Partner Account Executive

Partner Business Development Manager

Owns the partner business relationship. Establishes, develops and maintains trusted advisor relationships with partners and understands their business models, strategy and capabilities. Guides partner business strategies towards Cisco, encouraging the adoption and expansion of Cisco technologies and business practices and driving Cisco preference. Leverages market trends and insights to position partners as preferred providers of Cisco technologies, expanding their practices to align with key products, services, and segments. Develops and executes strategic partner account plans, identifying priorities for performance optimization and transformation, while enabling capability development. Builds and/or strengthens partner capabilities & practices and develops differentiated GTM strategies to drive growth across each practice. Orchestrates partner ecosystems to align with the company's technology portfolio, driving innovation, market expansion, and competitive differentiation. Engages sales teams early to align partner capabilities with Cisco strategies, exposing and building upon services to enhance partner profitability and co-sell opportunities. Advocates for partners within internal teams, integrating their capabilities into account plans and engaging specialists (e.g., solution engineers, practice sellers) to support partner readiness and solution development. Plans and drives demand generation activities aligning partner offerings and customer needs to create pipeline. Manages and maximizes business performance. Maximizes partner programs and incentives, leverages and drives partner investments, and drives operational excellence through integrated planning, forecasting, and performance monitoring (e.g., QBRs). Monitors and optimizes partner performance through data-driven insights, utilizing profitability programs and methodologies to strengthen partner success.

Specialization and Focus - Guide and influence partners to align with the full portfolio of Cisco products and services with partner's strategic priorities; and fully utilize Cisco's programs, promotions and resources

Customer Engagement and Accountability - Strong/primary influencer in partner's decision to make an investment, 80% of time spent on relationship orchestration, strategy & planning, practice development and business development with assigned partner(s)

The Internal Sales Process - All stages of the deal

Corporate Interlock - Low to medium corporate interlock (interaction with BE, region leaders)

Typical Sales Cycle - Sales cycle varies, Deal complexity varies (may be high complexity if the partner is moving toward more complex deals as solution selling becomes more prevalent, or involve ecosystem, software and/or architecture)

Success Measures - Annual business plan with key initiatives and revenue goals ($ target), partner's Cisco business growth (% Y/Y), partner's value index score across the portfolios (#), ROI on investments and demand generation activities (%)

What you'll do:

Typically manages a defined set of small to medium partner relationships independently where:

Partner profile: Partners may sell a broad range of products and services within an architecture as well as related architectures

Develops strategic medium to long term partner account plans, collaborates with specialists and incorporates their POV

Engages on strategic or complex deals with increasing intimacy on business discussions and diminishing reliance on specialist knowledge

Monitors performance on identified KPIs, and tracks capability development against roadmap, leverages company resources to drive account plan objectives

Leads initiatives (e.g., KPI re-design) to review progress and refine strategies

Delivers industry-specific insights and market trends (e.g., AI adoption trends) in strategy sessions to create new and expand existing opportunities for the partner

Co-creates value propositions with partners, presenting plans to secure commitment

Resolves complex concerns (e.g., delivery risks) with actionable solutions

Strengthens relationships by facilitating partner access to company events, showcasing mutual value to stakeholders

Leads technical discussions in strategy sessions, explaining scalability and compatibility to align plans with partner needs

Collaborates with engineering teams to explore bespoke configurations and other escalated issues while ensuring adherence to contractual terms

Monitors industry tech trends to anticipate partner requirements, enhancing plan relevance

Develops scalable technical enablement frameworks for partners

Emphasizes utilization of profitability programs & methodologies, ensuring partners are positioned with services, skills, solutions, and strategies to maximize profitability and partner growth

Works with partner / DISI to forecast both short and long-term opportunities with detail and accuracy

Identifies and documents inefficiencies in internal partner engagement processes, and implements improvements to internal approval workflows, and operational tools

Develops plan for capability development with partner SE

Leads small cross-functional projects in implementing data driven processes that address systemic challenges impacting partnerships

Mentors junior team members

Minimum qualifications: Bachelors + 5 years of related experience, or Masters + 3 years of related experience, or PhD + 0 years of related experience

Preferred qualifications: Varies based on the team and business needs