Associate Director, Area Catalyst Squads Lead

The Area Catalyst Squads Lead leads all Catalyst Squad activity within one area (Americas, EME or APAC) – and is personally active in the work. Approximately 30–50% of this role's capacity is spent directly in the field: running discovery and pre-sales on priority deals, co-selling with Microsoft, and acting as a senior SME on high-value customer engagements.

The postholder leads a distributed, multi-discipline squad function spanning all five solution domains – directly managing Squad Service Delivery Leads and Solution Specialists, owning area customer success, and contributing to the global Catalyst Solutions portfolio through delivery intelligence and IP creation.

This is a player-coach role. It requires both the operational capability to run a squad function and the technical and commercial credibility to personally win and deliver Catalyst Solution engagements at the most senior level.

Reports to Global Catalyst Solutions Lead with a dotted line to Area SME&C Leader.

Personal field execution

• Personally lead pre-sales, discovery and solution design on priority deals – bringing domain depth and seniority to the most complex or commercially significant opportunities in the area

• Co-sell directly with Microsoft ATU/STU on strategic accounts; maintain first-call relationships with Microsoft area leadership

• Act as senior SME on active customer engagements where depth, credibility or executive presence is required to advance the outcome

Squad leadership and talent

• Lead all domain squads in the area – directly managing Squad Service Delivery Leads and Solution Specialists across all five CSA studios

• Build squad talent: hiring, developing and performance-managing the area squad team; ensuring the right balance of domain depth, change capability and agentic AI skills

• Manage headcount, utilization and capacity planning across investment roles and recoverable specialists

E2E customer success

• Own area customer success – accountable for NPS, outcome achievement rate and Net Revenue Retention across the area's portfolio

• Hold senior customer relationships and act as the escalation point for material delivery or commercial issues

• Drive expansion: proactively identify next-wave Catalyst Solution opportunities within the managed customer base

IP, portfolio and hub alignment

• Drive the area's contribution to the global Catalyst Solutions portfolio – identifying delivery patterns and accelerators that warrant productization

• Manage the operating relationship with Factory Service Delivery and ATCs – ensuring factory leverage is maximized and handoff quality is maintained

Represent area delivery performance and demand signals in global portfolio and roadmap reviews with Catalyst Solutions.

Key Performance Indicators

• Sales & Revenue: area squad closed revenue per quarter vs. target

• New logos: net new SME&C customers acquired via squad-led pursuit

• Win rate: deals won as % of qualified deals pursued (target >45%)

• Customer advocacy (NPS): >40 post-delivery across area engagements

• Expansion rate: >30% of area customers purchasing additional Catalyst Solutions within 12 months

• Hub resource utilization: squad and ATC/hub billed hours / available hours >75%

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Competencies

Craft & technical

• Frontier Solution pre-sales and solution design (minimum one CSA domain at senior depth)

• Services P&L and delivery economics

• Microsoft co-sell execution at ATU/STU level

• IP creation and productization from delivery

Behavioural

• Player-coach execution orientation – leads from the front

• E2E customer outcome accountability

• Manages complexity across concurrent priorities

Leadership

• Develops talent and builds high-performing teams

• Instils accountability – owns outcomes, not just activities

• Strategic mindset – sees portfolio and market patterns, not just deals

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Player-coach delivery leadership: Proven track record of personally winning and delivering complex technology solutions while simultaneously leading a high-performing delivery team. Experience at both doing and leading – not one or the other.

• Microsoft co-sell and field execution: Able to personally operate in a Microsoft co-sell motion at ATU/STU level – running joint customer sessions, advancing co-sell pipeline and maintaining Microsoft field relationships directly.

• E2E customer success: Experience owning a portfolio of customer outcomes – accountable for NPS, retention and expansion, not just delivery execution.

• Multi-domain squad management: Experienced leading multi-disciplined teams spanning more than one Microsoft CSA domain, with utilization and commercial accountability.

• IP and portfolio contribution: Recognizes reusable delivery patterns and actively drives their productization – a natural contributor to the global knowledge base, not just a consumer of it.

Education, Certifications and Experience

• 14+ years in technology consulting; at least 4 years in a senior leadership role with both personal client delivery and multi-team commercial accountability

• Demonstrable record of personally winning and delivering Catalyst-style solution engagements, not exclusively managing others who do

• Experience leading distributed, multi-disciplined squads across at least two Microsoft CSA domains

• Background in productized services, IP creation and portfolio-aligned delivery – Avanade, Accenture or equivalent SI operating at mid-market scale preferred

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