Data & AI Lead

The Director Solution Area Specialists - Data & AI is a Leader within our Specialist Sales Organizaiton.  The role leads, develops and manages a team of individual Sales Specialists and one Specialized Sales manager with a team. Join our Specialists Sales Organization, covering all industries where you discover and qualify new leads.

Drive consumption with new and existing customers and identify  market and customer needs collaborating with internal teams to devise solutions to meet those needs.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

• Brings impactful industry insights into customer engagements and closes deals with customers, and coaches and influences others internally on how to do this. Acts as a thought leader across solution areas to advise customers on digital transformation. Influences Microsoft's strategic direction across various markets. Leads a virtual cross-organizational team on strategic projects and high impact solution sales deployments that enable digital transformation and deliver business value. May lead partner integration into account/territory planning and customer engagements
• Orchestrates with team members to generate new leads. Guides team members on conducting personal campaigns to discover new opportunities. Leads conversations with strategic/high-potential customers (e.g., high budget, global account, highly competitive) along with account teams or partners. Facilitates the account team unit (ATU) and/or Specialist Team Unit (STU) to build pipeline. Acts as a subject matter expert to guide others on social selling or speak about Microsoft solutions at events. Applies Microsoft's sales process (MSP) to determine the quality of the opportunity and whether to proceed, and educate the customers on how to best address their needs.
• Drives consumption and grow business with existing strategic customers by initiating conversations, guiding others on demos or quotes, and the collaboration with partners or internal teams (e.g., Technical Sales Professionals, Global Black Belts). For licensing transactions and project engagements, ensures rapid and robust deployment plan at point of sale that is validated by services and partners. Drives advanced workloads and usage.
• Assesses and challenges the needs of strategic/high-potential customers. Articulates vision and long-term implications for customer to accelerate digital transformation. Collaborates with internal teams, partners, and services to lead the proposal or development of solutions that align with customer and Microsoft priorities. Anticipates market trends and leverages broad technical community knowledge to drive new solutions.
• Leverages and governs external stakeholder network to engage and influence with top leaders and decision makers. Acts as a thought leader and technical advisor to the executive-level business decision makers at the customer's/partner's business. Leads others to identify and engage new decision makers and stakeholders to expand the relationship with customers/partners.
• Develops strategies for driving and closing strategic, complex, and/or high value and/or prioritized opportunities. Collaborates with account teams to ensure alignment with the account strategy and plan. Leads complex/high-value deal planning with the deal teams across Microsoft and the Enterprise Operating Unit (EOU). Coaches others on the implementation of close plans (e.g., how to map timeline, engage the customer, get customer buy-in and commitment) to de-risk and drive predictable deal closure.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field AND 5-8+ years of technology-related sales Management OR
• 10+ years of experience in solution sales for Data & AI Azure/Cloud solutions or similar business public cloud migrations selling software-as-a-service or cloud-based business applications to enterprise customers successfully displacing competitors
• Sales Account Planning and Management: 5+ years of experience in leading and negotiating multi-million-dollar cloud deals requiring orchestration of large, dispersed, virtual teams composed of industry, solution, technical, licensing & legal team members.
• People Management: 5+ years demonstrated Sales Team Management experience in Enterprise sales with demonstrated people leader experience able to coach and inspire a diverse team of Sales and Pre- Sales Professionals.
  • Executive Presence: Excels at developing strong relationships and leadership connections to understand customer needs.
  • Partners: Understanding of partner ecosystems and the ability to leverage partner solutions to solve customer need
• Local market and languages (German  and/or French) next to English preferred.

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. 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.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

• Pipeline and Sales Management: Lead sellers to build and maintain strong, accurate pipeline and drive the Azure business to overachieve revenue, consumption, and scorecard targets
• Drives strong partnership with sales teams and other teams engaging in the customer (e.g., partners, services, Customer Success, engineering support, etc.) to identify new business opportunities
• People Management: Develops a high-performing team by hiring diverse talent, prioritizing development, leading by example and by preparing people for more senior positions in other parts of the organization. 
• Coaches Seller’s with a “challenger mentality” by prompting Seller’s to engage early and lead with new insights on how to grow the customers’ business.
• Customer centricity: Lead from the front, personally engaging at CxO level to support and coach teams on opportunity discovery and acceleration Engages with technical and business leaders on both business and technical outcomes to drive customer value.
• Partner Engagement: Bring together Microsoft solutions with Partner solutions, fully leverage the synergy effect with Partner solutions, fully leverage the synergy effect with our partners, and co-sell with them to make deals bigger and faster.