Overview

Africa Transformation Office (ATO) Background

Microsoft aims to help everyone achieve more, and Africa offers unique opportunities for this mission. With 1.3 billion people across 54 countries, Africa has a young and diverse workforce driving global growth. By 2040, half of the world's youth will live there. Rapid mobile adoption is accelerating connectivity and innovation on the continent.

We aim to make Africa a Cloud-first, Digital-first continent with a strong digital economy, while updating Microsoft's assets to support the region's transformation. The Africa Transformation Office (ATO) was created for this purpose.

• Build strategic, unconventional partnerships with key governments, institutions and enterprises to enable and accelerate digital economy across the African continent.
• Develop digital marketing engines to enable and accelerate Startups, developer upskilling while driving AI transformation in Africa
• Plan and land infrastructure enablers and game changers in the continent including executing on the partnerships that will drive AI transformation in Africa at scale
• Manage the ATO growth and business developments initiative and further integrate AI transformation to key company programs and engines to amplify its impact.
• Foster digital skilling and job creation to maximize the economic opportunity for the African youth and workforce.
• Utilise Microsoft Global Programs and implement them in Africa via strategic collaborations, targeted execution plans, and shared investments

Role Summary

This role will report into the ATO Managing Director and can be based out of Nigeria or Kenya. The Snr BDM will be a key member of the ATO leadership team and will work closely with the ATO lead in execution of strategic AI transformation partnerships to drive digital transformation in Africa targeting African governments; Start ups, Developers & various ecosystem partners.

The Senior Business Development Manager plays a key role in Microsoft's ATO enablement and growth strategy. This position calls for an agile and enterprising individual who can handle multiple tasks and quickly learn as the ATO expands its mandate through AI transformation journey. The individual will need to achieve results by effectively navigating matrix organizations and working with the Microsoft Africa leadership team, particularly country managers—to execute on bespoke country value propositions.

Finally, you will be co-leading the unconventional partnerships and project workstreams that will be driving AI transformation at scale across the African continent.

Responsibilities

Some of the key responsibilities will include but not be limited to: -

Drive business growth

• Identifies suitable Start ups and large pan-African organizations for partnership or sales by assessing their needs and defining value propositions. This involves evaluating, prioritizing, and pursuing market opportunities by identifying, quantifying, and qualifying potential areas where customers can leverage Microsoft platforms/products. Contributes to opportunity evaluation and leads account planning with partners to set and prioritize goals for realistic targets.

• Engages internal teams and business leaders to align strategy and develop commercial frameworks with partners and customers that meet business objectives and their current needs, ensuring effective coordination and pace.
• Combines market factors like competition, economy, and industry to create strategic deals that maximize ROI. Prioritizes customer focus and growth by using feedback to build a business pipeline and convert opportunities into commercial deals.
• Focus strategic planning on customer needs, using previous experience to improve strategies. Ensure team alignment and coordinates partners for effective execution.

Drive and deliver operational efficiency including programme management

• Drive continuous improvement at ATO by promoting team commitment to results and enabling change. Key duties include managing investments, monitoring KPIs, meeting revenue and impact goals, and collaborating with stakeholders. The Senior BDM, alongside the ATO lead, will direct strategic AI transformation efforts and execution in Africa.

Stakeholder engagement

• Identifies executive stakeholders to support new business opportunities, coordinates sales and partnerships, advocates for customers internally, and engages key influencers to highlight Microsoft's value and develop customer strategies. Manages strategic relationships across multiple engagements.
• Builds trusted advisor relationships with leaders, represents the organization regionally, and influences cross-functional and multi-country teams. Oversees resource allocation, drives alignment across functions, designs processes, and ensures feedback supports growth. Develops strategies to orchestrate solution sales, especially in cloud and data, to strengthen capabilities.

Deal Negotiation

• Collaborates with customers and partners to define regional goals, negotiates strategic deals, and coordinates with internal teams for support. Ensures alignment with financial strategies and promotes compliance and security awareness in the market.

Closing the Deal

• Executes strategy with internal teams to complete customer or partner agreements. Develops a comprehensive action plan for deal closure, integrating reports, risk analysis, and value assessment. Engages in public relations related to the deal and collaborates with key stakeholders (finance, engineering, legal, commercial, product, sales) for successful closure. Finalizes contracts with Microsoft’s legal team to ensure compliance.

Reporting

• Uses reports to optimize communication strategies and suggest portfolio improvements. Makes decisions based on ROI and financial metrics, recommending corrections or advancing positive outcomes. Proposes better reporting to Microsoft for clearer insights. Keeps stakeholders updated with forecasts, resolves leadership issues, and escalates when necessary.

Compliance

• Personally, commit to generate and protect Microsoft trust by modeling integrity every day and contributing to ethical sales and sustainable growth.

Qualifications

• 8-12+ years of experience in core sales experience, partner channel development, business development, alliance management in the technology industry
• Executive presence and ability to influence business leaders through business value propositions
• Experience with technology platforms and developing new products and business solutions
• Working knowledge of cloud business models & how apps/services are brought to market
• Strong experience of managing virtual teams across functions and geographies:
• Inclusive and collaborative – driving teamwork and cross-team alignment
• Strong partner relationship management and solution development skills
• Evidence of managing and reporting against opex investments
• Strong communication and presentation skills with a high degree of comfort
• Challenger mentality leveraging internal and/or external resources, conflict resolution, and follow through
• Bachelor's degree desired (Sales, Marketing, Business Operations) MBA preferred

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

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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.