EMEA Partner Development Manager at Cisco

Job Description

The EMEA Partner Sales organization is made up from the best individuals in the business managing our partnerships. We are an energetic, passionate team of innovators with a relentless drive to succeed and drive the business forward. We understand that Partners come in all shapes and sizes and not one management solution works for all of them; this is where the expertise of your partner management and relationship building skills come in. You anticipate how decisions are made, persistently explore and uncover the business needs of Splunk’s key clients and understand how our range of product and program offerings can grow their business.

We are currently looking to hire an EMEA Partner Development to lead the Sales & GTM development for selected strategic GSIs across the EMEA region. This is a highly strategic and impactful role designed for a leader who thrives in managing and driving business growth through value-driven engagement with some of our most significant global partners. We are seeking a highly driven, entrepreneurial, and ambitious sales and partner alliances leader to take on this critical challenge.

In this role, you will be responsible for owning and driving the EMEA business plan, ensuring it is aligned with the country-specific plans and initiatives to enable and support growth. You will lead the way in managing complex sales GTM and collaborating across the region, influencing the joint efforts to maximize success. This requires a deep understanding of both the partner's and Splunk’s needs, as well as the ability to guide the team through strategic decisions that drive business outcomes.

You will work closely with the partner to develop their Splunk sales capabilities, practices, and offerings based on the Splunk Platform and Solutions, with a particular focus on security and observability. This will involve creating a combined value proposition, landing in targeted markets and regions, delivering end-to-end customer benefits, expanding the reach and scale of GTM, and introducing strategic offerings to accelerate the partner's digital resilience journey.

As the EMEA Partner Development Manager, you will not only manage the regional business performance but also actively drive and oversee growth initiatives. Your role will be key in maintaining executive relationships at the regional level, ensuring regular interactions such as QBRs and fostering strong communication to maintain alignment. You will work closely with Global and Country GSI Partner Development Managers, Partner Technical Managers, and teams across Splunk’s Regional and Field Sales organizations to ensure joint goals are met.

To succeed in this role, you will need to possess the passion, resilience, and leadership skills required to drive success in a complex partnership environment. You will lead the charge in defining and executing joint sales plans at both the area and country levels, ensuring both Splunk’s and the partner’s needs are met while generating tangible business outcomes

Interested in finding out more? Please continue reading.

Responsibilities: I want to and can do that!

Own and Drive the EMEA Business Plan

• Take full ownership of the EMEA business plan, ensuring alignment with country-specific plans and growth initiatives. Lead the execution of these plans to drive Splunk’s market presence and partner success across the region.

Lead and Manage Strategic Executive Engagement

• Lead and manage strategic executive engagement, building strong relationships between Splunk and partner executives. Facilitate alignment through regular engagements (e.g., QBRs), securing the necessary local and regional sponsorship to drive joint business success.

Lead Joint Business and Sales Plans

• Work closely with the EMEA Partner Technical Manager (PTM) and Country GSI Partner Development Managers to define and execute joint business plans. Ensure these plans are aligned with technical enablement and mutual growth targets, driving consistent and measurable outcomes.

Drive Complex Sales GTM Execution

• Lead the creation and execution of complex sales go-to-market (GTM) strategies. Oversee joint sales initiatives across all motions—sell-through and sell-with—ensuring alignment with defined Route-to-Market (RTM) strategies and the broader business objectives.

Foster Marketing Collaboration and Drive Market Engagement

• Collaborate with Splunk’s and the partner’s marketing teams to create and execute joint marketing plans. Strengthen market engagement, increase brand awareness, and drive synchronized initiatives in targeted markets to accelerate the go-to-market process and deliver measurable business outcomes.

Develop and Own Strategic Growth Initiatives

• Create and lead strategic growth initiatives focused on pipeline generation, unlocking new business, and accessing new markets and customers. Drive the efforts to both sell and upsell, ensuring measurable outcomes and long-term business growth.

Be the Change Agent

• Act as a change agent within the partnership, driving the transformation and alignment needed to achieve business success. Lead initiatives that push the boundaries of the partnership and ensure continuous improvement and growth.

Travel Requirement

• Travel up to 50% as necessary to engage with partners, support regional business efforts, and lead key collaboration initiatives.

Requirements: I’ve already done that or have that! 

• As the successful candidate you will have a strong background in business development or strategic account sales experience within enterprise software.
• Understand the GSI business model for those partners and can leverage their offerings to grow Splunk business.
• Having experience with direct sales (hunter/carrier and exceeded quota) to large enterprises is something which we feel would be highly beneficial. Combined with a strong, verifiable track record of managing complex, revenue generating relationships.
• Having a track record of closing large multi-million-dollar Software transactions with GSIs will be important and highly valuable.
• Proven experience of managing alliance relationships at the executive level.
• Experience in driving alliance partner relationships in a broad range of business activities - crafting joint solution offerings, marketing, training & certification and sales engagement.
• Capability to develop in-depth knowledge of a partner’s business, organizational structure, business processes and financial structure, using this to create an Alliance Business Plan. Having a sound understanding of our partner business.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills, where you will be effective in communicating at all levels.
• Standout colleague where you will work with consistent success in cross-functional organizational structures across EMEA and globally.
• Demonstrated ability to develop vision and strategic direction.
• Ability to think strategically and creatively coupled with high analytical and business problem-solving skills.
• Fluent in English 
• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent, required.