Strategy & Business Development Associate

Aave Labs began with the goal of making financial services like borrowing, saving, and earning more accessible globally. We built the Aave Protocol, the world’s largest and most trusted onchain lending market, connecting decentralized finance with individuals, traditional finance, and fintech. Today, we focus on building trusted, high-quality products that expand access to lending, credit, and savings globally. Our culture emphasizes building trusted products, holding a high bar for quality and craftsmanship, operating as a global team, moving quickly with long-term vision, and maintaining lean, impact-focused teams.We are looking for a highly driven Strategy & BD Associate to work closely with Aave Labs’ leadership team on high-impact strategic initiatives across ecosystem growth, product expansion, and institutional adoption. This is a unique opportunity to operate at the intersection of strategy, business development, and execution within one of the most influential organizations in decentralized finance. The role is designed for someone who thrives in fast-moving environments, enjoys solving complex problems, and is excited to help shape the future of onchain finance.You will support and help drive a broad range of initiatives across Aave Labs, reporting to the Chief Strategy & Business Officer, working cross-functionally with product, engineering, legal, marketing, ecosystem, and external partners. This role offers broad exposure across strategy, ecosystem growth, and execution, with significant opportunity for growth within Aave Labs’ business development and strategic functions over time, ownership of key initiatives, and shaping team evolution as the organization scales.Key responsibilities include: supporting the development and execution of strategic growth initiatives across Aave Labs’ ecosystem and products; working closely with leadership to identify and evaluate new market opportunities and expansion strategies; coordinating cross-functional initiatives across product, engineering, legal, marketing, and ecosystem teams to drive execution and alignment; assisting in developing and managing strategic partnerships across DeFi, fintech, infrastructure, and institutional ecosystems; conducting market research, competitive analysis, and ecosystem mapping to support business and strategic decision-making; helping prepare strategic materials including partnership proposals, market overviews, presentations, and ecosystem analyses; supporting business development efforts including outreach coordination, pipeline management, partner tracking, and stakeholder communication; monitoring trends across DeFi, stablecoins, tokenization, institutional adoption, and digital asset infrastructure to identify emerging opportunities; and contributing to internal strategic planning and operational initiatives as Aave Labs continues to scale globally.

Qualifications

3–5 years of experience in strategy, business development or partnerships, and digital assets, Strong understanding of crypto, DeFi, and the evolving digital asset ecosystem, Intellectual curiosity and a genuine passion for decentralized finance and emerging financial infrastructure, Exceptional communication, organizational, and project management skills, Ability to operate autonomously and manage multiple workstreams in fast-moving environments, Strong analytical and strategic thinking capabilities with high attention to detail, Comfortable working cross-functionally with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, High-agency mindset with a willingness to take ownership and drive initiatives forward, Strong team player who thrives in collaborative and globally distributed environments