately.

In the US, we focused on prequalified closed communities and on people who were genuine community builders rather than influencers in the traditional sense. The distinction mattered more than it might sound. An influencer broadcasts to an audience. A community builder is trusted by one. We were looking for the people whose recommendations travel through networks privately, person to person, in exactly the way that luxury and premium decisions actually get made.

That meant leaning into word of mouth rather than reach. It meant being patient about who we approached and why. And it meant the partnership ecosystem we built in the US was, from the start, designed to become self-reinforcing rather than dependent on continued spend or visibility.

It also meant the partnerships function needed to operate at the level of commercial strategy. Every decision about which partners to prioritize, which markets to enter first, and how to sequence the launch was informed by where the relationship architecture already existed and where it needed to be built. The two things were inseparable.

What 70 partnerships actually look like from the inside

By the time the portfolio had grown to 70 global distribution and brand partnerships, the function was present in every meaningful business conversation. Which routes to launch and when. Which investors to approach and how to frame the commercial story. What the guest experience should feel like and who should help shape it.

These were not separate questions from the partnerships work. They were the same question viewed from different angles.

The moment that became undeniable was when every executive level strategy conversation needed that perspective in the room, not to deliver a channel update, but to represent commercial strategy, brand, and customer experience simultaneously. The partnerships function had become the place where all three converged, not through a deliberate organizational decision but through the natural weight of what the work had become.

The revenue number, 23 percent of net revenue generated directly through strategic partnerships, tends to get the most attention. But what it reflects is something I find more interesting than the number itself. It is what happens when a set of relationships becomes so integrated into the business that they generate compounding value across every dimension simultaneously. Visibility, revenue, credibility. Not sequentially. All at once.

What I would tell any founder building a partnerships function

Be honest from the start about what the function is actually doing. If your partnerships are generating revenue, shaping your brand, informing your customer experience, and providing the distribution infrastructure for new market entry, they are not a marketing channel. They are the connective tissue of the business.

Treat them accordingly. Bring that perspective into market entry decisions before you arrive in a new market. Be deliberate about who you partner with and why. Choose depth over reach, community over audience, trust over visibility.

And if the pandemic taught me anything it is that the moments that force you to be more targeted and more intentional than you would have chosen to be on your own are often the ones that produce the most durable results.

At Aero, that understanding did not arrive in a single decision or a single moment. It emerged through the steady accumulation of relationships that ended up running through everything the company built. That is the most useful thing I took from that experience, and it shapes how I think about partnerships for every company I work with today.