Alliance Sales Executive, Associate Director - IBM - Consumer Products & Retail

About the role

EY’s Sales & Strategic Pursuits (S&SP) function unites sales leadership, sector insight, technology expertise, and solution depth to drive market-leading growth. As EY’s growth catalyst, S&SP shapes and executes integrated go-to-market strategies across priority accounts, industry sectors, and strategic alliances — delivering differentiated value through a deeply client-centric culture.

Responsibilities

• Sales Origination
• Relentlessly originate and qualify net-new pipeline within the Consumer Products & Retail setors by identifying unmet needs, emerging priorities, and transformation opportunities.
• Drive sales across three core channels: direct client origination, IBM field-led co-sell motions, and EY account team-led pursuits.
• Lead early-stage opportunity identification and qualification, independently shaping pursuits from signal detection through deal maturation.
• Architect and scope deals that integrate IBM technology with EY consulting and managed services capabilities, ensuring engagements generate meaningful EY services revenue alongside the technology sale.
• IBM Alliance Leadership
• Act as a trusted partner to IBM Consumer & Retail field teams, evangelizing for EY by building credibility and mindshare across account executives, solution leaders, and sales leadership.
• Evangelize and position EY’s IBM-powered offerings across the CP&R portfolio: AI-driven planning and FinOps (watsonx, Planning Analytics, Apptio), real-time operations and intelligent automation (Confluent, watsonx Orchestrate, Maximo Application Suite), and retail edge and core modernization (Red Hat OpenShift, mainframe modernization).
• Activate the right IBM counterpart for each opportunity across IBM Industry CP&R, IBM Technology brand sellers, and IBM Consulting; shape joint go-to-market motions and influence IBM investment toward EY-led pursuits.
• Consumer Products & Retail Industry Impact
• Demonstrate deep understanding of CP&R clients’ most pressing issues, including margin pressure, demand volatility, supply chain disruption, inventory optimization, pricing and promotion effectiveness, and evolving customer expectations.
• Translate IBM capabilities into outcomes that resonate with CP&R executives — AI-driven demand forecasting and planning; intelligent supply chain and operations optimization; omnichannel commerce and customer engagement; data modernization, governance, and AI-enabled decision-making; and retail edge and mainframe modernization.
• Build executive relationships with CFO, CIO, CSCO, and CMO sponsors to position EY as a strategic transformation partner.
• AI-Enabled Selling & Innovation
• Infuse AI into the full sales lifecycle: account and opportunity analytics, intelligent prospecting and prioritization, pattern recognition across pipeline and buying signals, AI-supported storytelling, proposal shaping, and pursuit orchestration, and integration of digital sales agents.
• Champion AI-enabled EY and IBM solutions with credibility, demonstrating both technical fluency and measurable business impact.
• Serve as a role model for modern, AI-forward sales execution, helping elevate sales effectiveness across teams.
• Market Leadership & Collaboration
• Bring deep CP&R domain knowledge and IBM technology expertise, with the ability to translate that knowledge into enterprise-scale transformations that deliver measurable outcomes.
• Be the face of EY’s IBM Alliance within EY’s Consumer Products & Retail businesses and the face of EY to IBM CP&R teams.
• Envision and activate a multi-alliance ecosystem, positioning EY as the orchestrator of partners, platforms, and services to unlock new growth and transformation opportunities for clients.
• Orchestrate cross-service-line and cross-functional teams; coach and influence account teams and peers through active leadership in the market — not authority alone.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of quota-carrying sales experience in professional services, technology, and/or enterprise solutions.
• Demonstrated success as a net-new business hunter, not solely an account or alliance manager.
• Direct experience selling to Consumer Products and Retail clients, with strong understanding of industry challenges and transformation drivers.
• Strong IBM ecosystem experience, including co-sell and partner-led motions, with active IBM field relationships.
• Deep familiarity with IBM’s enterprise portfolio, including AI, data and analytics, hybrid cloud, automation, and industry platforms.
• Experience operating within a complex, multi-vendor technology landscape.
• Prior experience selling at a Big Four firm or large global systems integrator.
• Demonstrated success closing large, complex solution engagements combining technology platform with professional or managed services.
• Exceptional client relationship management and executive communication skills.
• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent).

Preferred Qualifications

• Technical background or delivery/program leadership experience.
• Experience selling large, complex, multi-stakeholder transformation programs.
• Experience structuring managed services engagements alongside a technology platform sale.
• Strong coaching and mentoring capability.
• Proven team-selling experience across alliances and solution teams.
• Willingness to travel up to 50%.

Benefits

To learn more about the benefits offered by EY, please visit our careers page.