Partner Sales Director - IHV Alliances

Canonical is a leading provider of open source software and operating systems to the global enterprise and technology markets. Our platform, Ubuntu, is very widely used in breakthrough enterprise initiatives such as public cloud, data science, AI, engineering innovation, and IoT. Our customers include the world's leading public cloud and silicon providers, and industry leaders in many sectors. The company is a pioneer of global distributed collaboration, with 1200+ colleagues in 75+ countries and very few office-based roles. Teams meet two to four times yearly in person, in interesting locations around the world, to align on strategy and execution.

The company is founder-led, profitable, and growing.

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced IHV Alliance Sales Director to join our strategic partnerships team who will be responsible for leading IHV Alliances globally, in AMER, EMEA or APAC regions. Reporting to the Head of IHV Alliances, the IHV Alliance Sales Director will work closely with IHV and Canonical teams in those geographies to develop and maintain strong relationships with senior executives at strategic partner organizations, fostering collaboration and alignment on joint business objectives. The IHV Alliance Sales Director will manage and grow a team of Business Development Managers and help them identify and pursue new business opportunities with IHVs, driving revenue growth and market expansion, develop and execute go-to-market strategies for joint offerings, oversee the day-to-day management of alliances including contract negotiations and performance tracking, and issue resolution.

The Director is responsible for building trusted relationships with IHV partners, increasing Canonical market share and attach rate, evangelising the partnership and leading all business interactions from engineer to CxO. They will often run customer workshops focused on particular initiatives at that customer, attend sales events, give public presentations and lead executive engagements.

Location: This role will be based remotely in AMER, EMEA or APAC regions.

As an IHV Alliance Sales Director you will:

Build strategic relationships with IHV partners at all levels

Grow their awareness of open source capabilities on Canonical Ubuntu

Demonstrate a deep understanding of the Linux and cloud software ecosystem

Negotiate contracts and commercial business terms

Demonstrate a deep understanding of large and complex organizations

Lead partnerships in APAC with companies like Lenovo, Huawei, Quanta, Fujitsu, Inspur, H3C, NEC, Asus etc.

Lead partnerships in EMEA with companies like Ericsson, Nokia, Bull, Siemens

Lead partnerships in the Americas with companies like Dell, HPE, IBM, Supermicro

Work closely with marketing, sales engineering and product management

Deliver on targets, objectives and provide a voice of the partner

Lead executive interlocks between IHV and Canonical leadership

Travel regularly - sometimes internationally - to drive partnerships in person

Valued skills and experience

Experience in alliance or indirect sales management roles

Autonomous, disciplined, hands-on, get-it-done mentality

Ability to capture customer requirements, evaluate gaps, identify and create opportunities

Passionate about Ubuntu products and mission

Comfortable in fast-paced and high pressure environments with measurable goals

Experience with Linux, virtualization, containers, and other cloud technologies.

Excellent communication and presentation skills

What we offer colleagues

We consider geographical location, experience, and performance in shaping compensation worldwide. We revisit compensation annually (and more often for graduates and associates) to ensure we recognize outstanding performance. In addition to base pay, we offer a performance-driven annual bonus or commission. We provide all team members with additional benefits which reflect our values and ideals. We balance our programs t