Microsoft Global Strategic Account Director – Financial Services Insurance 

Switzerland, Zurich, Zurich 

256160853

As the

Required/Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years experience in working in an industry (Financial Services - Insurance) and/or driving digital transformation
• OR Bachelor's Degree AND 10+ years experience working in an industry (e.g. Financial Services - Insurance) and/or driving digital transformation
• OR Master's Degree AND 9+ years experience working in an industry (e.g. Financial Services - Insurance) and/or driving digital transformation.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications

• 5+ years people management experience.
• 8+ years experience making recommendations to and/or collaborating with executives.
• 10+ years experience closing large, complex agreements/deals.
• Bachelor's Degree AND 15+ years experience working in an industry (e.g. Financial Services) and/or driving digital transformation
• OR Master's Degree AND 11+ years experience working in an industry (e.g. Financial Services) and/or driving digital transformation.
• 5+ years experience of selling cloud solutions to Enterprise customers and achieving target or equivalent experience
• 5+ years experience of leading a Global Account

• Managers deliver success through empowerment and accountability by modelling, 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.

Account Management

• Initiates collaborative opportunities with key internal and external partners and business and technical decision makers in developing, sharing, and promoting mutually beneficial, customizable joint investment plans to grow sales and partner impact, leveraging relationships, and industry expertise. Oversees efforts to share Microsoft and partner strategies into other segments of the customer's account and ensure customer success in the acquisition, implementation, and consumption of Microsoft's and partner's services and solutions. Collaborates across organization and partners in discussions to impact the broader ecosystem (e.g., passing legislation).
• Coaches team on expanding strategic network of key internal and external partners and decision makers, including vertical industry partners, to ensure execution of core tasks and account transactions and to provide a comprehensive account management experience. Leads regular meetings for strategic accounts with relevant partners. Enacts strategy for affecting transformation for partners to build solutions and applies an ecosystem-wide perspective to better position partner growth at all levels.
• Directs the execution of strategies for the assigned account to ensure engagements yield high-volume sales, drive plans to increase revenue potential, and open new opportunities for both Microsoft and the partners, aligned to goals, budgets, and forecasts. Leads, challenges, and inspires team to focus on top priorities and challenges to drive business case. Leverages industry expertise to anticipate industry direction and ecosystem.
• Oversees the development of a mature/dynamic multi-year customer plan detailing critical insights and new business opportunities aligned to customer priorities. Leads and coordinates a diverse team and key stakeholders (e.g., industry experts) on plan execution (e.g., prioritization, delegation) and drives accountability to deliver on account plans and grow the account. Prepares for future needs by incorporating the 3 Horizons Model into account planning and leverages resources equally across the 3 Horizons, as well as provides long-term strategic insight to customers as a trusted partner.
• Manages team efforts to execute on collected feedback on additional needs, products, and features to develop targeted strategies for customers. Demonstrates a developed understanding of the customer's business model to articulate growth opportunities, leveraging industry knowledge to shape ecosystem. Collaborates with relevant (internal and external) stakeholders and resources to drive change on behalf of the customer and to enhance team capabilities, improve Microsoft offerings, and adapt Microsoft's messaging to the assigned account.

Competitive Knowledge

• Leverages internal network of industry experts to strengthen knowledge of the industry (e.g., emerging trends, influencers), competitors (e.g., Amazon Web Services [AWS], Salesforce) customer business priorities (e.g., challenges, competitive landscape) and leverages in-depth knowledge of Microsoft's offerings (e.g., product landscape, solutions, strategy to address customers needs) to provide leadership, share knowledge internally, and mentor the account management team on ways to gain deeper industry knowledge that ultimately addresses customer needs. Explores and uncovers technologies and confirms customer interest, and has an understanding of where Microsoft may not be able to compete.

Customer Engagement

• Ensures a strong, comprehensive understanding of customer's business needs, priorities, and strategies and industry insights, competition, market competitive trends, and the customer's customers across their team. Guides internal colleagues on ways to develop deeper customer knowledge. Coaches team on anticipating customers' needs to deliver new insights on customers' business strategies. Articulates need to address customer's business needs (both internally and to the customer). Manages efforts to act on opportunities to optimize offerings and delivers solutions into overall long-term business strategy. Coaches team to synthesize information via annual reports, 10-Ks, reads LinkedIn articles, and leads ongoing customer/partner conversations to learn more about customer issues. Identifies new potential market opportunities for the customer, leveraging industry expertise.
• Proactively owns and elevates a transformative customer engagement strategy to foster customer trust and brand growth and loyalty. Sets team-wide tone for building and maintaining long-term strategic customer relationships and for driving larger impact for the customer. Defines and executes governance model to ensure mapping across seniority levels.

