Powering prosperity around the world is our unwavering mission at Intuit. We believe achieving it begins with providing over 100 million Intuit customers around the world with powerful and innovative solutions, including QuickBooks, TurboTax, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp. We also believe it means carefully assembling a team of people who share our passion for delighting customers and helping them succeed.
One of these like-minded and talented people is Ken Chestnut. With the recent expansion of his role leading the Global Partner Ecosystem, he’s a great addition to the leadership team at Intuit.
All About Ken
Ken first joined Intuit in 2023. He was initially responsible for building and growing the global Mailchimp business for technology and service partners. Before joining Intuit, he worked at various technology companies, including Stripe, where he built their go-to-market technology and solutions partner business from the ground up. Before joining Stripe, Ken built and led teams at Amazon Web Services (AWS) that were responsible for defining and driving their global partner strategy across numerous market segments.
In 2025, Ken transitioned to the role of Director of the Global Partner Ecosystem for both QuickBooks and Mailchimp. He’s excited to use what he’s learned at AWS and Stripe to build a partner ecosystem that helps Intuit customers and partners. To get a deeper understanding of his vision and strategies, we interviewed Ken for this article.
Q: You’ve had a remarkable career in the tech industry. What drew you to Intuit? Can you tell us what your role is and what your priorities are for the upcoming year?
I saw a tremendous opportunity to build a substantial, industry-leading partner ecosystem business across the Intuit platform. And I love building new businesses and high-performing teams.
My role here is to build our global partner ecosystem business. There’s significant interest from our developer community, and many opportunities for our partners to provide complementary capabilities and value-added services around the Intuit platform. This year, my priorities are focused on launching robust, scalable partner programs and benefits that enhance our platform capabilities. We’re kicking things off with the Intuit App Partner Program, set to launch at the end of July.
Q: Given Intuit is committed to constantly improving platform capabilities, including the ongoing integration of the QuickBooks and Mailchimp experience, what’s your vision for the global partner ecosystem platform?
Our customers have been very clear that they’re tired of “swivel chairing” across multiple, disparate applications. They want an end-to-end platform that helps them run and grow their business. So we’re building a global partner ecosystem that spans multiple Jobs To Be Done (JTBD), from getting new customers, to getting paid, to managing a workforce.
Our goal is to provide our partners with comprehensive programs, enablement, and benefits that span the entire Intuit platform. I expect that our top partners will provide complementary capabilities and services across the platform. To support them effectively, we need to provide a single, coherent partner program that spans across many JTBD.
Q: A cohesive program for our partners and third-party developers is critical. What’s your perspective on the importance of third-party applications for QuickBooks customers?
Third-party apps and developers play a critical role in the success of the Intuit platform. These developers have deep domain expertise, not just with the Intuit platform, but also in specific verticals, industries, and use cases. We can innovate faster, and our customers can realize the benefits of the Intuit platform sooner, when we collaborate with our third-party app developers.
Q: What do you enjoy most about working with third-party app developers, and do you have any advice for the Intuit app developer community?
I enjoy the innovation third-party app developers bring to our joint customers. Along with their deep technical expertise and knowledge of our capabilities, they understand and care about the problems our customers have. One of our core values at Intuit is customer obsession. We fall in love with our customers’ problems. Our developer community brings a unique perspective to the market and to our customers, which helps us accelerate the process of solving customer problems. As for advice, I encourage our developer community to be proactive in helping us improve our ability to solve these customer problems.
Q: As you implement your plans to grow a global partner ecosystem, what excites you the most about the future of Intuit and the global partner ecosystem platform?
I’m excited about building a substantial, durable global partner ecosystem here at Intuit that benefits our customers, accelerates innovation, and stands the test of time. We’re just getting started. Let’s go!
Just Getting Started
Thanks so much to Ken for sharing his extraordinary experience and his forward-thinking ideas for the future at Intuit. His vision for creating a strong ecosystem that supports both partners and customers is really exciting and inspiring. It’s great to know that our mission is moving forward and that the Intuit community is in such good hands.
We’re so glad you’re on our team, Ken!
Ken Chestnut leads Intuit’s global partner ecosystem and is responsible for growing business with technology and service partners. He was Global Head of Technology GTM Partners at Stripe, where he was responsible for building the go to market technology and solutions partner business from the ground up. Prior to Stripe, Ken was Global Segment Lead at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where he and his team defined and drove partner strategy across 14+ horizontal technology domains. Previously, Ken was responsible for building and scaling analytics and machine learning for AWS partner ecosystems.