Sr Director Industry Advisory

Job description

**Overview** Are you passionate about telecommunications industry transformation for the Frontier AI era? Japan's telecommunications sector is undergoing a fundamental shift in how operators grow, operate, monetize their networks, meet regulatory expectations, and serve customers. Japanese carriers are moving from experimentation to enterprise scale transformation, reengineering the core business processes that run the industry, automating the network toward autonomous operations, and rethinking how they create value beyond connectivity. Microsoft's Frontier Industry Advisory team is at the heart of that innovation, working directly with telecom business leaders to rewrite the playbook while staying grounded in the mission and business objectives of the industry. This role is fundamentally about leading Japan's telecom customers and partners into the AI era. Connectivity alone is commoditizing. The operators that thrive over the next decade will be those that transform how work actually gets done, end to end across the operational and business process landscape, and that make AI a structural capability rather than a collection of pilots. You will be the person who helps them see that path, believe it, and execute it. The value you create is measured in the business: cycle time reduction in order to activate, cost to serve reduction in trouble to resolve, revenue leakage recovery in usage to cash, faster concept to market for new products, and measurable headcount redeployment in a labor constrained market. Japan presents a distinctive market: a mature, highly competitive mobile and broadband market with intense price pressure, an aging and shrinking population driving both labor shortage automation and overseas growth strategies, world leading network quality expectations, ambitious next generation network initiatives, and carriers operating as diversified conglomerates spanning finance, commerce, media, and enterprise IT. Operators work within the policy and supervisory framework of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), alongside expectations on data protection under APPI, network resilience, and consumer protection. As a Frontier Industry Advisor on the Frontier Industry Advisory team, based in Japan, you will help Microsoft's most strategic telecom customers define and execute AI led transformation agendas. You will originate industry led business opportunities and executive conversations that connect business outcomes to Microsoft cloud, data, AI, security, and partner capabilities, and you will shape and close the large, complex, multi year deals that carry those agendas. The primary focus of the role is telecommunications, with a secondary component covering media and entertainment, including broadcasters, streaming platforms, content and advertising businesses, reflecting the reality that many Japanese carriers operate significant media assets within their groups. Microsoft is deeply engaged with the industry's leading standards and trade bodies, TM Forum and the GSMA, and this role is expected to be an active participant in that ecosystem. You will bring TM Forum frameworks (eTOM, ODA, Open APIs, Autonomous Networks maturity levels) and GSMA initiatives (Open Gateway and network APIs, industry AI and sustainability programmes, operator working groups) into customer conversations, and represent Microsoft's industry point of view back into those communities. **Responsibilities** **Business Process Transformation** Leads business process transformation conversations grounded in TM Forum reference frameworks (eTOM, SID, Open Digital Architecture, and Open APIs), using them as a shared language with customers to map the current operating model, identify where value leaks, and design the target state. Aligns transformation designs to the ODA component model and to GSMA Open Gateway network API standards where service exposure and monetization are in scope, so that redesigned processes and productized network capabilities are interoperable across the industry rather than bespoke to one operator. Works with operators to reengineer core process domains end to end rather than optimizing in isolation, spanning operations (assurance, fulfillment, billing and revenue management, resource and service management), strategy, infrastructure and product, and enterprise management. Identifies where AI, agents, and automation collapse process steps, remove handoffs, and shift work from human in the loop to human on the loop. Connects process transformation to the underlying architecture, including data foundations, OSS/BSS modernization, API exposure, and ODA aligned componentization, so that redesigned processes are executable and not just documented. Champions process simplification and standardization as a prerequisite to scaled AI, helping customers avoid automating broken processes. **Autonomous Networks** Acts as a leading voice on autonomous networks, helping operators define their ambition against the TM Forum Autonomous Networks maturity levels (L0 to L5), assess where they are today, and build a credible, staged path toward higher levels of autonomy across RAN, transport, core, and cloud domains. Draws on TM Forum Catalyst projects, industry benchmarks, and GSMA operator programmes to ground the roadmap in what peers are actually achieving, and contributes Microsoft's learnings back into those forums. Shapes opportunities across the autonomy stack, including closed loop assurance, intent based operations, self configuration, self healing and self optimization, predictive maintenance, anomaly detection and root cause analysis, network digital twins, energy optimization, capacity and traffic forecasting, and AI agents operating