Account Executive, Startups

In SMC and Digital Sales, we have set out with the purpose of empowering our customers through the unique value of the Microsoft cloud by building a globally led, digital-first scale organization aligned with partners. Dedicated to one of the fastest growing customer segments, the Small, Medium, Corporate (SMC) and Digital Sales organization is on pace to be Microsoft's next $100 billion-dollar business - this is where you come in. As part of local subsidiaries or Digital Sales centers around the world, you will support a dedicated set of customers in identifying and achieving their business objectives through best-in-class digital engagement and partner co-selling. You will also have an opportunity to work cross-collaboratively while living our shared SMC and Digital Sales Culture priorities: Diversity and Inclusivity, Wellbeing, Sustainability, and Learning. If you have been described as customer obsessed and have a passion for digital-first solutions, we invite you to learn more about the SMC and Digital Sales organization and the value we deliver to our customers, partners, and one another, every day. 

 
Do you love working with Startups to achieve their business outcomes? The Account Executive (Startups) is leading and orchestrating the One Microsoft team efforts to drive ambitious growth and wins with start-ups on the Microsoft Cloud Platform. With the aid of best-in-class sales processes, techniques and technologies, you will be empowered to shape relationships for a strategic set of Microsoft's startups. You will serve as the point of contact for the startups across engagements helping to drive Microsoft's existing cloud & enterprise consumption.  This senior role will partner closely with our Microsoft for Startups teams and programs as well as additional members in Engineering, Marketing, Partners, Finance and Legal, Business Desk, across Microsoft.  

 
This is a unique opportunity for a bold, customer oriented, strategic thinker to help identify unique prospects and execute Microsoft cloud deals that drive significant publicity, competitive share, and revenue for the Microsoft Azure platform. This team at Microsoft is at the leading edge of our business and one of the fastest growing and most exciting groups in the Company. We operate like a “startup” within Microsoft and the team driving this initiative is incredibly entrepreneurial and high-performance. Senior leaders across Microsoft are making an incredible commitment to this initiative and we are rapidly scaling this program, looking for new talent to join our rapidly expanding team. [This role is flexible in that you can work up to [50% / up to 100% from home / This role is Microsoft onsite only].  

 
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. 

Required/Minimum Qualifications 

• 4+ years of sales and negotiation experience with year-over-year growth  

• OR Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 3+ years of sales and negotiation experience or related work or internship experience. 

Language fluency both in Korean and English (English resume required)

Additional or Preferred Qualifications  

• 6+ years of technology sales and negotiation experience with year-over-year growth  

• Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 4+ years of sales and negotiation experience or related work or internship experience with year-over-year growth 

• OR Master's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) AND 3+ years of sales and negotiation experience or related work. 

Customer Engagement  

• Establishes and maintains customer engagements. Maximizes value of customer contact. Documents and synthesizes customer contacts for maximum effectiveness. Maintains breadth and depth of customer relationships and increases level of customer contacts. Maintains contacts across lines of business. Breaks through to new contacts in new accounts and creatively builds customer engagement. Introduces different resources based on customer contacts. Correctly aligns resources (e.g., partners, v-team). Reaches out to and engages with customers through digital channels (e.g., social selling, audio, video). Serves as central point for all customer communications; manages relationships on behalf of the customer. Delivers value-based solutions for customer. 
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• Conducts background research on existing accounts and customers. Captures and shares key learnings about customers, history, and interest. Understands customer business and desired outcomes. Uses available digital tools to conduct and compile research. Demonstrates understanding across industry and takes relevant use cases to customers. Creates constructive tension with customers to challenge thinking and develop deeper customer engagement. Manages relationships inclusive of customers, partners, and internal and external stakeholders. Applies lessons learned to future research. 
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• Ensures continuity of customer accounts and monitors customer satisfaction metrics (e.g., timeliness and quality of contact). Follows up and incorporates feedback from customers into future engagements. Ensures implementation matches intent and follows up as needed. Manages primary contact appropriately to ensure feedback is gathered from the correct sources on an ongoing basis. Triages customer dissatisfaction and handles in timely manner (e.g., prioritization, escalation). Manages escalation process appropriately and leverages Microsoft executives to yield positive impact. Anticipates potential customer issues and matches requirements to solutions to maximize satisfaction and simplification. Encourages adoption on ongoing basis to improve satisfaction. Defines, with top customers, conditions of satisfaction (COSs) to reflect joint understanding and alignment to customer priorities. 

Account Management 

• Attends to and proactively addresses renewals; creatively addresses renewal options with internal partners and customers to maximize business outcomes and likelihood of renewal. Ensures renewals are prioritized and motioned appropriately. Cross- and upsells in accordance with customer priorities and outcomes. Adheres to process for forecasting and timing renewals appropriately to drive consumption (e.g., T-180). Leverages renewals to maximize customer adds. Creates and implements action plans for T-180. 
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• Determines priority and depth for each account in portfolio. Marshals resources to develop plan to execute against prioritization. Determines plan to meet or exceed quota based on individual customer plan, analysis, and available resources / programs. Ensures cohesive plan across consumption, ads, upsell, and renewal. Creatively leverages programs to scale across customers. Leverages existing sales plays and prioritized partners to drive new business and pipeline creation. 
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• Conducts analyses into what customers are using versus needs. Identifies resources (e.g., v-team orchestration) and partner solutions to help customers derive value from existing Microsoft investments. 
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• Collaborates with others, both internally and externally to Microsoft in order to achieve revenue targets. Manages key stakeholders to meet critical deadlines. Orchestrates strategic conversations internally or externally to match teams and resources to customer needs and to streamline customer experience. Provides insights across the organization. Identifies and solicits resources needed for success.  
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• Identifies and qualifies opportunities and pursues through lifecycle. Drives adoption through to cross-sell/upsell to new opportunities. Drives movement of customers to take the next step in the cloud journey (e.g., healthy cloud mix) in customer accounts where appropriate. Drives customer adds and existing customers to new solutions. Demonstrates value of cloud solutions to customers. Understands and accelerates customer digital transformation strategy. Assists customers in building roadmap to achieve desired outcomes. Presents range of options and Microsoft three-cloud strategy to customer in large and complex deals to achieve desired outcomes that address multiple strategic factors. Drives conversations with business decision makers (BDMs) around budgets, availability of budgets, and prioritization. Demonstrates challenger mindset in customer engagements. 

Maintain Product and Solution Expertise 

• Develops and implements systematic methods for staying up to date on Microsoft offers and solutions. Shares best practices with others. Uses knowledge to engage with customers and with internal teams. Shares knowledge with customers to demonstrate Microsoft innovation. Completes required training in a timely manner. Develops and implements personal development plan.