Strategic Thinking

• Leads in strategic discussions by articulating ideas to transform customer business models to better serve their own customers, and increase profitability and market. Promotes and ensures the application of a more holistic digital approach between Microsoft and the customer. Prepares for discussions by thinking through what is important for the customer by establishing return on investment (ROI) models, key customer benefits, etc. Clarifies a joint road map around the 3 Horizons, to ensure time spent is allocated strategically across the short- and medium-term.
• Coaches team on leveraging Microsoft sales strategies to articulate Microsoft's and partners' point of view and cultivate connections with decision makers through multiple levels of the customers' organization to drive purchase decisions and increase interaction and participation, leveraging relevant tools and resources (e.g., LinkedIn). Creates and leverages relationships in ecosystem to address complex political blockers and drive execution for the customer.
• Leads by example to leverage unique, strategic industry-focused business insights and opportunities to create long-term competitive advantage for the customer. Challenges customers when appropriate to think differently and offer alternative industry-specific points of view.

Sales Excellence

• Leverages understanding of customer business and ability to translate customers' business priorities to Microsoft solutions, and engages Microsoft decision makers to drive customer's strategy, goals, and optimization. Engages and influences decision makers of the account (e.g., senior leaders, executives) on Microsoft's vision, strategy, and value, and positions Microsoft to increase customer's budget allocated to Microsoft, tailor solutions that satisfy customers' key performance indicators (KPIs). Transforms features into business outcomes that accelerate the customer's digital presence. Leverages quantifiable business metrics that address business outcomes for the customer and holds others accountable to those metrics.
• Supports the development of the business transformation and co-innovation strategy for the assigned account that is based on customer's expected outcomes and Microsoft's added innovative value, and opens doors to new opportunities grounded in an understanding of industry trends, customer needs, competitor differentiators, and final consumer perspectives. Maintains team-wide awareness of market changes to drive new industry-relevant cloud solutions to customers. Brings greater customer/partner ecosystem together with the customer to discuss how to enrich customer's value to their customers, and creates mutually agreed upon roadmaps on how to capture innovation/transformation within strategic accounts.
• Drives execution of long-term strategies aimed at building a level of loyalty that would be hard for competitors to overcome. Anticipates issues/risks on customer satisfaction, determines the root cause of problems, removes blockers, and oversees recovery action plan to improve customer's overall experience. Implements customer-focused and mutual success criteria, such as executive steering committees, quarterly business reviews, and scorecards. Builds trust and loyalty with the customer by providing up-to-date insights, challenging the customer when necessary, and introducing innovative ideas relevant to the customer's business strategy. Enables customers to provide feedback directly to leaders to help transform account space by establishing open communication channels for feedback, providing leader sponsorship, and providing direction to others to ensure customer feedback is addressed through the One Microsoft approach.
• Uses business cases to develop and present compelling value proposition presentations and specialized business plans for customers that showcase Microsoft's products and solutions to connect decision makers in the account to the broader Microsoft solutions, provides leadership to guide others on tailoring presentations, and generate new opportunities. Advocates internally to promote the relevance of Microsoft's expertise for the customer.
• Earns and maintains status as a trusted advisor to the assigned account's business decision makers by bringing ideas and narratives, leveraging industry expertise, establishing ongoing cadences, and bringing together the customer's customers. Navigates the stakeholder landscape and mobilizes and mentors the account management team and relevant stakeholders with industry expertise to expand the partnership with decision makers of the assigned account. Leverages best-in-class sales and communication strategies and tools to address business needs and identify opportunities. Challenges and holds customers accountable by creating an environment of joint accountability and speaks up when customer is pursuing an inefficient path.
• Creates and qualifies new opportunities by identifying strategic opportunities (e.g., large, long-term) within accounts and guiding the customer on how to best identify new opportunities, leveraging customer and industry relationships. Directs team to create "Points of View" for customers, and maintains awareness of emerging patterns across the industry to anticipate customer needs and concerns. Acts on new business opportunities across the team by leveraging a partner ecosystem, and empowers team members to find new opportunities by setting a clear vision and energy for the team to drive towards.