Senior Industry Advisor - Defense & Intelligence - CTJ - Top Secret

Overview Do you care deeply about working with governments to help constituents and advance the digital transformation of countries across the world? This is one of Microsoft's most critical and strategic areas of focus, and we are looking for a leader to lead our engagement with the Defense and Intelligence Industry in the Americas.

In this position, you will be working with senior-level officials in government and industry on transformative projects driven by Microsoft technology.

Using extensive industry and sales knowledge, the Industry Advisor, Americas (Defense & Intelligence) will help our sales teams and partners to provide relevant, high-quality solutions and services that enable our government customers to drive digital transformation in the Americas.

The Industry Advisor will collaborate closely with corporate teams, as well as sales teams in the Americas, to build trusted relationships with our most important accounts and deliver thought leadership in the Defense sector to include the Defense Industrial Base.

We are looking for someone who has a relentless passion for industry, along with a significant sales leadership background and understanding of the segments within the Defense Industry.

Regionally based in the US, you will be working as an integral member of the Microsoft Frontier Company team and will collaborate and partner with colleagues in other geographies. It will involve up to 50% travel, with some global travel required occasionally.

Successful candidates will work closely cross-functionally with our customer account teams, the service delivery teams, public sector and industry teams to deliver key business priorities, goals, and objectives.

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.

Responsibilities

Serves as a thought leader on industry-focused sales within Microsoft and as the Industry subject matter expert in digital transformation account planning for Defense, Intelligence and the Defense Industrial Base. Acts as an industry advisor to executive-level business decision makers. Identifies business needs and customer readiness to land value propositions at the center of Microsoft’s Frontier Co.

ambition, helping our most strategic customers turn industry disruption into measurable transformation through AI, data, security and Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE). You will coach and develop industry experts who engage senior business and technology leaders, shape board-level transformation conversations, and identify customer scenarios where FDE can unlock faster time to value and differentiated business outcomes.

Working across account teams, specialists, FDE teams, partners and executive stakeholders, you will help connect customer ambition to Microsoft’s most strategic growth motions. You will be responsible for building a high-performing team culture, driving strategic customer impact, and creating repeatable industry-led growth opportunities across a portfolio of strategic accounts.

Provides guidance from an industry perspective during early stages of opportunity engagements. Engages with senior decision makers to nurture new business opportunities. Initiates conversations with strategic customers to bring innovative ideas that showcase the need for strategic change.

Determines root cause of customer problems, removes blockers, and establishes recovery action plan. Generates demand through industry presentations and events. Proactively seeks additional training, including information that adds to the understanding of customers' businesses, and shares it with team members.

Serves as industry communicator to translate industry knowledge for the account management team. Collaborates with partners to identify future requirements and connect the partner ecosystems in efforts to scale business results. Extends relationships with peers and senior team members across solution areas.

Proactively builds knowledge of Microsoft and industry solutions and capabilities.

Collaboration and Partner Management

• Leverages their understanding of and relationships with Business Strategy Leads (BSLs), Business Development Managers (BDMs) and Partner Development Managers (PDMs) to plan, orchestrate and execute customer opportunities, and inform house of industry. Drives engagements with Industry Solutions Delivery (ISD), partners (e.g., solution architect, solutions-sales professionals, cloud-solution architects) and external stakeholders to design and illustrate envisioned solutions (e.g., pilots, proof of concept, rapid prototyping, minimum viable product). Collaborates with the account team unit (ATU) and partners to drive GTM strategy, ensuring security is a core component, and drive together customer opportunities. Collaborates with commercial and legal teams to establish formal partnership. Collaborates with partner teams (e.g., Global Partner Solutions [GPS]) to carry out competitive recruiting of new partners and helps current partners to understand the industry and develop/deliver truth for the solutions within that industry. Drives team efforts to identify and engage partners for targeted solutions and articulates the case for developing solutions on top of the Microsoft cloud.

Industry Expertise

• Completes the required training and seeks additional learning opportunities to obtain relevant industry expertise and certifications pertinent to the role and the industry itself. Proactively builds and maintains knowledge of Microsoft's and other industry-relevant solutions and other capabilities. Leverages advanced knowledge of industry-specific security best practices and future trends to assess and interpret security needs to proactively apply to customer's transformation roadmap and address complex customer questions around security. Proactively builds strong knowledge of the industry, including trends, policy implications (e.g., privacy), and competitors to act as a subject matter expert and inform decisions on pursuit or withdrawal. Leads communication to provide feedback across the ecosystem (e.g., cross-pollinating information across teams/industries) to other teams (e.g., sales, marketing, engineering) on future product trends or sales blockers and to guide industry solutions team members in a wide variety of specialties, leveraging deep industry knowledge to articulate nuances and anticipate gaps. Advises and presents at industry communities. Provides recommendations on accounts and establishes a learning baseline for less experienced colleagues. Proactively seeks out additional training to build on career competencies, including information that adds to the understanding of customers' businesses, and shares it with team members.

Planning and Engagement

• Leads multi-horizon planning to outline an approach for industry-oriented solution selling with the customer. Creates segment-focused three-horizon roadmaps for impactful accounts based on business and technology priorities, as well as deep understanding of their industry. Proactively develops strategies that ensure roadmaps integrate security-related considerations (e.g., cybersecurity and data sovereignty) as core components of digital transformation, enhancing and driving continuous improvement in customer security posture. Identifies appropriate resources to execute on digital transformation plan to support mid- to long-term customer plans. Drives internal and customer envisioning and articulates business and program changes in the roadmaps around new and groundbreaking capabilities.
• Proactively continues to build and maintain mutually influential relationships with external senior- and executive-level decision makers and pa