Program Manager, Data Center Partners & Products

Manage strategic and tactical relationships with Data Center BU OEM partners (e.g. EMC, HP, IBM, Dell). Responsible for day-to-day relationship management with, and development of new channel partnerships. Major activities include new product introduction (NPI) of Nexus 5000 products through OEM partners, running OEM quarterly business reviews, responding to OEM requests and escalations, and building relationships with OEM team members. Must be able to lead cross-functional OEM teams, balance operational and strategic issues, gain respect of OEM customer/partner team, negotiate contract issues to successful resolution, and identify and drive opportunities to increase revenues through the partnership. Program management experience in BU operations, engineering, manufacturing, and or sales a plus. Must be self-starter and willing to drive operational issues to closure.

Skills Required

Requires a strong mix of business and technical skills, supported by considerable experience in the following areas: Previous experience in Sales, Channels and or Product Marketing roles. Leadership and program management of development plan/schedule, milestones, interdependencies and resource requirements. Experience in influencing the direction of engineering development and partnerships. Ability to successfully interact with and influence peer and functional peer groups at all management levels, as well as with outside vendors (OEM, ODM). Strong and proven leadership and influence management skills leading virtual cross-functional teams.

Previous experience within and/or knowledge of the Storage/SAN industry, Fibre Channel and FCoE products and key competitors is invaluable. Work is reviewed and success is measured based on attainment of product release milestones (i.e. Cisco FCS, Partner Qualification, General Availability) and revenue growth.