Go-To-Market (GTM) Director for Cloud & AI Platforms Activation

The Microsoft Asia Sales Enablement & Operations (SE&O) team plays an essential role in translating Microsoft’s Commercial Strategy to a local execution plan and driving operational excellence to achieve the greatest results possible. Our team drives cross-Region, cross-Area and cross-Subsidiary insight and execution excellence, bringing strategy and priorities to life by accelerating the pace of transformation and enabling Microsoft to deliver business impact at scale. 

As the Go-To-Market (GTM) Director for Cloud & AI Platforms Activation in Japan, you will accelerate revenue growth, boost field agility, and deliver results with our field sellers by deepening your partnership with key stakeholders across Japan, Sales Excellence, sales, marketing, consulting, customer success, and partner functions, supporting One-Microsoft. You will be the “spiritual leader” of Cloud & AI Platforms business in Japan and should bring together the virtual team across all Cloud & AI Platforms stakeholders within Japan to plan end-to-end and collaborate effectively. You will focus on driving alignment across processes and tools, leading with a cross-solution approach to optimize pipelines, ensuring effective communication and flawless execution, and leveraging insights to drive data-driven decision-making. This role is critical to driving customer adoption at scale, driven by deep customer conversation domain, product truth, and partnerships with sales, marketing, operations, and sales excellence.

We’re looking for a highly driven, motivated marketing or sales individual to join our GTM team. This role requires someone who acts as a thought leader, tracks success criteria and performance metrics, works with emergent technology, creates alignment and action across teams, removes roadblocks, and simplifies complex concepts. This individual truly lives for big challenges. This opportunity will allow you to accelerate your career growth, develop deep business acumen, and hone your leadership skills.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

• Growth Strategy & Business Performance: Oversee the execution of Cloud & AI Platforms customer conversations in Japan to enhance Azure consumption revenue performance with Solution GTM teams and Activation GTM teams. Responsible for new pipeline creation, addressing pipeline gaps by Operating Units/sales segment, and implementing global strategies relevantly for Japan, including the Cloud & AI Platforms program performance.

• Sales Activation: Lead end-to-end customer conversation field activation to win customers across the Cloud & AI Platforms customer conversations including cross-Commercial Solution Area customer conversations such as Ubiquitous Intelligences. Resolve blockers and influence strategic improvements through field feedback loops. Partner closely with the Solution GTM teams to deliver field readiness and skilling as well as capture and share insights on customer wins/losses, compete trends, and partner feedback.

• Demand Generation: Align and orchestrate the execution of Cloud & AI Platforms marketing plan with Integrated Marketing Managers (IMM), Solution GTM teams and Partner roles. Push for marketing signal conversion to create sales pipeline and ensure successful customer targeting events. Provide content input and shape agendas to amplify Cloud & AI Platform priorities.

• Product Leadership: Act as a strong Azure and Cloud & AI Platforms solutions advocate by demonstrating thought leadership externally with customers and partners, and internally with global headquarters. Champion local needs and insights to shape global product strategy, roadmap, and readiness through structured feedback loops. Understand industry trends, challenges, and regulatory requirements.

• Consumption Commitment + Unified Support Stewardship: Steward Consumption Commitment by advancing acquisition strategy, expanding the scope of workloads in the customer contracts, accelerating Azure consumption revenue via Unified Support offering, expanding Unified accounts and driving data-driven optimization. Drive improvement in Consumption Commitment penetration significantly.

• Operational Excellence: Partner closely with Sales Excellence and Sales Operations to drive sales discipline, pipeline creation and acceleration, and the standard customer engagement model orchestration. Promote consistent use of programs and investments as well as standardized services and tools in the field sales teams. Partner with the regional Solution GTM Leaders and Activation GTM Leaders to drive a connected Rhythm-of-Business that tracks end-to-end business health, aligning sales and marketing insights with global headquarters through key cadences.

• You will exemplify Microsoft Values, Culture, Leadership Principles and create clarity by creating a shared understanding.

Required (RQs)

• 10+ years marketing strategy, business planning, sales enablement, business development, technical pre-sales or related work experience
  • OR equivalent experience
• Familiar with Azure and/or AWS/GCP, understand the executions of commercial cloud & AI business
• Language fluency in Japanese and English as business professional or above

Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

• 10+ years experience in managing and expanding a product/solution portfolio and driving demand generation and pipeline acceleration within a complex (e.g., multinational or matrixed) organization
• Experience in Manufacturing/Automotive, FSI, Retail, Healthcare/Life Sciences, Public Sector, or any other key industries and businesses in Japan
  • OR equivalent experience

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.