Strategy Initiatives Manager is responsible for being an area-based leader for the orchestration and execution of large, complex strategic engagements with the largest and most strategic customers in the Area.

Strategic engagement identification and strategy development

• Proactively identifies and determines high-impact parties to partner with/sell to through orchestrating a customer assessment of their current needs and defining a value proposition to meet those needs. Prioritizes and pursues large and transformative market opportunities and trends for Microsoft that provide opportunities for customers to leverage Microsoft platforms/products by identifying, quantifying, and qualifying opportunities. Evaluates opportunities and leads overall planning in cooperation with various internal functions in region and HQ (e.g., field sales, industry and solution specialists, partner development org) to identify and prioritize goals and objectives for an achievable target.
• Orchestrates end-to-end functional thinking and discussions to design and drive customer strategic deals for a commercial strategic framework that are aligned with business objectives and customer current state and needs at an appropriate motion and cadence in cooperation with customers. Oversees that strategic deals incorporate relevant market factors (e.g., competitive, economic, industry specific) to drive optimal results and return on investment. Ensures prospective pipelines and opportunities are built into deals across customers. Empowers a strong customer presence through a deep customer focus and strategic development, attracting and committing customers to the journey through the integration of customer feedback. Ensures information from prior engagements and learnings are integrated to build an improved strategy. Drives understanding of customer needs, gains internal customer alignment, and mobilizes partners to achieve the strategy. Facilitates the incorporation and feedback of other internal teams (e.g., product, engineering, finance, legal, sales, marketing) and executive-level leaders to help inform the strategy.

Stakeholder Managment

• Identifies appropriate executive-level stakeholders within customers to connect and work with in pursuit of new business generation. Acts as the voice and a trusted advisor for customers/partners across the organization to design and oversee plans/programs. Connects customers with key senior level influencers/players, as well as Microsoft's value proposition, in order to drive effective customer models and strategies.
• Builds trusted advisor partnerships with executive-level leaders and managers, representing the organization to area/regional leadership. Influences across the company to accomplish initiatives and achieve business goals, owning the relationships with cross-functional (e.g., finance, engineering, legal, commercial, product, sales segments) and multi-country team members. Drives design of internal orchestrations, influences assurances, and creates to internal feedback loops with stakeholders to align resources, plan up, and support strategic growth. Drives the building of internal strategy for orchestrating development of sales opportunities and across the organization, especially in solution sales management (e.g., cloud, data) to drive effective capabilities.

Deal negotiation

• Leads discussions with customers to align and determine customer and Microsoft needs and desired outcomes for strategic customer/partner engagements. Drives negotiations with and influences existing and new customers/partners in long-term planning to form a strategically driven deal. Identifies, engages with, acquires support from, and negotiates internally with key senior stakeholders (e.g., product, engineering, finance, legal, sales, marketing) to move forward with negotiations.
• Plays a leading role in closing effective, mutually beneficial deals with customers, in participation with internal stakeholders (e.g., Account Technology Unit (ATU), Solution Technology Unit (STU), Global Partner Sales (GPS)). Orchestrates the creation of an action plan that spans across the end-to-end strategic landscape to ensure the deal is properly closed through the integration of reports, risk analyses, driving agreements, and assessing value in strategic deals. Leads conversations and coordinates with Microsoft's legal team to ensure that contracts are signed, that the deal is effectively closed, and that there is compliance between teams.

Strategic engagements execution and on-going process improvement

• Post deal closure, leads the management of projects in alignment with the strategic engagement and associated goals. Leads coordination of projects programmatically across the different areas of engagement with stakeholders and contributors to assure appropriate resources are available and that the project is executed in a timely manner. Creates objectives to assure that outcomes are achieved in accordance with goals. Aligns the vision, outcomes, and indicators of performance against strategic goals, and assures forward movement toward the goal by all contributing stakeholders and constituents across Microsoft to meet outcomes and objectives.
• Continuously solicits and provides feedback and identifies themes and trends regarding experiences and potential improvements to strategic plans. Contributes to developing continuous process improvements and in-flight changes through the review and analysis of performance for specific strategic plans. Takes steps to continuously learn and develop self, by bringing losses to the forefront and growing from prior engagements. Contributes to continuously driving and improving on customer centricity, technological intensity, and process simplicity.

Strategic projects

• Apart from strategic customer/partner engagements, actively participate in Area-level strategic projects prioritized by the Area VP to help improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency.