AI running on Edge Devices provides a huge and growing opportunity – there are already more connected things than people in the world!!  These devices, ranging from tiny MCU-based sensor devices to powerful datacenter class servers, have a profound impact on our daily lives; from how we live, how we work, how we learn and how we connect.  This growth continues to accelerate in a post-COVID world, with many of our customers and partners looking to accelerate implementation of their edge AI solutions to find new ways to grow their business.  

The Microsoft Azure Light Edge (ALE) team is chartered with building a robust, secure platform from silicon to services that empowers our ecosystem of partners and customers to easily build trusted, cloud-connected Edge AI solutions.  We work across a wide range of industries, partner types, device form factors, and technologies to enable new application scenarios, provide in-depth business insights and safeguard the security and privacy of our customer/partners data.  The Edge business is new and growing. Our team operates with a start-up mentality, and we collaborate to drive this new business based on customer signals.

We are looking for an experienced Chief of Staff to join the leadership team of the ALE team. You will report to and directly support the VP of the team, acting as his right hand to ensure that his time is prioritized, and he is prepared for engagements, to enable the leadership team to drive their products and workstreams, and to align on planning, strategy, and business operations for the team.

You will have a proven track record and strong skills in business strategy, rhythm of the business/operations, communications, customer and partner engagement, and internal management of the important dependencies and relationships that are essential to the team’s success. You will have excellent cross-group coordination and collaboration that ensures alignment and prioritization across teams and across multiple levels, from early-in-career to executives. You will be a positive face of the team, representing the leadership team, managing the team’s culture initiatives, and collaborating broadly across the team.

Chief of Staff Role Overview

• Chief of staff will directly report to the VP of the organization and will work alongside senior leaders to drive organizational strategy and execution, includes helping drive product and solution strategy, organizational strategy & business model strategy to move the holistic business to growth in an accelerated timeline.
• Represent the VP’s voice, direction, and point of view when she/he is unavailable, including creating space & bandwidth for the leader by handling topics, meetings & requests that are not exec. level.
• Create clarity and work to simplify complex engagements, cross-company collaboration & business issues.   Also, create clarity with the VP on goals, priorities and OKRs to drive success.  
• Drive the rhythm of the business, including reviews, leadership meetings, strategy sessions - thinking holistically and strategically about key business processes, organizational effectiveness and efficiency, employee engagement, and organizational communications.  
• Work closely with key partners across the company, including finance, business managers and peer teams, to drive strategic priorities and execution roadmaps and enable teams to effectively execute against their plans. 
• Develop business insights and support through reporting and analytics and will drive continuous process improvement and simplification to remove obstacles and enable the team to succeed. 

Responsibilities

Executive strategy & leadership team enablement: 

• Partner with leadership team to drive Azure Light Edge team strategy, priorities, and operations. 
• Drive strategic thought leadership by managing the ROB, driving workbacks, and taking the pen where needed to drive executive deliverables through the team. 
• Lead and manage the organization’s Leadership Team (LT) and staff meetings focused on clear outcomes and accountabilities.  
• Develop and cultivate cross-organizational stakeholder relationships to amplify alignment with critical internal partners, including ensuring our team’s voice and needs are heard in planning, reporting, and other collaboration efforts.
• Ensure that the VP’s time and focus is appropriately prioritized, partnering with the Executive Business Administrator/team, including the VP is prepped properly for all meetings.

People Enablement:  

• Drive the organizational health & employee engagement strategy and programs as measured by culture OKRs. 
• Provide insights and listening systems to evaluate and improve organization and employee health.  Includes exit interviews for all attrition used to track issues for the team to address.
• Create a diverse, inclusive, and learning culture focused on increasing diverse representation, retention, improving inclusion and learning/growth.  Manage team headcount processes to ensure recruiting, hiring, onboarding processes are clear and build a diverse team strengthening our values.
• Drive a robust calendar of internal & customer communications including team touchpoints, town halls/all hands, customer, and partner engagements.  Collaborate closely with our customer and partner engagement teams, the admin team, and the VP to ensure customer meetings are prioritized and run smoothly.

Business strategy & planning: 

• Develop and drive business strategic and annual strategic priority planning process.  
• Drive semester planning for the team, including OKR setting and reviews, dependency reviews, tough choices discussions, etc.  
• Ensure the LT is prepared and that planning meetings are useful, high bandwidth, a drive alignment across the team.
• Track progress and drive completion of actions across business in alignment with leadership commitments. 
• Ensure budget, resourcing, and LT capacity are aligned to top business priorities. 
• Partner with organizational finance and procurement to ensure effective budget management, headcount management, and forecasting.   

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant business planning, operations, product/program management, strategy and planning experience or other business-related roles.
• Demonstrated ability to drive results in a large, geographically distributed organization.
• Resiliency, independence, and ability to effectively work through ambiguous and challenging situations.
• Strategic problem-solving paired with detail-oriented and results-oriented execution abilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous Chief of Staff experience in a large, globally diverse organization, ideally helping a product team work through the startup phase to build a scalable business.
• Demonstrated ability and comfort with ambiguity, accomplishing prioritized results through others, collaborating and influencing effectively across a broad range of internal and external stakeholders, from executives to early-in-career, through strong relationships and the ability to manage and make things happen within Microsoft through solid collaboration and interpersonal skills.
• Outstanding customer obsession and empathy for users, strong business acumen, and the ability to make the right things happen within a large, matrixed organization like Microsoft.
• Excellent communication skills with an ability to clearly articulate and share your vision, ideas and plans with colleagues and to be able to deal constructively with opposing views.

Cloud Background check: Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:
Microsoft Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

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.

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