Description and Requirements
Role Summary
The Sovereign Cloud Client Manager will lead Lenovo's growth agenda for sovereign, private, hybrid and disconnected cloud solutions across strategic enterprise and public-sector customers. The role will identify, shape and close complex opportunities where data control, jurisdictional requirements, security, operational authority, resilience and regulatory compliance are critical.
The incumbent will act as the primary customer-facing sales leader, engaging CXOs, technology leaders, risk and compliance stakeholders, and lines of business. The role will orchestrate Lenovo infrastructure, services, software, security, financing and partner capabilities to deliver end-to-end sovereign cloud outcomes.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Account Leadership
. Own the sovereign cloud strategy and sales plan for a defined portfolio of high-potential accounts and sectors.
. Develop account plans, stakeholder maps, opportunity roadmaps and executive engagement strategies.
. Build trusted-advisor relationships with CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, CDOs, risk and compliance leaders, and business decision makers.
. Lead long-term transformation conversations rather than transactional infrastructure sales.
Sovereign Cloud Opportunity Creation
. Identify opportunities across sovereign private cloud, hybrid cloud, disconnected environments, data residency, regulated workloads, secure collaboration, sovereign AI and workload repatriation.
. Qualify customer requirements covering data location, access control, encryption-key custody, operational control, auditability, resilience and legal or regulatory exposure.
. Translate business, security and compliance challenges into measurable customer outcomes and compelling business cases.
. Build and maintain a robust, qualified pipeline with clear next steps, decision criteria and forecast discipline.
Solution Shaping & Advisory
. Work with solution architects and services teams to define the customer's target sovereignty posture and deployment model.
. Shape solutions spanning Lenovo ThinkAgile, compute, storage, networking, security, management, lifecycle services and as-a-service capabilities.
. Position hybrid and disconnected operating models based on workload criticality, regulatory needs, connectivity and operational requirements.
. Ensure the proposed architecture aligns infrastructure, software, services, governance and customer operating processes.
Pursuit & Deal Management
. Lead pursuit strategy for complex, multi-stakeholder sovereign cloud opportunities.
. Orchestrate resources across ISG, SSG, product, pre-sales, security, finance, legal, delivery and business partners.
. Drive proposal development, bid governance, commercial negotiations, risk management and deal closure.
. Maintain opportunity hygiene, forecasting accuracy, review cadence and executive sponsorship.
Executive & Ecosystem Engagement
. Create and execute CXO engagement plans, executive briefings, workshops and sovereignty discovery sessions.
. Position Lenovo as a strategic partner for secure, compliant and resilient cloud transformation.
. Collaborate with Microsoft and other cloud, software, security, networking and services partners to build differentiated solutions.
. Represent customer requirements internally and influence solution, go-to-market and investment priorities.
Success Measures
. Qualified sovereign cloud pipeline and progression through agreed sales stages.
. Revenue, margin and signings performance against assigned targets.
. Conversion of strategic opportunities and expansion within priority accounts.
. Quality of account plans, executive relationships, forecast accuracy and cross-functional execution.
. Customer adoption outcomes and creation of repeatable references or use cases.
Education & Experience
. Bachelor's degree required full-time MBA preferred.
. 12-18 years of overall experience, including at least 10 years in enterprise technology sales.
. Minimum 3 years of consultative or value-based solution selling in cloud, data center, security, infrastructure, managed services or complex transformation programs.
. Demonstrated experience managing large accounts and multi-party pursuits involving customers, OEMs, cloud providers, software partners and system integrators.
. Experience in regulated industries, government, critical infrastructure or customers with stringent sovereignty requirements is strongly preferred.
Skills & Competencies
. Strong understanding of sovereign cloud principles, including data residency, jurisdictional control, access governance, key custody, auditability, resilience and disconnected operations.
. Working knowledge of hybrid/private cloud architectures, virtualization, containers, compute, storage, networking, security and lifecycle operations.
. Ability to connect technical and regulatory requirements with commercial value and business outcomes.
. Strong executive presence, strategic thinking, consultative selling and business storytelling.
. Proven influencing, negotiation, stakeholder management and pursuit leadership skills.
. High collaboration across functions, geographies and partner ecosystems.
. Strong account planning, opportunity management, pipeline hygiene and forecasting discipline.
. Comfort operating in an emerging market with evolving offerings, regulations and customer requirements.
