Security Area Lead - NL
Microsoft
Security Area Lead - NL
Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands
Save
Overview
We empower organizations to unlock transformative value through AI-driven business solutions—bridging cutting-edge technology with real-world impact across industries. Imagine leading a team where secure AI is the engine behind smarter decisions, faster innovation, and measurable business outcomes.
Are you ready to transform with your future team the way technology is used at our customers? Do you thrive by leading teams of seasoned professionals working with cutting edge technologies? Would you love to have full responsibility across the Security Solution business in the Netherlands and partner with other Segment Leads to accelerate the transformation towards AI and data-driven organizations, built on a secure foundation?
As Security Area Lead in the Netherlands, you’ll join a high-impact team that partners closely with customers to co-create secured and scalable AI solutions. You will oversee a team of Security Specialist Sellers and Solutions Engineers to bring the MSFT security value proposition to our customers and deliver on the organization's strategic vision and customer success objectives, ensuring adherence to sales frameworks and guidelines. You will strategically guide and empower your team to proactively anticipate and address competitive threats and gaps in the market across all solution areas, as well as lead end-to-end secure artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-driven transformation initiatives for customers. You will work with solution areas leads to ensure an accurate forecast through pipeline management and a deal-based forecast and drive cross-organizational collaboration to achieve operational excellence and execution of the business strategy. As part of your role as manager, you will need to coach the team to leverage technology to drive business growth across solution areas and ensure the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics and forecasting tools to enhance precision. With your team, you will work to proactively identify and align solution scenarios with customer and partner organizations, ensuring that Microsoft's offerings integrate with and add value to their business operations. You will act as a prominent customer and partner advocate in the Netherlands, providing feedback to the broader Microsoft to help shape the strategy over time and drive continuous improvement to capture market opportunities and establish trust. You will interact with the NL CISO community and the CISO leaders at our customers. As Manager of manager, this role has people management responsibilities including driving employee growth and development, executing projects, and managing performance.
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.
Qualifications
Required/minimum qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Business Administration, Analytics, Data Science, or related field AND significant technology-related sales or account management experience OR equivalent experience.
Proven people management experience.
Additional or preferred qualifications
Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Business Administration, Analytics, Data Science, or a related field with extensive experience in technology-related sales or account management OR Bachelor’s Degree in the same fields with deep, long-standing experience in technology-related sales or account management
OR Equivalent practical experience.
Extensive background in services sales or account management.
Proven leadership experience in senior technical sales roles, particularly in driving cloud services growth and customer adoption.
Strong track record of managing high-performing sales and technical-specialist teams, including coaching solution specialists and leading in complex, multi-tiered organisations.
Experience leading other managers, with demonstrated success in developing leadership capabilities and scaling impact through others.
Consulting experience in customer-facing roles, ideally involving strategic transformation or technology adoption.
Responsibilities
Sales Strategy and Execution
Oversees and aligns the Security team with the organization's strategic vision and customer success objectives, ensuring adherence to sales frameworks and guidelines. Leads strategic initiatives with other Solution Area Leaders that foster innovation and agility through artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud adoption and tailored, cutting-edge solutions that create a significant and lasting impact on the local market. Drives the integration of security principles in all customer engagements to uphold trust and compliance, influencing the integration of these principles across the solution area. Drives innovation and strategic problem-solving across multiple teams, with the broader NL organization, to establish a competitive edge in the technical sales landscape.
Develops and empowers the team to lead end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-driven transformation initiatives for customers. Ensures AI- and cloud-powered wins that enhance customer business capabilities and demonstrate transformative impact of cutting-edge AI technologies and cloud services, with security as grounding element. Empowers the security team to articulate Microsoft's offerings to differentiate them from competitors by leveraging unique selling propositions to create competitive advantage and capture market interest. Leads the security team to innovate and excel in achieving market impact with cutting-edge and innovative solutions. Fosters innovation and agility through AI and cloud adoption, aligning solutions to customer priorities and business outcomes.
