The Business Development team at Microsoft is responsible for accelerating the company’s growth through the identification and execution of inorganic growth strategies including complex strategic partners, investments, and acquisitions.
The Incubation Business Development Lead is responsible for driving and delivering innovative, first to market channel and marketing partnerships of Microsoft’s products across our portfolio of products including Copilot/AI services, M365, Outlook, etc. This role will lead partnerships across a variety of channel and other marketing partners identifying new integrations and opportunities to drive awareness of our key services through net-new experiences.
This role is entrepreneurial in nature requiring the ability to identify first to market partnerships that drive awareness, reach, and innovation, working closely with our product/engineering teams to collaborate and iterating quickly to drive results.

REQUIRED/MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Liberal Arts, Sciences, or related field AND 12+ years relevant work experience (e.g., investment banking, consulting, finance, marketing, corporate strategy, sales, venture capital, legal, business development, product management, project management, software development, or related field)
• OR equivalent experience.
• 2+ years experience in marketing and/or AI partnerships in technology, with an emphasis on first-to-market deals

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Liberal Arts, Sciences, or related field AND 14+ years relevant work experience (e.g., investment banking, consulting, finance, marketing, corporate strategy, sales, venture capital, legal, business development, product management, project management, software development, or related field)
• 
  
  
  
• OR Master’s/Advanced Degree in Business, Sciences, or related field AND 12+ years relevant work experience (e.g., investment banking, consulting, finance, marketing, corporate strategy, sales, venture capital, legal, business development, product management, project management, software development, or related field)

• OR equivalent experience.
• 10+ years experience in the technology industry or a related industry OR in a technical role (e.g., IT, Engineering, cloud platforms, digital transformation, capabilities, solutions).
• Management consulting experience and/or similar role at a tech company
  Business Strategy IC6 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $155,800 - $277,200 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $202,400 - $303,600 per year.
  Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
  Microsoft will accept applications for the role until June 26, 2025.
  

  BD&V

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, 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 and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations

Partner & Customer Focus

• Leverages internal and external relationships as a trusted advisor to advise complex (e.g., large, high impact) customers and partners in future strategic direction as a sought-out resource across multiple lines of business, geographies, and cultures, as appropriate. Advises partners and decision makers on industry and company insights. Drives internal strategy and identifies innovative, first-to-market partnership opportunities,
• Drives large scale (e.g., high impact, high profile) customer and partner business initiatives by promoting and enabling joint-value creation, and selling of creative solutions for multiple lines of business. Looks across accounts and geographies to identify and address broad issues and trends. Drives strategic thinking among the team and cultivates a culture of customer and partner focus. Shapes industry-wide initiatives and norms.

Partnership Strategy

• Creates business value propositions based on company, partner, and/or customer needs on tight timelines, and in constantly evolving market dynamics. Drives support and action by influencing internal stakeholders and partners and promoting the value of opportunities.
• Anticipates the Microsoft value proposition versus competitors and works with stakeholders to influence the build/buy/partner decision to meet customer needs, leveraging knowledge in conjunction with product/industry teams to establish a foundation for future opportunities in competitive situations through collaboration. Provides subject matter expertise on the industry and competitive trends, and drives recommendations based on those insights. Maintains a large industry network and may represent Microsoft externally by speaking at industry conferences and/or participating in industry groups. Drives knowledge sharing across teams and develops infrastructure to foster knowledge sharing across the organization.
• Leverages relationships with a diverse set of stakeholders and knowledge of customers, partners, and the business to seek out unique opportunities (e.g., whitespace opportunities, category creation) that cross business areas or target high-priority gaps in prominent industries, products, or accounts (e.g., high profile, high impact, large). Leverages trends in data to inform decisions across deals and maximize opportunity. Drives deals to increase awareness and achieve desired outcome across partners and deals. Anticipates potential issues, raises visibility, and leverages executive relationships to resolve escalations. Provides input into recommendations on partners.
• Develops overarching strategies to address gaps and gains agreements on the opportunity pipeline. Drives development of broad initiatives across organizational functions. Orchestrates processes for pipelines and opportunities that deliver results and optimize resources. Coordinates on pipeline across teams, sharing insights and signals and drawing connections across groups. Leads pipeline reviews for the team. Prepares information for reporting to key stakeholders, including synthesizing key work for executive consumption.

Negotiation

• Represents Microsoft in key customer and partner interactions, and determines the deal structures for scalable and durable solutions in custom and complex business opportunities. Develops and implements strategic engagement models that achieve business opportunities from the largest customers and partners, manage the customer and partner interface, and provide deal structure to close complex global deals. Represents Microsoft as a role model. Resolves deal issues as an escalation point for less experienced colleagues. Establishes best practices and drives process improvements based on learnings across deals.

Deal Management/Governance

• Drives plans for managing deals with targeted strategies, prioritization, and implementation of communications and reporting. Designs programmatic approaches to address complex business opportunities, balancing risks and rewards. Drives team and business accountability by setting standards for the prioritization of targeted deals, development and evangelism of proven practice, and representation across Microsoft.
• Collaborates with customers, partners, and Microsoft colleagues to develop post-deal governance and oversee the creation and implementation of execution plans across a portfolio of deals within domains, industries, and/or geographies. Collaborates with complex (e.g., multi-geography large partner, multiple lines of business) customers and partners to create market-changing business value. Demonstrates achieved implementation and high-impact business value (e.g., executive level recognition) for customers, partners, and the company. Anticipates and addresses issues preemptively, leveraging and engaging executives. Provides recommendations into decisions to continue/discontinue deals. Course corrects to maximize deal value and preemptively minimize risk. Engages in fundamental revamping of approach as appropriate, and drives alignment across business groups within Microsoft Business Development (BD).

Other

• Embody our culture and values