Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world. You can help us to achieve our mission.

In Consumer Channel Sales & Marketing (CCSM) our purpose is to create value with our partners, to market and sell innovative consumer solutions powered by Windows, Microsoft 365, Surface, and Xbox. We’re positioned right at the intersection of customers, hardware partners, and channel partners. Our team works with ecosystem partners and internal business groups to drive digital excellence and e-commerce capability, as well as accelerate cloud and subscription adoption. Together, we win by delivering compelling at-home and on-the-go experiences combining intelligent edge devices and services that create Microsoft fans for life.

We are seeking a North America Partner Activations Director to drive a strong in-store experience with our retailer partners including in-store visual merchandising, training, labor programs, and a modern marketing mix that maximizes our thru-partner campaigns and investments, delivering best-in-class marketing and ROI. With the reach of 80,000 retail locations, 500+ partner websites and 139,000 retail sales professionals selling the Microsoft ecosystem, the Partner Activation Director has the responsibility of acting as the trusted advisor for our partners, improving partner capability, sharing best practices, and enabling innovation with tools & new solutions. In this role, your team will be the lead visual direction and store design for Microsoft at our retail partners, be responsible for planning and executing compelling in-store demo experiences, training our retail store professionals, work with various 3rd party labor teams and lead analytics and build tools for the organization in order to drive brand advocacy and sell-through. With focus on driving in-store excellence and omnichannel innovation across our partners, you’ll look to maximize our Consumer Marketing vehicles which include visual merchandising, in-store physical environments like our shop-in-shop programs, our retail activation teams who evangelize our products with consumers and retooail sellers and driving our local thru-partner campaigns efforts to support product launches and key seasonal beats.

Working with a cross-functional Channel Marketing Team, you will execute activations and campaigns with key partners. You’ll be responsible for overall budget management for partner activations, evaluating spends and marketing effectiveness. You’re an omnichannel expert, adept at inspiring partners to accelerate their digital transformation and adopt, experiment, and innovate with us. You’ll be a champion of the brand, working to align campaign creative to the larger Microsoft brand proposition, thinking globally while acting locally. You’ll drive impact by leveraging data and insights in order to create more targeted partner experiences and maximize ROI.

By joining the Consumer Channel Marketing team, you’ll work closely with Category, Sales, and our Channel marketing teams locally to drive full-funnel marketing for an exciting ecosystem that continues to grow. As part of a [larger] regional team, you’ll have the opportunity to share learnings and best practices with other markets as well as leverage the regional infrastructure for support and shared platforms. You’ll act as the central point for our marketing operations functions, working across teams to drive workflow efficiencies, optimize tools/platforms and simplify decision making. You will possess the creativity to lead the evolution of our strategy as well as the skills to create and sustain brand consistency and operational excellence.

As a member of our team, you’ll be part of growing a multi-billion-dollar business, charting new areas of innovation, and impacting billions of lives around the world. You also will be a part of a culture centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. If that appeals to you, it’s an exciting time to be here in CCSM.

Responsibilities

• Discipline Scope:

o Visual Merchandising- This team manages all aspects of defining, developing, and deploying in-store assets such as Point of Purchase (POP) displays, End Caps, branding elements, Shop in Shops and any physical merchandising elements related to Microsoft products.

§ Seamless execution of Visual Merchandising-process improvement

§ Achieve growth in store footprint while staying cost neutral

§ Ensure Merchandising Standards are being met and maintained incl OEMs

§ Integration into Merchandising Excellence Execution & Standards with retailers

o RSP Training and Advocacy- This team is responsible for winning the hearts and minds of Retail Sales Professional (RSP’s) across the entire U.S. retail landscape including managed and un-managed retailers.

Bring personal and entertaining experiences to stores​
Establish Influence and our talent as the Microsoft Expert Zone​
Simplified product stories & messaging that bring consumers into the brand promise​
Microsoft-aligned EZ brand consistency in tone of voice and toolkit creative assets​
Amplify and extend brand and product stories to RPs and consumers​

o Field Labor- Lead direction across various 3rd party labor teams the country that call on our top retail accounts and engage with RSP’s, fix Kiosk and display issues, and gather retail intelligence.

§ Empower field team to showcase the Microsoft ecosystem by transferring knowledge through storytelling and demo experiences​

§ Evangelize RDX as teaching tool to support computing and non-computing RSP’s to assist external customers​

§ Demos based on field certifications completion​

o Analytics and Tools: Identify and build tools and process points across the channel marketing organization to help deliver ROI opportunities and analysis. This includes optimization of the field teams reporting, store optimization, and PowerBI dashboards.

§ Build measurability through data capture fidelity

§ Establish partner capability discussions for P&I

§ Focus on metrics that matter, drive visibility through reporting and insights

§ Leverage data to optimize marketing investments and ROI through the full funnel

§ Evolve tools and processes

§ Measure & know evolving customer channel preferences and varied paths to purchase.

o Demo and Instore Experiences: Work closely with WW partners and engineering to deliver frictionless demo experiences to customers across multiple touch points

Blended “phygital” approach that bridges the gap between digital and in-person engagement ​
House-to-store vs. omnichannel in the store​
Land an experience portfolio that brings the best of digital and human connection​
Explore the bleeding edge with test and learn initiatives​
Leverage digital platforms to extend the reach of our talent – VPA, live/social commerce, metaverse​
Vendor Management: Work across organization to help identify needs for all of CCPM vendor HC. This includes hiring and vendor company management.

Qualifications

Experiences Required: Education, Key Experiences, Skills and Knowledge:

• Four Year college degree or relative experience

• 8+ years of retail marketing experience and/or retail channel product marketing experience, preferably in complex retail environments

• 5+ years of field labor/training/demo/visual merchandising experience.

• 4+ years of people management experience

• Adept at building integrated partner marketing plans and campaigns across multiple marketing disciplines

• Direct experience interfacing with partners and a proven track record delivering growth/performance metrics.

• Understand the digital and physical buying journey (omni channel), well-versed in sales channels, commerce platforms. Expertise landing and coordinating cross-discipline marketing programs and sales programs.

• Track record of marketing execution excellence and ROI through planning, operations-savvy, creative execution, readiness, and analytics/insights

• Excellent written and oral communication skills, ability to be a great listener. Strong, demonstrated, presentation skills to groups of all sizes and levels and a successful track record of sales and negotiation skills, including advanced sales knowledge

• Business and financial acumen – Experience managing suppliers, working across business functions and entrepreneurial flexibility to support trends, market dynamics and new channels

• Ability to engage and influence at senior levels – strong executive presence and cross-functional collaborator

• Experience managing ambiguity and rapid change – demonstrate agility and risk-taking

• Highly values diversity of experience, views, backgrounds and orientation in a group-team setting

Proven track record managing high-performance, diverse teams

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.