Director of Strategic Alliances, USA

JOB OVERVIEW

• Location: United States of America, preferably East Coast but open for all locations
• Role: Strategic Alliance
• Work Mode: Hybrid (3-days in office)
• Designation: Director
• Years of experience: 10 - 15 years in Strategic Alliance leadership

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Strategic Alliance Development - Define and execute a North America Microsoft alliance strategy that extends Acuity’s successful UK partnership model to the US and Canada. Identify priority areas where Microsoft’s cloud and AI offerings align with Acuity’s domain-led services and develop a roadmap for partnership growth.
• Relationship Management - Build and nurture executive relationships with Microsoft’s partner and sales organizations in the region. Act as the primary liaison to Microsoft’s North American team, establishing trust and alignment at multiple levels (sales, technical, and partner management). This includes integrating with Microsoft’s sales teams on a co-sell motion to accelerate account planning and industry initiatives, and ensuring Acuity is top-of-mind as a go-to partner for financial services opportunities.
• Joint Go-to-Market (GTM) - Develop joint GTM plans with Microsoft to drive revenue in the banking, asset management, and private markets sectors. Collaborate with Microsoft to create bundled solutions and sales plays that combine Acuity’s deep financial domain expertise with Azure-based technologies (for example, Azure Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake on Azure). Ensure our offerings align to Microsoft’s Financial Services Industry (FSI) scenarios and “co-sell ready” solutions for these sectors.
• Sales Enablement & Support - Work closely with Acuity’s sales and account teams to embed the Microsoft partnership into the sales process. This includes joint pipeline reviews with Microsoft, coordinating co-selling engagements, and assisting with late-stage deal strategy for opportunities involving Microsoft tech. One will help the sales team leverage Microsoft resources – for instance, engaging Microsoft solution specialists or accessing funding programs – to strengthen our proposals. In key pitches, one may join sales calls to articulate the Microsoft-Acuity value proposition and ensure we position the partnership advantage effectively.
• Alliance Operations - Manage the alliance mechanics working with our global Microsoft team – oversee partner program status, joint marketing, and metrics. One will ensure Acuity attains and maintains relevant Microsoft partner designations/certifications in North America and capitalize on any associated benefits. Track and report on alliance performance metrics: joint pipeline, co-sell wins, Azure consumption influenced, etc., demonstrating the alliance’s contribution to growth.
• Technology Evangelism - Serve as an internal evangelist for Microsoft technologies (Azure cloud services, Fabric, AI/Copilot, etc.). Stay up to date on Microsoft’s product roadmap and educate internal teams on new Azure and AI capabilities that we can bring to clients. Champion the integration of Microsoft’s generative AI offerings into our service offerings, so that we remain on the cutting edge of innovation. Work with our solution architects to pilot new Microsoft technologies (such as Azure AI Foundry services, Copilot, or industry clouds) in the context of financial-sector use cases.
• Joint Marketing & Events - Coordinate joint marketing efforts with Microsoft, such as webinars, industry conferences, and account-based campaigns targeting strategic clients. Represent Acuity at Microsoft events (e.g. Microsoft Inspire, regional Microsoft summits) and host Microsoft executives at our own thought leadership events to showcase the partnership. For example, one might organize a Financial Services AI roundtable with Microsoft or facilitate workshops for clients featuring Microsoft’s and Acuity’s capabilities together.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• 8 years of experience in strategic alliances, business development, or partner management in the tech/consulting industry (with a focus on enterprise software or cloud services).
• Deep knowledge of the Microsoft Azure ecosystem and cloud services. The ideal candidate is well-versed in Azure data & AI platforms, including Fabric, Azure Databricks and Snowflake on Azure – these are core to our Microsoft go-to-market solutions in financial services.
• Understanding of financial services industry dynamics in one or more of our key sectors: Banking, Asset Management, or Private Markets. The candidate does not need to be a former banker, but they should grasp common industry challenges (e.g. data management in capital markets, automation in asset management, etc.) and how cloud/data solutions can address them.
• Highly strategic mindset with the ability to identify alliance opportunities and prioritize initiatives that will drive the most impact. They should be comfortable analyzing partnership performance data and deriving insights.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Someone who is adept at building relationships and can influence without direct authority. This role requires frequent interaction with senior executives (both at Microsoft and within Acuity), so confidence, credibility and the ability to articulate a vision are key.
• Self-starter with strong execution capabilities. They can translate strategy into action, whether that’s organizing a training for 50 sellers on Azure financial services solutions, or negotiating terms of a partnership agreement.