In SMC and Digital Sales, we have set out with the purpose of empowering our customers through the unique value of the Microsoft cloud by building a globally led, digital-first scale organization aligned with partners. Dedicated to one of the fastest growing customer segments, the Small, Medium, Corporate (SMC) and Digital Sales organization is on pace to be Microsoft's next $100 billion-dollar business - this is where you come in. As part of local subsidiaries or Digital Sales centers around the world, you will support a dedicated set of customers in identifying and achieving their business objectives through best-in-class digital engagement and partner co-selling. You will also have an opportunity to work cross-collaboratively while living our shared SMC and Digital Sales Culture priorities: Diversity and Inclusivity, Wellbeing, Sustainability, and Learning. If you have been described as customer obsessed and have a passion for digital-first solutions, we invite you to learn more about the SMC and Digital Sales organization and the value we deliver to our customers, partners, and one another, every day.

As the Azure Specialist Manager, you will be leading a team of Azure Specialists to provide and sell the best-in-class cloud service and platforms to our managed customers, building the momentum for digital transformation for our customers and partners as well as Microsoft itself. The Azure Specialist Manager is a great sales coach and leader, has a challenger mentality, is savvy in sales-leadership practice and contributes with vision and flawless execution of solution sales across solution areas. This opportunity will allow you to accelerate your career growth, honing your solution sales and collaboration skills, and deepening your cloud expertise.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

• People Leader: You will build and grow highly successful teams through talent management, diversity and inclusion, coaching, and career development. You will attract, retain, and develop the most technical resources in the field and inspire and foster a culture of customer-centricity and consumption, adoption and use through collaboration with peers and extended teams.
• Sales Execution: You will lead teams to identify and track new opportunities with partners, bring impactful industry insights into customer engagements, and lead a virtual cross-organizational team on strategic projects and high impact solution sales deployments that enable digital transformation and deliver business value. You will lead your team to develop strategies through orchestration for driving and closing opportunities and guide team on communicating with customers to understand their business needs or facilitate customer interactions to assess needs.
  
  
• Scaling and Collaboration: You will coach your team to learn and apply the orchestration model and guide team to build a network of partners to cross-sell and up-sell.
  
  
• Technical Expertise: You will coach your team on business and market knowledge and act as a thought leader to help the team connect Microsoft solution to customer business impact. You are L200 fluent across the full Microsoft Cloud &AI stack
  
  
• Sales Excellence: You will lay out customer satisfaction long-term strategies, guide team in whitespace analysis, and participate in regular strategic planning for assigned territory, review plans via Rhythm of Business (ROB) meetings and align plans of team across departments and ensure team meet sales targets and operational standards and maintain the health of metrics within the assigned territory while mentoring/coaching team on growing knowledge on sales or products and ensuring team completes training and obtains certifications as required.

Required Qualifications (RQs)

• Fluent in both German and English is a mandatory, minimum requirement
• 3+ years of IaaS/PaaS people/sales management experience and/or 6+ years of IaaS/PaaS sales experience
• Certified in Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900), AI Fundamentals (AI-900) or equivalent competitive certifications
• Hands-on sales experience in the EMEA market

Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

• Hands-on sales experience in the DACH mid-market
• Industry certifications including but not limited to: PMI, Selling, local technology associations, etc. a plus
• Meaningful non-Microsoft prior sales leader experience at IT Consulting and services or cloud services company, ideally with complex sales training (e.g., Miller Hyman, Spin, Michael Bosworth, Challenger, Sandler, etc.)

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

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