Strategically guides and empowers the security team to proactively anticipate, identify, and address competitive threats and gaps in the market and provides strategic direction to align solutions with market trends. Leverages artificial intelligence (AI)-driven market intelligence tools to analyze digital signals and market trends, providing expert insights that inform strategic decisions and drive organizational growth across teams. Crafts tailored business solutions that align with customer demands and market signals, ensuring proposals meet customers’ strategic needs. Builds, lands, executes, and maintains strategic sales plans for each solution area that respond to customer demands, industry needs, local regulations, and market trends to drive business growth and capture total addressable market (TAM) in the Netherland market. Develops and nurtures a pipeline of diverse talent that anticipates the needs of the market and optimizes the ability to capture total addressable market (TAM).
Customer Engagement and Partnership
Acts as a prominent customer and partner advocate within the area, providing feedback to broader Microsoft to shape strategy and drive continuous improvement to capture market opportunities and establish trust. Champions the prioritization of customer success and advocates for customized strategies that deliver on their specific needs and objectives. Promotes early involvement of strategic partners in the sales cycle to accelerate customer adoption and value realization at scale. Contributes to multiple rhythms of business (RoB) within the enterprise and incorporates both external (e.g., customer) and internal (e.g., sellers, internal teams) perspectives. Provides insights and feedback to internal teams to enhance go-to-market (GTM) strategies. Coaches and mentors teams on simplifying and aligning sales plays to meet market and customer needs.
Proactively identifies and aligns solution scenarios with customer and partner organizations, ensuring that Microsoft's offerings integrate with and add value to their business operations. Serves as a trusted advisor for customers and partners, leveraging insights to drive success in the marketplace. Leads high-level conversations with customers that underscore the strategic partnership between Microsoft, partners, and customers’ business objectives, fostering long-term business relationships. Ensures access to customer support resources through Unified Support, accelerating business value realization and transformation.
Sales Operations and Pipeline Management
Works with other Solution Area leads to ensure an accurate forecast through pipeline management and a deal-based forecast in each of the core solution areas. Ensures management of the sales pipeline and opportunities by reviewing overall pipeline progress to identify stalled deals and areas requiring assistance. Ensures active opportunity management, addressing potential roadblocks and driving the attainment of sales targets and business objectives. Develops and implements sales strategy to maximize return on investments (ROI) and optimizes resources that drives impact across the solution area with operational vigor.
Coaches the team to leverage technology (e.g., automation, Power Platforms, Sales Agents) to drive business growth across solution areas and ensures the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics and forecasting tools to enhance precision. Develops the team to drive new revenue and business expansion across the subsidiary and ensures sales execution efforts capture market-specific opportunities and align with AI-enhanced sales methodologies and best practices. Executes the overarching enterprise sales strategy, translating the corporate blueprint into actionable plans within the local market context to drive revenue and business growth. Strategically allocates and manages organizational resources to cultivate a robust sales pipeline to seize market share and outperform competitors in key growth areas. Strategically identifies opportunities for customers to leverage technology, guiding them towards solutions that transform their business operations and drive growth.
Drives cross-organizational collaboration to achieve operational excellence and execution of the business strategy. Strategically simplifies complexity across solution areas and translates comprehensive go-to-market (GTM) strategies for cross-solution plays that drive business outcomes. Orchestrates the integration and alignment of solutions across the full technology stack, engaging stakeholders to demonstrate the business value proposition. Leads the strategic development and implementation of succession and development plans that advance technical sales acumen and capabilities across multiple teams.
LT though leadership and steering
As part of the Solutions Specialist Leadership team member, you have responsibility of cascading down the company directions to the broader Solutions Specialist organization as one voice and break it down in digestible pieces, so that the full organization can walk in the same direction. You will be responsible to drive clarity on a strategic and operating model point of view and drive the collaboration and partnership with other segment leads in the NL organization. Finally you will represent the Netherlands voice towards the EMEA and Microsoft leadership in Seattle, especially on all the matters related to the security solution space. Among others, your role will be pivotal in bringing the Netherlands customers’ voice back to the Microsoft engineering and Sales Corporate teams.