Senior Director, Communications Partners - GPS

Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. You can help us to achieve our mission.The Global Partner Solutions (GPS) mission is to: build and sell intelligent cloud and intelligent edge solutions with partners, empowering people and organizations to achieve more. GPS is a sales organization accountable for the commercial partner business at Microsoft. The Communications Partners team at GPS works with global communications ecosystem and internal business groups to drive build-with, sell-with and Go-to-Market partnerships to grow and innovate on cloud service adoption. The Communications Partners team has an opening for the Global Solution GTM lead . This role will provide leadership of Go-to-Market Strategy, Partnership Priorities, Marketing/Sales Enablement and Program Support in each major solution domain such as Modern Work, Azure Infrastructure & Security, Azure IoT and Edge Computing.ResponsibilitiesLead and develop the Solution Go-to-Market (GTM) partnership team and disciplines for the Communications Partners at GPS. This will include:Upstream alignment with our Product Groups (PG) to influence WW product strategies, business planning, Go-to-Market partnership approaches and activities to ensure the growth of build-with and sell-with the global communications ecosystem partners

Downstream alignment with our global communications accounts and regions: a successful Solution GTM Leader will drive GTM investments and land global and regional priorities across the globe. They will engage with global and regional teams to develop plans with strong value propositions of solution partnerships to our partners and their end customers, scalable and sustainable Go-to-Market approaches, as well as clear business priorities and execution capability development

Strong leadership on building a diverse and inclusive Solution GTM team with vision, insights, and scalable approaches that influence the planning and execution on global accounts and regional high potential partnerships

Seasonal solution GTM planning to ensure we deliver growth across all major solution domains helping Microsoft and its partners grow revenue, profits and share

Execution - Align GTM investments and marketing to gain efficiencies by communicating the strategy; ensure highest impact with investment.

Management & monitoring the business identifying upside and managing risk or gaps along with representing the voice of the partner and customer. Own annual, quarterly, and monthly planning and reporting motions of Solution GTM

Transformation – in partnership with our engineering, product groups and business planning team, developing new business models to accelerate customer acquisitions and improve retention while growing revenue and gross margin

People Management ­delivering success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring. Model - Live our culture; Embody our values; Practice our leadership principles. Coach - Define team objectives and outcomes; Enable success across boundaries; Help the team adapt and learn. Care - Attract and retain great people; Know each individual’s capabilities and aspirations; Invest in the growth of others.

This role will report to the Vice President, Communications Partners, GPS.QualificationsRequired/Minimum QualificationsBachelor's Degree in Marketing, Business Operations, Computer Science or a related field AND 10+ years partner management, sales, business development, or partner channel development in the technology industry or related experience.

OR equivalent experience.

5+ years people management experience.

Additional or Preferred QualificationsMaster's Degree in Business Administration, Business Science, or an advanced degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) or a related field AND 12+ years partner management, sales, developer, business development, or partner channel development in the technology industry or related experience.

OR equivalent experience.

8+ years people management experience.

Key competenciesStrategic Business Planning - Create strategic business objectives and solution GTM partnership plans, coordinate solution domain and partner prioritization, ability to set clear goals/timelines for the team to achieve or exceed on revenue and scorecard targets, hero offers and end-to-end delivery experience, and execute against the product lifecycle

GTM Investment Principles - Develop solution domain GTM approaches with effective investment strategy, guide marketing execution with partners and measure execution and return on investment (ROI). Good understanding of digital marketing strategies and transformation

Consultative Leadership - Influence partners with solution subject matter expertise to support the sales motion across communications partners. Impact and influence the product business groups and drive cross group collaboration. Influence across internal and external teams to drive alignment and synergies

Collaborative - and consistently demonstrates strong leadership skills across diverse groups and at all levels. Ability to easily navigate corporate stakeholders and communicate clearly in ambiguous situations. Strong partner management “discipline” of working with people; in a structured way, orchestrating teams through complex solutions, commercial terms and organizational ambiguity

Analysis and Insight - Use internal and external data/research to assess industry/market trends, incorporate new concepts into GTM partnership strategies and understand the relevance of Microsoft products in partner portfolios

Tell the Solution Story – Develop and Land solution stories globally and locally so GPS teams can align partners to Microsoft priorities

Team Mobilizer - Leads team on developing, learning and modifying GTM strategies (e.g., packaging, onboarding experience, campaigns, incentives, and promotions) that are aligned across teams to drive customer sales and secure partner readiness. Ensure partner advocacy is a guiding force within the culture of the team, and holds team accountable for advocated internally and escalating urgent partner issues. Drives shared accountabilities across GPS and with segment leaders

Experience and skills required:Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Business Operations, Computer Science or a related field AND 10+ years partner management, sales, business development, product management/product marketing, or partner channel development in the technology industry or related experience. MBA or equivalent master’s degree preferred

5+ years people management experience

Proven success at business and team building (business/channel development, entrepreneur, change management, product management/product marketing, portfolio management, and/or category management)

Executive communication skills

Ability to lead in a complex, matrixed international environment

Comfort with ambiguity and driving transformation

At Microsoft, certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, including annual bonus and stock. These awards are allocated based on individual performance. In addition, certain roles also have the opportunity to earn sales incentives based on revenue or utilization, depending on the terms of the plan and the employee’s role.Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form (https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/accommodationrequest) .Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.Benefits/perks listed here may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.US-based employees gain access to healthcare benefits, a 401(k) plan and company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, and fitness benefits, among others.#GPSFT #MSFTGPS #GPSFT