Senior Director, Business Development

The Data & AI Business Development team is responsible for strategic partnerships, opportunity identification, and growth initiatives across Microsoft’s Data & AI portfolio.  

We are seeking a Senior Director, Business Development to join and lead the team driving AI partnerships and strategic initiatives, focused on commercial growth of Azure Open AI, Digital Natives, and Emerging AI Technologies.  

In this role, you will:  

• Lead and develop a high performing team of business development professionals, setting the tone, culture and expectations of high-quality impact and execution 

• Define and author commercial and ecosystem strategies in close collaboration with product and marketing teams including creative partnership constructs, business models, and Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies  

• Expand the reach and relevance of the Microsoft AI platform, through meaningful product and marketing engagements with leading partners and customers 

• Upskill the team and work closely with product, engineering, marketing, sales, finance and legal teams to evaluate, explore and execute strategic partnerships and initiatives 

• Be an expert on the AI space: follow the latest news, network heavily, develop technical / platform depth and have a systematic approach to identifying and executing against market trends  

• Demonstrate and live our values and principles of teamwork, curiosity, self-awareness, integrity, diversity and allyship 

This work helps to develop partner strategies that enables commercial acceleration of our AI Platform. 

Responsibilities

People Management 

• Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modeling, coaching, and caring. 
• Model - Live our culture; Embody our values; Practice our leadership principles. 
• Coach - Define team objectives and outcomes; Enable success across boundaries; Help the team adapt and learn. 
• Care - Attract and retain great people; Know each individual’s capabilities and aspirations; Invest in the growth of others. 

Partnership Strategy 

• Works with stakeholders to influence partnership decisions to meet customer needs, leveraging knowledge of Microsoft and customer issues to establish a foundation for future opportunities in competitive situations through collaboration. Provides insights on industry and/or competitive trends and drives action based on insights. Educates the team on strategy and ensures strategic focus. Drives knowledge sharing within the team. 
• Identifies and collaborates with a diverse set of stakeholders to develop plans to source deals that target high-priority gaps across technology, product, business, and/or geography. Leverages trends in data to i