Financial Services Industry Strategist

About Lumen

Lumen connects the world. We are igniting business growth by connecting people, data and applications – quickly, securely, and effortlessly. Together, we are building a culture and company from the people up – committed to teamwork, trust and transparency. People power progress.

We’re looking for top-tier talent and offer the flexibility you need to thrive and deliver lasting impact. Join us as we digitally connect the world and shape the future.

The Role

The Lumen Strategic Technologies Partnership team is at the forefront of industry and AI transformations. We provide industry insights, provide thought leadership to customers, and inspire solutions that empower our partners to innovate, adapt, and delight their own customers. Our collaborative approach involves working closely with customers, partners (Hyperscalers, ISVs, SIs), and industry leaders to drive success on Lumen through impactful industry solutions that enable digital transformation.
We are seeking a dynamic Industry Strategist with deep industry expertise in financial services vertical (FSI). As the FSI Strategist, you will play a pivotal role in developing and executing Lumen’s industry strategy, identifying market gaps, and driving growth through industry priority scenarios and innovative solutions enabled by Lumen + partners. This position requires a senior, visionary thought leader who can navigate a transforming technology & business landscape to motivate both an industry and its strategic partners, to create scaling value through industry narratives and solutions. 

This role drives growth and will initially focus on developing and validating an industry strategy, quickly moving into developing a full set of field ready assets to enable high impact industry solutions in conjunction with strategic partners, including integrated software vendors (ISV), systems integrators (SI), and Hyperscale partnerships, that deliver strategic joint value to our mutual customers.  This role is equally responsible for driving awareness through thoughtful internal and external awareness campaigns out the thought leadership and industry narratives you developed, drive go-to-market motions, and pairing our partners with Lumen direct sellers to co-sell customer deals. 
The ideal candidate must possess a deep understanding of the financial services industry.  The candidate must possess strong relationship-building skills and ideally a proven track record in strategic planning and execution with partner organizations.

The Main Responsibilities

• Industry Strategy: Bring experience and knowledge to develop a financial services industry specific strategy that best positions Lumen’s portfolio in concert with partners, creating Lumen’s point of view and narrative for the industry, industry priority pillars, customer scenarios and industry solutions.  The strategy output will be scaled through awareness campaigns.  
• Strategic Partnership: Collaborate with the entire Lumen team including our team’s field CTO, our Global Partnership teams, and our Product teams to land and scale our industry priority scenarios. 
• Ecosystem Engagement: Engage with our partner ecosystem to identify and scale our strategic and market-moving partners. You will play a pivotal role in enabling priority scenarios by mutual value creation and driving partner enablement to support Cosell motions that leads to market expansion.
• GTM Planning: Develop a clear Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy and execution plan for industry priority scenarios. Execution plan includes generating awareness, acquiring customers, identifying target audience, analyze competitors and prepare differentiated points of view. 
• Thought Leadership: Think beyond the status quo. Drive transformation and innovation by advocating co-innovation with customers. Be the go-to industry subject matter expert (SME) with a purpose-driven solutions portfolio to increase reach and speed to market.
• Competitive Differentiation: Evangelize unique selling proposition, brand identity, and niche focus by creating messaging and emotional appeal. Understand what sets us apart and use that insight to drive consensus building with existing and new clients.
• Trusted Advisor: Support solution sales by providing commercial teaching. Help customers see the value we bring and establish yourself as a trusted advisor.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Participate in cross-team governance processes. Represent the needs of industry solutions, customers, and the field. Collaborate with product teams and corporate functions to accelerate innovative strategies.
• Performance Excellence: Drive business results. Deliver robust reporting an