With a vision to “build and sell intelligent cloud and intelligent edge solutions with partners, empowering people and organizations to achieve more,” Global Channel Partner Sales (GCPS) drives revenue outcomes with partners through innovative solutions at scale. The Global Channel Sales (GCS) organization within GCPS drives partner growth, accelerates cloud and AI adoption at scale, and enables partner success. Our approach centers on cloud solution acceleration, co-sell execution, and performance accountability — ensuring measurable impact through partner-led transformation.
The Global Channel Sales organization is seeking a strategic, data-driven Sales Excellence leader to serve as Director, Global Sales Excellence. Reporting to the GCS Chief of Staff, this role leads the end-to-end Channel Rhythm of Business (RoB) for internal and partner-facing reviews and is accountable for the planning, back-planning, and content development for the Global Channel Insights and Action Review (IAR) and for GCS participation in other global business reviews.
Working across GCPS and in partnership with Sales Excellence & Operations (SE&O), you will drive planning, future-state RoB design, back-planning, and internal channel communication. You will provide reporting, analysis, and planning in support of the Global Channel Sales Corporate Vice President (CVP), lead the standardization and consistency of partner-driven business-review templates, and oversee the day-to-day relationship with the Small, Medium Enterprise & Channel (SME&C) Strategy & Operations (S&O) team and GCPS finance leads.
You will define standards in practice that scale across Channel Sales Excellence personnel to instill sales-process discipline and execution excellence; define and drive a predictable rhythm of connection across cross-functional teams; coach sales teams and partners; generate business insights that shape sales and partner strategies; and advocate the effective, rigorous use of systems and tools. This role combines strategic thinking with operational rigor, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to influence across all levels of the organization without direct authority.
Responsibilities
Channel RoB Leadership
- Global Channel IAR leadership — Drive the Global Channel IAR workstream end to end: identify and consolidate insights and trends, help develop messaging and slide commentary, support leaders on preparation and insights, facilitate the review, and drive back-planning, prep, and post-meeting communication. Consolidate and communicate Operating Unit (OU)-level key themes, action items, and asks across all IARs.
- Global SMB IAR partnership — Partner on the Global Small and Medium Business (SMB) IAR in concert with the SME&C SMB organization. Drive data insights and analysis, write talking points for the CVP, and manage back-planning aligned to overall milestones.
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- End-to-end RoB design & orchestration — Hold the master back-planning calendar and cross-workstream reporting views across all Channel IAR RoB workstreams, and design the future-state RoB in partnership with GCPS, GCS, and SME&C SE&O.
- MBR/QBR standardization — Own the standardization and consistency of Partner Development Manager (PDM) partner-driven Monthly Business Review (MBR) and Quarterly Business Review (QBR) templates across the channel.
- Cross-org RoB partnership — Oversee the day-to-day relationship with the SME&C S&O RoB team and GCPS finance leads, and partner across SME&C SE&O on planning, future-state RoB design, and channel communication.
Reporting, Analysis & Executive Support
- Executive data reporting for the CVP — Provide reporting, analysis, and planning in support of the Global Channel Sales CVP, and own executive data reporting in support of RoB workstreams and associated analysis.
- Proactive partner performance analysis — Deliver monthly gap analysis on strategic priorities (e.g., Distribution, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), renewals) and partner performance analysis for strategic whitepapers, MBRs, or presentations as requested.
- Partner activation & performance insights — Gain insight into partner go-to-market (GTM) activities and support landing of partner strategy and sales processes (e.g., renewals, projects). Drive revenue management, partner performance insights, and activation against goals, with proactive remediation of gaps and coaching on corrective actions.
- RoB / IAR / MCEM orchestration — Orchestrate, assess, and provide feedback on RoB, IAR, and Microsoft Customer Engagement Methodology (MCEM) execution to raise sales-execution rigor and efficiency across the channel.
- Strategy enablement — Land emerging and updated sales strategy, including renewal execution, Enterprise Agreement (EA)-to-CSP acceleration, territory planning with partners, and Azure net new revenue (NNR).
- Sales motion guidance — Guide Channel leadership on sales motions and strategies for renewals, up-sell, cross-sell, and recapture as a subject-matter expert, and identify where coaching is needed based on data-driven insights.
Tools & Systems Discipline
- Rigorous tool adoption — Act as a subject-matter expert to convey the value of tools and drive the effective, rigorous use of common and new processes and tools that improve internal and external communications and engagements.
- Feedback loop ownership — Own consolidated input from the supported area into the feedback loop, and leverage that feedback to influence engineering and partner teams on improving tools.
Sales Operations Accountability
This role also drives the end-to-end planning and back-planning for select sales operations activities in partnership with the GCS Chief of Staff, Channel Sales Excellence peers, and the GTM, Programs & Operations (GPO) organization, including:
- Employee Data Management (EDM) — Taxonomy and role-change management across the fiscal year and in-year.
- Quota — Distribution planning, execution, and landing; quota escalations; and year-end quota relief.
- Territory Management — Territory planning, assignment, and alignment with OU stakeholders.
- Managed Partner List (MPL) — Regional MPL templates, partner segmentation accuracy, and submissions.
- Partner record management — Partner hierarchy (parent/child) requests, business justifications, and partner legal-name changes.
- Partners with Business and Sales Operations (BSO) and other stakeholders to ensure timely, accurate execution across these workstreams.
Qualifications
Required / Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Sales, Finance, or related field AND 7+ years experience in sales, sales operations/management, account management, program management, business development, marketing, consulting, or a related field OR equivalent experience.
- 5+ years experience using data to drive business outcomes or inform business decisions.
- 5+ years experience managing relationships with stakeholders, clients, and/or customers.
Preferred Qualifications
- Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Operations, Marketing, Computer Science, or a related field; 10+ years of experience in the technology industry preferred.
- Sales Excellence expertise — Proven track record instilling sales-process discipline, owning RoB / Rhythm of Connection (RoC) cadences, coaching sales teams and partners, and generating business insights that drive sales, organizational, and partner strategy. Preferred understanding of Microsoft’s go-to-market strategies and partner/channel ecosystem.
- Rhythm of Business leadership — Demonstrated experience leading a Rhythm of Business (RoB) or sales cadence, sales execution, or partner performance management across a global or multi-segment organization.
- Critical thinking and strategic insight based on data — Uses data as the primary guide for decisions, challenging assumptions and current practices with a data-driven approach and translating complex data into clear actions that accelerate growth.
- Executive relations — Interacts confidently with senior leaders in a highly matrixed organization to present, defend, and clarify concerns or issues, handling push-back while maintaining an executive presence in high-pressure situations.
- Global leadership at scale, influence without authority — Experience leading and navigating large cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders without direct authority.
- Leading change that drives adoption — Experience with large-scale transformations, bringing people, partners, and customers along on the journey rather than telling them where to go.
- Business acumen — Understands the parts of the business and their interrelationships, including the industry, competition, and the organization’s competitive strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to grow.
- Disruptive innovation — Comfortable challenging the status quo by proposing innovative approaches and building the best solutions with others. Brings demonstrated experience creating and managing executive-level proposals and presentations.
- Engagement expertise — Storytelling skills and a passion for delighting partners, advocating on their behalf, and creating great partner experiences.
- Results-driven and organized, with attention to detail — A self-starter who creates and delivers scalable plans from concept to delivery, prioritizes and manages multiple projects, and drives to measurable results in changing environments.
Sales Excellence IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.
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