Business Development Manager

Job description

Overview The Business Development and Ventures organization at Microsoft is responsible for driving growth across all Microsoft products by setting corporate strategy and identifying and executing high-impact strategic partnerships, corporate venture investments, and acquisitions. The Microsoft 365 Copilot Ecosystem team leads strategic partnerships, identifies new opportunities, and drives growth across Microsoft's AI Business Solutions, with a focus on Microsoft 365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot. We are seeking a Business Development Manager to join the team and drive major partnerships and initiatives across the Microsoft 365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot ecosystem to transform the way organizations work with AI. In this role, you will: · Develop and execute ecosystem strategies to accelerate product value and deliver deeply integrated and intelligent experiences to market, working closely with internal product, engineering, and marketing teams. · Lead and develop strategic partnerships across the Microsoft 365 Copilot platform, building a robust, better-together ecosystem that meets diverse customer and technology needs by working with enterprise SaaS leaders and AI native, independent software vendors. · Stay current on emerging trends in enterprise software and AI, maintaining subject-matter expertise and a systematic approach to market analysis to identify new opportunities. · Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leadership across product, engineering, marketing, and legal, and support the broader Modern Work strategy. · Demonstrate and live our values and principles of teamwork, curiosity, self-awareness, integrity, diversity, and allyship. Responsibilities Scope & Accountability This role carries three connected areas of accountability that define its day-to-day focus and how success is measured: Partner Accountability Own the end-to-end relationship and partnership lifecycle for a portfolio of assigned high-priority partners across the Microsoft 365 Copilot ecosystem, including enterprise SaaS leaders and AI native platform and software providers. Serve as the primary Microsoft point of contact for these partners, managing every stage from initial outreach and qualification through negotiation, governance, and ongoing joint execution. Ensure partner solutions align with Copilot platform standards and strategic objectives, and take ownership of the health, growth, and measurable business value of each relationship in your portfolio. Copilot Platform Initiative Accountability Own one or more strategic Microsoft 365 Copilot platform initiatives end to end, from strategy through execution. Partner closely with product, engineering, and marketing to shape each initiative, define its goals and success metrics, and drive the partner motions that bring it to market. Track progress against key performance indicators, remove blockers, and report outcomes to senior stakeholders, ensuring each initiative accelerates platform value and advances the broader Microsoft 365 strategy. Functional and Vertical Domain and Workflow Accountability Own a defined set of functional domains (for example, sales, marketing, IT, or legal) and industry verticals, along with the commercial workflows that Microsoft 365 Copilot is positioned to transform within them. Develop deep subject-matter expertise in these areas, map the partner ecosystem and opportunity categories against the workflows that matter most to customers, and identify and evaluate emerging AI-native disruptors relevant to your domains and verticals. Translate these insights into a prioritized pipeline of partnerships and initiatives that expand Copilot's value across your assigned areas. Partnership Strategy Researches technology, industry, and competitive trends, and works internally to understand how Microsoft is positioned. Shares research and insights with the team and identifies actions based on those insights. Utilizes established processes to lead development and maintenance of the partnership pipeline, and prepares information for reporting to key stakeholders. Works with stakeholders to develop a target customer and partner list that closes high-priority gaps across technology, product, business, and geography. Identifies opportunities and strategy, maps target customers and partners, and uses quantitative data such as usage and revenue to inform internal and external decisions and recommendations on partners. Articulates opportunities for Microsoft to create a business value proposition and supports senior colleagues in executing it. Engages customers and partners to highlight the value of Microsoft opportunities, leveraging internal stakeholders and escalating to senior colleagues as needed. Deal Management and Governance Develops post-deal governance and execution plans and defines key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate achieved business value. Ensures design, communication, and alignment in the creation of governance, and troubleshoots straightforward issues. Assists with execution and deal management by communicating and reporting with Microsoft stakeholders. Tracks blocking issues and works with deal stakeholders to drive resolutions. Microsoft Strategy Alignment: Product Insights and Innovative Projects/Pilots Collaborates with the team to help create practices that enable partners to influence the product. Progresses product improvement with engineering by collecting customer and partner feedback that identifies potential gaps and areas of opportunity within products. Begins to improve operations of existing programs by applying industry methodology and innovation, defining program issues, assessing scenarios, and selecting the optimal path to resolve them. Identifies internal opportunities to develop new programs and improve current ones with some oversight and guidance, and collaborates with others to identify root problems, define the program strategy, gather requirements, identify resource needs, create the project plan