Meet Kelly Sarabyn, Director of Technology Partner Programs at HubSpot, where she orchestrates relationships with over 1,600 technology partners. In this episode of The Ecosystem Experience, we explore an unconventional pathway into tech partnerships - from legal fellow to book community founder, creative agency leader, and now ecosystem architect at one of the world's leading CRM platforms.

Kelly reveals how the fundamentals of building reader-author communities translate into managing enterprise partner ecosystems at scale. We dive into the inflection point where individual relationships must evolve into systems, exploring when personal connection gives way to structured programmes and what gets lost (or gained) in that transition.

From the inside of a company built on relationship management, Kelly shares how HubSpot approaches its own partnerships - the metrics that matter beyond revenue, the challenge of fostering genuine partner-to-partner collaboration, and the systems required to make 1,600 partnerships feel personal rather than transactional.

We unpack war stories where human relationships trumped technical integration, discuss how AI is reshaping ecosystem management, and examine what it takes to build partner success that extends beyond simple attachment rates into advocacy and retention.

Whether you're managing your first handful of partners or scaling to thousands, Kelly offers hard-won insights on building the relationship muscle that makes ecosystems thrive - plus her essential principle for anyone starting their ecosystem journey from day one.