Executive Advisor - Confluent

Introduction At IBM Global Sales, we bring together innovation, collaboration, and expertise to help clients solve their most complex business challenges. Working across industries and geographies, you’ll partner with colleagues, clients, and partners to co-create solutions that drive digital transformation and lasting impact. Success in Global Sales is built on curiosity, empathy, and collaboration. You’ll connect technical understanding with strong people skills, building trusted relationships and shaping solutions that improve business and society. With world‑class onboarding, continuous learning, and a supportive culture, IBM offers the tools and opportunities to grow your career. Join us and be part of a global team that’s passionate about driving innovation and making a difference. Your role and responsibilities We are hiring an Executive Advisor to help shape and scale our presence in the American market. This is a senior individual operator role with real weight on both sides of the mandate: carrying strategic customer work in priority accounts while also establishing and scaling the Executive Advisory motion across AMER, building regional demand, repeatable field plays, and visible impact in strategic accounts. At its core, Executive Advisory exists to help customers turn executive ambition into something they can actually operationalize: clearer operating models, sharper roadmaps, stronger governance, and measurable business value from data streaming and adjacent transformation work. This is not a purely strategy role and it is not a passive advisory role. We are looking for someone who can work credibly with CIO, CTO, CDO, and equivalent leaders, but who is equally comfortable creating traction, connecting the right people, pushing work forward through ambiguity, and helping teams convert ideas into action. The right person will be versatile, commercially credible, action‑oriented, and influential without relying on formal authority. They will know how to move between executive conversations, account realities, internal alignment, and repeatable field plays without losing momentum. Success in the first year will not be measured only by the quality of customer advisory work. It will also be visible in stronger internal pull, clearer positioning for the function, more repeatable plays, and a growing sense that Executive Advisory is an essential lever in strategic account outcomes across AMER. What you’ll do Lead executive advisory engagements in strategic AMER accounts, working with senior customer stakeholders to shape vision, operating model, governance, roadmap, and adoption path for large‑scale data streaming transformation. Help customers move from ambition to execution by translating broad transformation goals into practical next steps, decision frameworks, and measurable outcomes rather than stopping at high‑level strategy. Translate advisory work into measurable customer and account outcomes, linking strategic recommendations to adoption, value realization, executive sponsorship, and account growth. Partner closely with sales, customer success, solutions engineering, professional services, and partners to increase the impact of strategic accounts and make Executive Advisory a sought‑after capability in the region. Create momentum for the AMER model by codifying what works into reusable plays, frameworks, and field‑ready narratives that make the function easier to understand, position, and pull into the right opportunities. Operate effectively in ambiguous situations, often where the brief is incomplete, stakeholders are not aligned, and the path forward is not obvious, then bring structure, energy, and forward motion. Build trusted relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders, connecting people across functions and creating alignment where no direct reporting line exists. Contribute to the broader evolution of the function by helping sharpen positioning, improve how advisory work is attached to strategic account motions, and raise the visibility of the team through quality, consistency, and thought leadership. Support executive business cases, ROI/TCO framing, and commercial storytelling when that helps move a strategic opportunity forward. Required technical and professional expertise Significant experience in executive advisory, senior technology consulting, enterprise transformation, or a closely related role, with a track record of operating credibly with CIO, CTO, CDO, or equivalent customer stakeholders. A strong bias for action. You do not wait for perfect structure, perfect ownership, or perfect information before moving important work forward. The ability to influence without authority, align cross‑functional stakeholders, and create momentum across complex internal and customer environments. Commercial credibility and good judgment. You understand how strategic advisory work connects to account priorities, growth, renewals, value realization, and executive sponsorship. Comfort working across ambiguity, switching gears between strategy, facilitation, account reality, internal building, and practical execution as needed. Strong communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to simplify complex ideas, run senior conversations well, and land messages with both executives and delivery teams. A natural inclination to connect people, create follow‑through, and make the whole system work better, not just deliver your own workstream. Evidence of creating reusable intellectual property, playbooks, frameworks, or methods that improve consistency and scale beyond a single engagement. Familiarity with business‑case shaping, ROI/TCO framing, and commercial storytelling is helpful. IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. 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