Partner Sales Director - Global System Integrator (GSI)

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Partner Sales Director - Global System Integrator (GSI) based in Italy. This role is responsible for developing strategic relationships with Global System Integrators and accelerating joint growth through open source, cloud, and digital transformation solutions. You will own partner strategy across sell-to, sell-through, and sell-with motions while strengthening technology adoption and market presence. Working with stakeholders from engineering through executive leadership, you will shape opportunities, enable sales organizations, and build long-term partnerships. The position combines alliance management, commercial strategy, technical understanding, and executive engagement. You will collaborate closely with sales, marketing, product, and engineering teams to deliver shared objectives and represent the partner voice internally. The role operates in a globally distributed environment and includes international travel, customer workshops, sales events, and executive engagements. Accountabilities: - Build and maintain strategic relationships with Global System Integrators at multiple organizational levels, increasing long-term engagement with Ubuntu and open source technologies. - Develop and execute partner strategies covering sell-to, sell-through, and sell-with motions. - Drive market share, attach rates, revenue opportunities, and broader adoption of technology solutions through strategic partnerships. - Develop a deep understanding of GSI organizations, sales structures, business models, and transformation priorities. - Negotiate contracts, commercial agreements, and business terms with strategic partners. - Lead executive-level interactions and facilitate strategic alignment between partner leadership and internal executives. - Work closely with marketing, sales engineering, product management, and other teams to achieve business targets and objectives. - Capture partner and customer requirements, identify gaps, and create new business opportunities.

- Organize and lead customer workshops, sales events, public presentations, and executive engagements. - Act as a strong voice for partners internally, ensuring their needs and market feedback inform business and product priorities. - Support the development of long-term digital transformation platforms based on Linux, cloud, open source, and related technologies. - Travel internationally as required, potentially up to 40% of the time. Requirements: - Extensive experience in alliance management, indirect sales, partner sales, or related business development roles. - Proven experience working with Global System Integrators and understanding their organizational structures and sales models. - Strong knowledge of Linux, cloud software ecosystems, and open source business and selling models. - Experience with OpenStack, virtualization, containers, and other cloud technologies. - Demonstrated ability to develop strategic partnerships, identify opportunities, and translate customer requirements into commercial outcomes. - Strong experience negotiating contracts, commercial terms, and complex business relationships. - Ability to operate autonomously with a disciplined, hands-on, and results-oriented approach. - Comfortable working in fast-paced environments with ambitious targets and complex stakeholder groups. - Excellent communication, presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills. - Ability to engage effectively with stakeholders ranging from technical teams and engineers to senior executives and C-level leaders. - Strong commercial awareness and the ability to connect technology capabilities with customer and partner business needs. - Passion for open source technology and its role in enterprise and digital transformation.