Director, Customer & Partner Marketing

Overview
At Microsoft Advertising we create innovative technology for a conversational, personalized, and agentic era. Our commitment to more private and personalized advertising experiences means building globally scaled platforms that ensure performance, trust, and business growth. We do this by harnessing the full power of AI and our unique audience intelligence to make delivering personalized advertising for any outcome simple, including unparalleled access to Microsoft’s high intent, highly engaged audiences across Copilot, Bing, Xbox, Gaming, MSN, Outlook, Edge, LinkedIn, Windows, and high-quality supply from publishers. We are committed to helping businesses navigate the next era of advertising where generative AI is unlocking better outcomes between people, brands, publishers, and ad platforms.
As a Director of Customer and Partner Marketing is responsible for ensuring Microsoft’s marketing and AI capabilities are translated into meaningful, real-world outcomes for clients. Success is defined by the ability to deeply understand client challenges, anticipate evolving needs, and create and shape content for marketing activations that drive measurable business impact through Microsoft Advertising solutions.
You will operate with a strong external orientation—grounded in client empathy, commercial awareness, and a clear understanding of how technology is experienced in the market. At the same time, this role requires exceptional internal leadership: partnering closely across sales, product, marketing, and activation teams to ensure a unified, client-centric approach.
Acting as a bridge between product solutions and innovation, and customer and partner activations, you will align diverse stakeholders around a common goal: delivering content that is relevant, actionable, and impactful for clients.
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.
Microsoft AI (MAI) employees who live within a 50- mile commute of a designated Microsoft office in the U.S. or 25-mile commute of a non-U.S., country-specific location are expected to work from the office at least four days per week. This expectation is subject to local law and may vary by jurisdiction.
Responsibilities
Client Insight & Empathy Develop a deep understanding of client needs, business pressures, and market dynamics across industries, regions, and verticals.
Ensure all work reflects how clients actually operate—grounded in customer behavior, feedback, and real-world use cases.
Bring the voice of the client into content creation, influencing priorities.
Activation Content Development Partner to translate Microsoft capabilities and solutions into compelling stories that address client challenges and take on critical industry and vertical opportunities.
Shift conversations from products to client outcomes (growth, trust, efficiency, competitive advantage).
Identify and build AI enabled approaches to create and distribute content more effectively.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Orchestration Partner closely with Sales to understand client priorities, and real-world objections—and translate these into more effective strategies and solutions.
Collaborate with Product teams to ensure content reflects client needs, market dynamics, and product vision and realities.
Work with Marketing peers (brand, content, comms) to ensure narratives are consistent, relevant, and resonate externally.
Align with activation teams (field marketing, events, partner marketing, agencies) to ensure strategies are executed effectively and land with impact in market.
Act as a connector across functions, breaking down silos and driving alignment around a shared view of the client and the solution.
Ensure that activations and content deliver a consistent, client-centric experience.
External Market Orientation Apply an outside-in lens to challenge internal assumptions and ensure market relevance.
Monitor how clients, competitors, and partners are evolving—and adapt strategies accordingly.
Ensure positioning and engagement reflects client priorities, language, and decision frameworks.
Driving Client Impact Focus on delivering tangible, measurable value for clients.
Help clients navigate complexity—especially as AI reshapes customer experience, trust, and decision-making.
Provide clear, actionable guidance that clients can apply.
Influencing Through Collaboration Influence without authority across complex, global, cross-functional teams.
Build solid partnerships to align priorities, accelerate execution, and remove friction.
Ensure tight content feedback loops between clients → sales → marketing → product → activation, creating continuous improvement.
Elevating a Client-Centric Culture Champion a mindset where client understanding and empathy are foundational.
Encourage teams to engage directly with client insights, feedback, and use cases.
Uplevel how internal teams discover and deliver compelling content that translates into external client outcomes.
Qualifications
Required/minimum qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, or related field AND 5+ years integrated marketing (e.g., digital, relationship, social media, campaign), event management, marketing strategy, business planning, marketing operations, or related work experienceOR equivalent experience.
Additional or preferred qualifications
Master's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, or related field AND 3+ years integrated marketing (e.g., digital, relationship, social media, campaign), event management, marketing strategy, business planning, marketing operations, or related experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Public Relations, or related field AND 7+ years integrated marketing (e.g., digital, relationship, social media, campaign), event management, marketing strategy, business planning, marketing operations, or related experience
OR equivalent experience.
Relevant experience as a marketer and/or leader working across markets globally in integrated marketing / marketing communications
Ideal candidates will have strong experience in AdTech and media
Ability to influence multiple levels of the organization.
Ability to build solid collaborative relationships with a globally dispersed team and stakeholders.
Previous leadership skills with the ability to motivate and mobilize a geographically dispersed team, partners and stakeholders for maximum success.
#MicrosoftAI #MicrosoftAdvertising #Marketing
Integrated Marketing IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.