Partner Technology Strategist Community Lead at Microsoft

Job number: 691927
Locations: South Africa, Israe, Nigeria, Kenya
Profession: Technical Sales
Role type: Individual Contributor
Employment type: Full-Time
Travel: 25-50 %

The Opportunity

• Joining the One Commercial Partner team as a Partner Technology Strategist (PTS) lead means you will be playing a critical role in leading the community of PTSs helping Microsoft Partners to capitalize on the $2.2 trillion-dollar Digital Transformation market opportunity by 2019 - a 60% increase since 2016. Working in OCP means you are shaping the world’s largest eco-system of technology companies.

Microsoft’s Mission:

• Through our partners Microsoft brings digital ambitions to life by helping companies empower their employees, engage their customers, optimize their operations, and transform their products.

Overseeing Digital Transformation Success:

• The PTS plays a critical role in working with partners to align their technology roadmaps with Microsoft's technology priorities working with them to build new solutions that enable customers to realize the vision of Digital Transformation.

The Role

• The PTS lead needs to lead the PTS community across MEA to achive the business objectives as well as drive cross team projects for the OCP technical team. This is a rare opportunity for a role that brings together strategy and execution.

Partner Types Managed:

• The PTS leads is part of the Tech Team management, works in partnership with the Partner Development Manager (PDM) through the ‘Build-With’ stages of the Partner Life-cycle engaging with System Integrator partners, Managed Services providers, Licensing Sales providers.

Responsibilities

• On-Boarding: Be personally accountable for overseeing the on-boarding of new PTSs Rewards & Recognition: Recognizes and rewards PTSs that meet and exceed growth performance and development commitments
• Coaching: Creates a culture of coaching the team. Invests time coaching using Growth Mindset and Rolex coaching tools to increase team’s skillsets
• Skilling: Identifies skill needs and gaps across teams of PTSs and build development plans to upskill or cross-skill teams
• Building own Market Acumen: Understands market trends, market opportunities, compliance by reading, attending webinars, conferences delivered by Industry thought leaders such as Gartner, Forrester, IDC, ISG/Saugatuck and others
• Engagement Management: Leads regular reviews of engagement costs, delivery, resources/offerings, championing ways to innovate, improve productivity, reduce costs and expand the value of engagements led by Build resources
• Engagement Check-ins: Checks-in on how strategic engagements are proceeding reviewing the build plan, making sure that accountabilities are clear, actions are being followed-up and the partner is realizing the expected value
• Engagement Execution: Leading by example coaches, teaches the delivery and content of engagements; Proof of Concepts, Architectural Design, Hackathons demonstrating ways to increase value and impact
• Strategic Technology Advisor: Invited to Join the Technology Advisory/Planning groups of top partners contributing with insights that influence the technology roadmaps and investments towards Microsoft and away from key competitors
• Building Partnerships: Presses teams to consider the important interdependencies of 3rd party solutions, services and equipment, as well as P2P motions for better together strategies among different partners and partner types
• Build strong relationships with OCP leads and PTS' to help execute role objectives.

Qualifications
Education, Key Experiences, Skills and Knowledge:

• Deep understanding of digital transformation business drivers, cloud platforms, emerging computing trends and their impact on partner practice building opportunities.
• 10+ years of related experience in technology solutions/practice development, Cloud / Infrastructure technologies.
• Knowledge of MS platform preferable, project management, technical Sales and technical account management.
• Proven track record of building deep sales relationships with CXOs and practice building executives in ISV, MSP, CD and SIs
• Inclusive and collaborative - driving teamwork and cross-team alignment
• Strong partner relationship management skills
• Strong executive presence including communication and presentation skills with a high degree of comfort to large and small technical audiences.
• Problem solving mentality leveraging internal and/or external resources, conflict resolution, and follow through with partners.
• Business and/or Technical BS degree, or equivalent work experience.

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

• Industry leading healthcare
• Savings and investments
• Giving programs
• Educational resources
• Maternity and paternity leave
• Opportunities to network and connect
• Discounts on products and services
• Generous time away.