M365 Senior Category Strategy and Insights Manager
Microsoft
M365 Senior Category Strategy and Insights Manager
Redmond, Washington, United States
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Overview
The Microsoft 365 Category Management Team is responsible for developing and driving the programs, acquisition motions, and GTM (Go-To-Market) investments necessary to nurture, strengthen, and grow the base of consumer subscribers and deliver against revenue goals across direct and partner channels. We strive to continually improve our customer acquisition experience and relentlessly focus on turning business and customer insights into actions and innovations that drive business growth.
As the M365 Senior Category Strategy and Insights Manager, you will inspire data-driven growth by turning insights into strategy and action, shaping M365 attach, renewal and new on-ramps strategy through cross-channel trends, bold opportunity sizing, and clear performance insights that empower V-teams to lead with purpose and precision across Direct, Managed Retail and OEM.
You will proactively work with business stakeholders across multiple disciplines, including product group partners, finance, business planning, data, field and global sales & marketing teams to apply those insights to today’s business operations and develop the strategies and investment for the future.
Qualifications
Required/minimum qualifications
- 4+ years category management, product management, marketing strategy, business planning, product planning, or related work experience AND Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, Engineering, or related field OR equivalent experience.
- 4+ years of business strategy or product management.
- 4+ years of experience building dashboards, writing queries, and analyzing structured and unstructured data.
- 2+ years of experience in presenting and communicating with Executive Leadership.
- 6+ years category management, product management, marketing strategy, business planning, product planning, or related work experience AND Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, Engineering, or related field OR equivalent experience.
- 4+ years experience managing and expanding a category and attaining sales and profitability targets within a complex (e.g., multinational or matrixed) organization OR equivalent experience.
- Consumer marketing experience and understanding of what drives and motivates consumers to buy.
- Proven track record of influencing without authority and driving cross-team collaboration.
- Highly accountable and driven to succeed in a fast-paced environment.
- Attention to detail.
- Excellent communication, presentation, and story-telling skills.
- Ability to deal with ambiguity.
Category Management IC4 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $106,400 - $203,600 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 $137,600 - $222,600 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 September 17th, 2025.
Responsibilities
Category Strategy
- Set a 2–3 year strategy to maximize Revenue and Gross Adds, driven by attach, renewals, and new on‑ramps across Direct, Managed Retail and OEM —defining where to play / how to win by segment and region.
- Prioritize a portfolio of staged bets using Total Addressable Market (TAM), Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM), Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM), Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC); establish clear investment theses, guardrails, and success criteria.
- Define priority customer segments, value props, and friction‑removal journeys that expand reach and lifetime value.
Cross-channel insights & action prioritization
- Lead cross-channel performance analysis to uncover trends, risks, and whitespace opportunities across Direct, Retail and OEM.
- Build insight-driven narratives that connect data to strategic implications across the three growth pillars:
Maximize Attach (e.g., attach drivers, bundling opportunities), Strengthen Renewals (e.g., growing activations and auto-renew in acquisition), and Create New On-Ramps (e.g., trial-to-paid conversion, new audience entry points). - Translate insights into clear action proposals for WW (WorldWide) and Regional teams, ensuring alignment with investment priorities and execution plans.
Planning, investment & forecast
- Co-lead annual planning and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) with the Business Group (BG), Business Planning, Engineering Group (EG), and Consumer and Commercial Solutions (CCS) Finance and CCS Sales Operations; establish north-star metrics.
- Run scenario planning and capital allocation; recommend reallocations by ROI(Return of Investment), marginal CAC, and capacity; trigger timely pivots.
- Maintain an assumption library & driver tree; align WW/Regions and improve forecast accuracy via post‑mortems and process improvements.
Performance, experimentation & measurement
- Lead cross‑channel performance reviews, turning signals into insights, choices, and actions (accelerate, pause, pivot).
- Own the test‑and‑learn roadmap (pricing/packaging, offers, trials, incentives, identity/checkout); scale winners, retire low‑yield motions.
- Define the measurement framework and instrumentation; ensure a single source of truth, self‑serve insights, and data integrity.
Operating model, storytelling & change
- Set the cross‑channel operating rhythm, decision rights, and governance.
- Craft executive narratives and decision memos that distill complexity into clear trade-offs for Chief Security Officer (CSO), Engineering + Devices (E+D), and Finance leaders.
- Build capabilities and adoption across V‑teams; product‑own reusable analytics (e.g., Power BI, Adobe) to scale decision quality.