Field CTO

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.

At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived. 

We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD. 

The Field CTO is the highest-ranking technical sales level within AHEAD. In the role, you will serve in multiple functions including cooperation with the AHEAD Sales and Presales leadership to manage the technical go-to-market and account strategies for our most valued clients as well as providing valued leadership through go-to-market and enablement activities, coupled with partner relationships, and keeping an eye towards emerging technologies and trends.

In this role, you are a senior thought leader within the technical organization, responsible for providing valued input to marketing programs, enabling others within the organization, writing white papers/blogs and providing other thought leadership, assisting the solutions development organization, presenting at industry events and executive briefings and consulting for AHEAD clients. We expect a Field CTO to possess or acquire expert knowledge across our Digital Delivery Platform including cloud management and operations, automation, DevOps, security, enterprise infrastructure, and application and data architectures. A Field CTO should be skilled in translating the digital challenges of our clients and building relationships. They should be comfortable with change, be able to actively listen and read a room, be excellent at storytelling, and have a professional persona and polish.

The successful Field CTO will have excellent communication skills, be a dynamic speaker with the ability to pivot in customer interactions and display a sense of confidence while still being personable and likeable. The candidate must have an established reputation and experience with driving product and services sales, focusing on client outcomes, across a wide range of technologies. While not a requirement, the successful candidate typically has practical experience from employment across at least two of the following: customer IT leadership, manufacturer presales, and partner/channel presales.

The successful Field CTO uses excellent sales and/or presales experience, in partnership with account teams, to help build cohesive account strategies for strategic current and prospective clients. You will help teams identify potential solutions, technologies, and vendors, and provide guidance on successful sales strategies.

Education is critical to your success at AHEAD. You are expected to continually educate not only yourself, but also our clients and your team resources. We also want the Field CTO to gain understanding of broad industry trends and to spend time with your peers within our strategic partners to understand emerging industry trends and vendor plans to provide this feedback back through the organization to influence AHEAD’s future direction.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Understand and articulate AHEAD's value and vision to our clients, partners, and teammates
• Assist strategic sales teams in qualifying sales opportunities and aligning AHEAD’s portfolio to client technical challenges, decision making process and investment approaches
• Drive account team efforts to become more strategic within current clients
• Assist account teams with identifying high-value, strategic activities and relationship building in support of acquiring new strategic clients
• Work with our partner ecosystem to demonstrate thought leadership and solution alignment
• Facilitate Executive and Visioning Experiences with clients and partners
• Qualify and help position consulting engagements and multi-practice programs and services
• Provide coaching and mentoring to team resources to enhance their solution knowledge, technical acumen, and presales skill sets
• Prioritize opportunities and efforts assigned to the geography based on maximizing total impact on team productivity and profit
• Provide feedback to improve internal efficiencies
• Collaborate with Core Practice areas to provide input and suggestions for new solutions, offerings, and innovation roadmap
• Present regularly at AHEAD events, user groups, technical and industry conferences, and forums
• Support and participate in technical and Financial Services industry communities
• Attend strategic war room sessions to align with "big deal" and strategic account planning to provide an additional perspective

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent
• Master’s degree in technical domain or MBA is preferred
• 15+ years Presales or IT Leadership experience is required
• Previous practical experience leading digital transformation efforts in Financial Services is preferred
• Strong industry expertise in banking, capital markets, payments is a plus
• Extensive knowledge/experience in multiple areas across: Digital Strategy, DevOps, Cloud, Data/AI, Infrastructure, Service Management, Automation, Security, and IT Operations
• Professional communication, presentation, analytical, and problem-solving skills
• Experience working as a technical lead in a sales campaign
• Tenaciously customer-focused and outcome-driven
• Ability to work under critical conditions and influence others to achieve results
• Strong interpersonal skills with excellent presentation skills
• Must be independent, self-motivated, a self-starter and possess a good working attitude
• Able to work well within a team and partner environment
• Demonstrated social and self-awareness
• Advanced content creation and demonstrated thought leadership skills are a plus
• Existing relationships and personal brand in the geography aligned to the position are desirable and considered valuable

Why AHEAD:

Through our daily work and internal groups like Moving Women AHEAD and RISE AHEAD, we value and benefit from diversity of people, ideas, experience, and everything in between.

We fuel growth by stacking our office with top-notch technologies in a multi-million-dollar lab, by encouraging cross department training and development, sponsoring certifications and credentials for continued learning.

USA Employment Benefits include: 

- Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance 

- 401(k) 

- Paid company holidays 

- Paid time off 

- Paid parental and caregiver leave 

- Plus more! See benefits https://www.aheadbenefits.com/ for additional details.