within network operations centers. Helps customers work through the hard parts that determine whether autonomy scales: data quality and topology models, observability, guardrails and trust boundaries, human oversight and escalation design, safety and rollback, regulatory reporting obligations, and change management for network operations teams. Connects that ambition to measurable outcomes such as reduced mean time to restore, fewer truck rolls, lower operating cost per site, improved network availability and customer perceived quality, energy savings, and the ability to run a larger, more complex network without a proportional increase in headcount. **Leading Customers and Partners into the AI Era** Serves as a trusted advisor to operator executives on what the AI era means for their business, not only how to apply AI to existing operations, but how competitive advantage, cost structures, workforce models, partner ecosystems, and revenue mix change as AI matures. Helps leaders confront where their current model becomes less relevant, and where new relevance can be built. Builds and evangelizes a forward looking industry point of view: the operator as an AI enabled digital service provider, the monetization of network capability through APIs and edge, the role of the telco in the national and enterprise AI value chain, sovereign and regulated AI infrastructure, and the shift from selling connectivity to selling outcomes. Leads partners into the same transition, working with Japanese and global systems integrators, network equipment vendors, and independent software vendors to build joint capability and co create industry solutions. Represents Microsoft in industry bodies and standards communities, including TM Forum (Catalysts, working groups, ODA and Autonomous Networks initiatives, Digital Transformation World) and the GSMA (Open Gateway, industry AI and network API workstreams, Mobile World Congress and regional events), building Microsoft's credibility as an industry player, shaping emerging standards in directions that serve customers, and using those platforms to convene operators and partners around a shared AI agenda. **Large and Complex Deal Shaping** Originates, shapes, and helps close large, complex, multi year transformation deals: engagements that span multiple business units, technology domains, and partners, involve significant customer commitment, and typically require executive sponsorship on both sides. Constructs the commercial and business value narrative for these pursuits, covering the outcome hypothesis, the baseline, the value at stake, the phasing, the risk profile, and the investment case that a CFO and a board will accept. Works backward from the customer's own strategic and financial commitments rather than forward from a product catalog. Navigates long, non linear pursuit cycles and consensus driven Japanese enterprise decision making, building coalitions across the customer's organization, managing multiple sponsors and detractors, sustaining momentum through leadership changes and budget cycles, and knowing when to pursue and when to withdraw. Orchestrates the extended pursuit team, including account leadership, specialists, solution architects, forward deployed engineering, consulting, legal, commercial, finance, and partners, into a single coherent customer facing motion, and maintains discipline on qualification, deal health, and forecasting. **Sales Execution and Account Planning** Identifies customer needs, industry readiness, and business value opportunities across the telecom value chain, including consumer mobile and fixed broadband, enterprise and wholesale services, network planning and engineering, RAN and core operations, service assurance, field operations, customer care, retail store operations, marketing and personalization, subscriber acquisition and retention, billing and charging, revenue assurance and fraud, OSS/BSS modernization, data and analytics, 5G standalone and network APIs, edge and multi access edge computing, IoT and private networks, and the adjacent digital services businesses many Japanese carriers operate in payments, finance, commerce, and enterprise IT. Applies an outcomes inward approach to shape market making opportunities, starting with the customer outcome and working backward to the process, architecture, data, AI, security, governance, and change management requirements needed to scale. Identifies, advances, and scales high impact Frontier AI scenarios for strategic accounts, and helps customers move beyond pilots to enterprise ready transformation by rethinking operating models, redesigning workflows, modernizing data foundations, and embedding responsible AI, security, and governance at scale. Serves as the telecommunications industry subject matter expert in account planning for Japan, engaging internal stakeholders and partners, reviewing customer industry plans, and lending credibility by aligning Microsoft capabilities to strategic operator priorities. Drives stakeholder mapping to identify and influence key decision makers, creates multi horizon roadmaps for the most impactful accounts, and builds sustained relationships with senior external decision makers. **Forward Deployed Engineering** Champions Forward Deployed Engineering, a core motion of Microsoft's Frontier Company strategy, in which multidisciplinary, AI accelerated engineering teams embed with customers to co build and productionize AI and agent solutions. Helps strategic telecom customers move from AI ambition and isolated pilots to embedded, co engineered, production grade solutions. Actively identifies, originates, and qualifies these opportunities across the account portfolio, recognizing the signals of a strong engagement: a material business