Summary

You will take charge of leading our most critical and complex projects and programmes, with full accountability of delivery you will be responsible for nurturing and maintaining strong client relationships to ensure delivery excellence and client satisfaction are achieved. Adhering to schedule, budget and quality benchmarks are expected. Your role will be instrumental in growing our clients and supporting both theirs and our growth. Additionally, you will have the opportunity to provide mentorship and technical expertise to our talented colleagues.

Key Responsibilities

·       Have delivery accountability of contracted solutions at the programme or project level, ensuring adherence to deal economics, schedule, and quality standards.

·       Effectively managing overall project/programme risks, making critical adjustments as necessary and gaining buy-in from senior management for key project plans.

·       Overseeing and driving the development, implementation, and maintenance of comprehensive project work plans.

·       Accountability of the traceability of project requirements throughout the project life cycle.

·       Providing strategic direction for all change management activities and supporting clients in their change enablement processes

·       Seek out growth opportunities for the account, the client, the team and our people.

·       Mentoring and developing team members, providing oversight to the management of relationships with suppliers and subcontractors

• Demonstrate your client communication skills at all levels, including executive level, with consideration for different cultures and first languages

• Be the escalation point for delivery issues taking a hands-on approach where necessary to course correct troublesome projects

• Ensure consistent programme governance is in place, attend and contribute in steering meetings and project progress updates.

• Manage the expectations of the Client and the teams

• Manage the sales process:

  • Review the solution to confirm it can be delivered within the budget available

  • Draft or review contracts ensuring scope, dependencies and risks can be managed

  • Ensure deliverables and work products are achievable

  • Review staffing proposals to ensure they have the right skills and capability

Client Group Lead: Communications, Media & Technology (CMT) and Financial Services (FS)

Shape the growth of mid-market clients. Lead at the intersection of business and technology.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  We may depending on seniority, industry experience and current role recruit separate client group leads for CMT and FS.  If you think you have what it takes to lead just one of these industries, please do get in touch.

At Avanade, we help organizations unlock the power of Microsoft technology to transform their business. We are looking for a Client Group Lead to take accountability for a portfolio of strategic clients, driving growth, shaping market strategy, and leading high-performing teams across sales and delivery in the CMT and FS industries.

This is a senior leadership role with full ownership of client success, revenue growth, and delivery excellence within an industry-aligned client group.

What you’ll do

Lead and grow a portfolio

• Own the end-to-end performance of your client group, including revenue, pipeline, and delivery outcomes
• Drive profitable growth, expanding existing accounts and winning new business
• Identify and capture strategic opportunities aligned to industry priorities

Drive sales excellence

• Build and execute a high-quality go-to-market strategy aligned to Avanade, Accenture and Microsoft
• Improve pipeline quality, win rates, and deal conversion through disciplined sales leadership
• Lead complex, high-value deals from origination through to close
• Lead a team of sales managers, business development executives, client account leads and other supporting roles to grow the business

Build trusted client relationships

• Operate as an executive sponsor across key accounts
• Develop strong C-suite relationships, shaping transformation agendas and long-term roadmaps
• Ensure an exceptional client experience, acting on feedback and continuously improving outcomes

Deliver with excellence

• Ensure strong alignment between sales and delivery teams
• Oversee delivery performance, managing risk and ensuring commitments are met
• Maintain commercial discipline across engagements, including margin and forecast accuracy

Lead and inspire teams

• Build and lead high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams across sales, industry, and delivery
• Develop senior talent and create a culture of accountability, collaboration, and excellence
• Allocate the right expertise to the right opportunities to maximise impact

Business Development Manager – Financial Services (FS)

In support of our continued growth journey, we need to capitalize our capabilities and have identified the need to further expand our sales team as priority area for growth. Our aim is to grow our net new customer acquisition and core business through increased sales focus, driving the growth strategy and delivering sales and revenue targets. As a Sales Lead, you will be instrumental in ensuring we achieve these objectives.

The FS sales role will be focused across all sectors for origination of new logos into the business.  Your focus will be on the mid-market – outside of the larger banks, investment houses and insurance brokers we have seen huge growth in the smaller enterprises and your role will be to target and expand this segment.

This is an important role with wide-ranging and often complex responsibilities, which call for a depth and breadth of business knowledge beyond the business development discipline. You will be capable of developing long-lasting customer relationships at a senior level and gaining referrals with new accounts. As a Sales Lead, you will have a deep understanding of the needs of the various sales channels and will leverage your experience to maximize return and drive value.

You will be responsible for working in our direct to market channel (working with Microsoft and our other partners) and have a demonstrable and proven track record in new business experience, in acquisition of white space accounts for the industry. With previous, solid consulting services sales experience and a flair for closing deals, you will thrive working with colleagues in a wider team using innovation and exciting customers with your enthusiasm. Your strong connections and your tenacity to be an assertive partner, along with your background in high value solutions across the full Microsoft stack services (from advisory services, system integration, to managed services) will attest to your credibility with senior partners and clients.

You will have the opportunity to be able to support, shape and grow our FS business within a global company; one who is also the Microsoft® #1 Partner globally.

Day to day, you will:

• Identify and engage with new clients to expand our client portfolio in the mid-market.
• Identify new sales opportunities across key channels to increase sales volume.
• Assist management in devising sales plans and strategies.
• Sell a portfolio of Avanade and/or third-party software products directly to end-user organizations.
• Specialize in the sale of one or more key technologies in the Microsoft stack including Apps & Infra; Modern Workplace; Data & AI and Security.
• Generate sales and drive revenue, typically in low-to-medium risk and return sales activities.
• Lead customer relationships for new accounts.
• Prospect, acquire, develop and expand business leads.
• Achieve short and long-term sales growth by increasing cross selling activities within existing and new accounts.
• Be accountable for an individual sales target.
• Be accountable and have solid experience managing the full sales life cycle from origination of opportunities through to contracting and closure.