Director Strategic Alliances Bay Area/ Seattle or San Diego

Strategic Alliances Manager

The application window is expected to close on: 09/27/2026

Location: San Jose, San Diego or Seattle, WA (Hybrid)

Travel: minimal travel to be expected

Meet the Team

The Strategic Alliances team is part of Cisco's Corporate Strategy organization, and defines the company's global strategy for our most critical partnerships.

You will operate as a key strategic bridge to our Alliance Partners, to understand their priorities and capabilities and align them with Cisco's alliance strategy.

You will work with teams across Cisco including product leaders, sales leaders, CTOs, systems architects and marketing professionals to ensure that our global go-to-market and technical integration efforts are synchronized to drive mutual growth.

Your Impact

• Global Strategic Leadership: Define and execute the multi-year global alliance strategy for our most significant cloud partners. Serve as the primary architect for joint initiatives that span multiple geographies and business units.
• Cross-Company Influence: Drive complex initiatives by influencing senior leaders across Cisco's product, engineering, and sales teams. You will be the catalyst for alignment, ensuring that internal stakeholders prioritize the partnership's objectives.
• Complex Initiative Management: Incubate and manage high-stakes, cross-functional programs that require deep collaboration to ensure successful product integration and market adoption.
• Executive Presence: Act as a primary point of contact for executives at both Cisco and our partner. Navigate the "coopetition" landscape to secure long-term commitments and strategic alignment.
• Strategic Insight: Provide actionable intelligence to Cisco's leadership team regarding the partner's strategic direction, competitive positioning, and emerging technology trends, directly shaping Cisco's executive-level decision-making.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (or related work experience) with 10+ years of experience in semiconductor strategy and/or partner management within global silicon for cloud or networking ecosystems.
• Experience structuring and managing semiconductor partnerships, including ecosystem governance and cross-company technical alignment with chipset and systems vendors.
• Technical experience with semiconductor architectures and silicon-to-systems integration, including translating chip-level technical tradeoffs into partnership and business strategy for cloud-native architectures (hybrid/multi-cloud, containerization, SaaS) and security requirements of cloud environments.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives and aligning global stakeholders and senior executives without direct line authority.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master of Business Administration (MBA) or equivalent advanced degree.
• Experience in management consulting.
• Experience working with U.S.-headquartered hyperscale cloud providers.
• Experience working within a multinational technology enterprise.
• Experience utilizing data-driven decision-making frameworks with technical and business audiences.