problem with senior executive sponsorship, clear intent to reach production, a need for embedded engineering rather than staff augmentation, and meaningful use of the Microsoft platform. Partners closely with engineering crews throughout the engagement lifecycle and acts as an industry front door, connecting business sponsors, account teams, and delivery leaders around a shared agenda. **Collaboration, Partners, and Industry Expertise** Collaborates with account teams, business strategy leads, business development managers, solution architects, technical specialists, industry solution teams, consulting teams, and partner organizations to plan, orchestrate, and execute customer opportunities. Works across the Microsoft partner ecosystem, including Japanese systems integrators and network vendors, to bring together capabilities that solve complex telecom business problems, and coordinates with commercial, legal, compliance, engineering, and customer success teams to advance strategic programs. Proactively builds and maintains deep knowledge of the industry, including standards and frameworks (TM Forum eTOM, SID, ODA, Open APIs and Autonomous Networks levels, GSMA Open Gateway, 3GPP and O-RAN developments), market trends, policy implications (spectrum allocation, data privacy and APPI, network resilience and reporting obligations, consumer protection, content regulation), and competitors, acting as a subject matter expert and informing decisions on pursuit or withdrawal. Leads communication across the ecosystem, providing feedback to sales, marketing, and engineering teams on future product trends and sales blockers, advising and presenting at industry and customer communities in Japan and across the region, and establishing a learning baseline for less experienced colleagues. **Qualifications** Required Qualifications - Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 15+ years customer facing experience in telecommunications, management consulting, consultative selling, technology, or industry relevant equivalent management or technical work experience; OR Master's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 13+ years such experience; OR equivalent experience. - Experience in a consultative sales, advisory, strategy, business development, transformation, or technology leadership capacity, either directly within the telecommunications industry or with enterprise technology, network equipment, OSS/BSS, data and analytics, management consulting, systems integrator, or advisory firms serving telecom clients. - Demonstrated experience shaping and closing large, complex, multi year transformation deals with senior executive stakeholders, including business case development, multi party orchestration, and long pursuit cycles. - Demonstrated experience in telecom business process transformation, with working knowledge of TM Forum frameworks (eTOM, SID, Open Digital Architecture, and Open APIs) and their application to operations, fulfillment, assurance, and billing domains. - Business level Japanese and professional working proficiency in English, sufficient to engage Japanese executive stakeholders directly and operate within a global Microsoft team. Additional or Preferred Qualifications - Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business, or related field AND 17+ years customer facing experience in telecommunications, management consulting, consultative selling, technology, or industry relevant equivalent management or technical work experience; OR Master's Degree in the same fields AND 15+ years such experience; OR equivalent experience. - Direct experience with autonomous networks, including closed loop assurance, intent based operations, AIOps for network operations, network digital twins, or self healing and self optimizing network programs, together with familiarity with TM Forum Autonomous Networks maturity levels. - Active engagement with industry bodies such as TM Forum (working groups, Catalyst projects, ODA or Autonomous Networks initiatives) and the GSMA (Open Gateway, network API programmes, operator working groups), including speaking, authoring, or contributing to industry standards and publications. - Familiarity with GSMA Open Gateway and network API monetization models, and experience helping operators productize and commercialize network capability. - Deep experience in the Japanese telecommunications market, with established relationships among major Japanese operators and their group companies, and familiarity with the MIC policy and regulatory environment. - Experience leading partners and ecosystems, including systems integrators, network vendors, and independent software vendors, through capability and business model transitions. - Secondary exposure to media and entertainment, such as broadcasting, streaming, content supply chain, audience analytics, or advertising technology, particularly where these sit within a carrier group. - Experience identifying, originating, or collaborating with forward deployed or embedded engineering teams to co build and scale production grade AI and agent solutions with customers. - Working knowledge of cloud, data, AI, Frontier AI, automation, security, and modern application capabilities as applied to regulated telecommunications environments. - Ability to navigate a complex, matrixed organization and deliver through influence, building coalitions across account teams, solution teams, engineering, partners, consulting organizations, and senior customer stakeholders. Location and Travel This role is based in Japan and requires the ability to travel domestically and regionally. 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.**](https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/accessibility.html)