Jay Ridgeway

Senior partnerships and business development leader with 10+ years of experience building and scaling strategic ecosystems across digital health, wearable health, telehealth, and consumer wellness markets. Proven track record owning the full partnership lifecycle — from origination and negotiation through activation and performance optimization — with deep expertise in revenue-share, tiered, and performance-based commercial models. Fluent in the wearables, telehealth, and consumer health ecosystems, and practiced at closing complex, high-value deals that drive measurable user acquisition and revenue growth.

Comfortable operating remote-first and collaborating cross-functionally with legal, product, finance, and marketing to bring sophisticated agreements to life.

VP, Marketing, Partnerships & Channel Sales at EMPWR by Wellness Connection (2024-07 – Present)

Senior fractional executive owning the full partnership ecosystem and go-to-market strategy for a digital health & wellness technology platform.

• Identify, evaluate, negotiate, and manage strategic partnerships across health technology verticals — directly paralleling the wearable health, telehealth, and consumer wellness partnership motions this role requires.
• Designed tiered partner frameworks with differentiated revenue-share and performance-based compensation structures — building the operational infrastructure for a maturing partnership ecosystem.
• Develop and prioritize inbound and outbound partnership pipeline through a structured approach; maintain active funnel management across early-stage and in-flight partnerships.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Legal, Product, and executive leadership to structure, close, and activate complex partnerships that accelerate organizational scale.

Senior Industry Consultant — Health Tech & Remote Patient Care at Independent (2022-11 – Present)

Freelance strategic advisor specializing in digital health, remote patient care technologies, and the consumer health and employer benefits ecosystem.

• Advise digital health organizations on partnership strategy, go-to-market execution, and product-market fit across RPM, RTM, CCM, PCM, and CoCM delivery models — maintaining current fluency in wearable and telehealth trends.
• Guide clients through regulatory and compliance considerations in healthcare technology markets, including HIPAA-adjacent factors for wearable integrations and telehealth partnerships.

Head of Global Partnerships & Channel Sales at Karbon, Inc. (2019-10 – 2022-11)

Led global partnership strategy and channel sales for a fast-growth SaaS platform — building the partner ecosystem from nascent to scaled and achieving $1M+ in annual channel ARR (10%+ of total company revenue).

• Structured and managed the strategic alliance with Intuit, Inc. — overseeing the full lifecycle of 'Intuit Practice Management powered by Karbon' from negotiation through multi-stakeholder implementation and sustained performance optimization.
• Directed commercial launch of the Karbon public API, enabling critical integrations for strategic partners and enterprise customers.
• Built scalable partner onboarding, activation, and performance tracking infrastructure; designed activation playbooks that reduced time-to-first-revenue for new partners.

Director of Sales & Marketing at 2nd Address, Inc. (2019-02 – 2019-09)

• First sales executive hired; built the company's direct sales function from the ground up and led enterprise account development from first outreach through signed contract.
• Secured and grew the company's largest corporate account (Lucid Motors), demonstrating the ability to originate and expand high-value partnerships without an established pipeline.

VP of Sales & Marketing at JSource, Inc. (1999-04 – 2002-03)

Led global sales, marketing, and BD across North America, Europe, and Asia for a Java-based embedded software company.

• Managed strategic alliances with Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America, and Incard SpA (Italy) — building the negotiation depth and cross-functional coordination valued in complex, multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Founder & Head Performance Coach at Pacific West Endurance LLC (2002-04 – Present)

• Founded and scaled a health & human performance organization serving 1,000+ athletes; grew to consistent $450–500K annual revenues.
• Negotiated sponsorship and dealer agreements with Garmin, Wahoo Fitness, Trek, and Castelli — establishing early fluency in wearable and health technology brand partnerships. Built institutional partnerships with the SF Giants, Ironman, and Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series.

Architecture & Art History – University of Oregon