Strategic Advisor, Nonprofit Research and Advanced AI, AWS Global Nonprofit Business

About the role

AWS Nonprofit Business is seeking a research industry expert and strategic advisor with deep research background combined with expertise in advanced cloud services for research computing. This person will serve as an advisor and executive-level relationship builder across nonprofit research institutions and other similarly advanced customers with complex AI, model-building, and high-performance computing use cases—driving adoption of AWS's advanced compute, AI/ML, and HPC services for research workloads. The focus of this role is on leveraging cloud and advanced AI services to accelerate research and advance mission impact.

The Strategic Advisor will operate across the NPO business as a shared strategic resource, building executive relationships at the C-suite, Chief Research Officer, and Principal Investigator level; influencing research computing policy (including NIH and NSF funding mechanisms); generating qualified pipeline across NPO Research territories and other similarly advanced accounts; and positioning AWS as the platform of choice for next-generation research computing. This role builds the executive-level and industry-wide presence that opens doors, shapes market perception, and creates net-new demand across the portfolio. This position benefits all territories within the Nonprofit Research team as well as other NPO accounts with comparably advanced technical workloads, amplifying impact across the business.

Key job responsibilities

• Build trusted relationships at the C-suite, Chief Research Officer, and Principal Investigator level across research institutions and other similarly advanced NPO customers with complex AI/ML and model-building use cases.
• Conduct executive listening sessions and strategic workshops to expose organizational goals, current structures, blind spots, and drive alignment with measurable accountability.
• Maintain tool-agnostic credibility to access senior decision-makers; serve as a trusted, objective resource for executive leaders.
• Build and maintain a set of active, deep executive relationships across NPO Research territories and other advanced accounts.
• Design and facilitate executive engagement programs (cohorts, roundtables, advisory boards) spanning both research institutions and advanced AI/ML customers.
• Position AWS compute, storage, AI/ML, and HPC services as the platform for next-generation research computing — genomics pipelines, climate modeling, computational biology, AI for scientific discovery.
• Develop and maintain deep expertise across research computing domains and advanced AI/ML architectures: genomics, computational biology, climate modeling, AI/ML for science, research data platforms, and large-scale model training.
• Proactively identify industry trends and position AWS to anticipate customer needs (e.g., AI for research, data platforms for climate science, high-performance computing for genomics, foundation model fine-tuning).
• Define and execute go-to-market strategy for nonprofit research institutes and advanced AI/ML customers aligned with AWS business plans and priorities.
• Serve as the specialist advisory resource when NPO accounts require deep technical industry-specific credibility for complex AI, model-building, or HPC workloads.
• Deliver presentations at research events and industry conferences; contribute to advisory boards; publish through industry-appropriate channels (academic conferences, research publications, professional forums, LinkedIn).
• Maintain credibility within the research community and among advanced AI/ML practitioners through continued scholarly and technical engagement.
• Contribute to research advisory board presence and seek committee participation that provides direct influence over research computing and AI adoption.
• Present to leadership, mapping research industry insights and emerging AI/ML trends and applications in the nonprofit sector to business value.
• Generate qualified pipeline across NPO Research territories and other similarly advanced accounts through proactive business development.
• Identify and develop new workload opportunities in pipeline — including AI/ML model training, HPC migration, and cloud-native research data platforms.
• Cultivate relationships with NIH, NSF, and other federal research funding organizations.
• Advocate for cloud computing in research funding mechanisms; initiate and influence active policy discussions.
• Evaluate existing grants and proactively engage PIs to offer assistance with cloud-based solution designs.
• Partner closely with Account Managers across all territories via joint account planning; coordinate with SAs to convert strategic pipeline into revenue.
• Work with partnership, program, and marketing teams to create and execute strategic account plans.
• Aggregate insights from executive engagements to inform new solutions, sales motions, and campaigns.
• Serve as a bridge between Research territories, SA team, and other NPO teams, ensuring advanced AI/ML expertise is accessible across the organization.

A day in the life

Your morning starts with a Chief Research Officer listening session at a biomedical research institute exploring HPC migration. Midday, you join an account planning call with an Account Manager and SA to advance a genomics pipeline opportunity. After lunch, you deliver a keynote at a virtual research computing symposium, then prep a workshop for a climate nonprofit scaling AI-driven modeling on GPU clusters. You close the day reviewing an NSF funding mechanism and advising a PI on a cloud-native grant proposal — opening doors that drive pipeline across NPO.

About the team

The AWS Nonprofit Business team helps nonprofit organizations harness cloud to advance their missions — from modernizing constituent engagement to deploying AI-powered solutions that amplify impact. Within this team, Nonprofit Research supports premier research institutions across biomedical, climate, policy, and applied sciences. These organizations face significant barriers: uncertain funding, evolving compliance, multidisciplinary demands, and talent retention challenges. AWS helps overcome them with high-performance computing, scalable storage, secure collaboration, and AI/ML tools — enabling researchers to focus on discovery rather than infrastructure.

Basic qualifications

• Master's degree, or PhD or equivalent research experience.
• 10+ years of direct work experience with or in nonprofit research institutions, academic research organizations, federally funded research programs, or organizations with comparably advanced AI/ML and computational workloads.
• Demonstrated presence in the research or advanced AI/ML community — evidenced by publications, conference presentations, advisory board participation, or professional society membership.
• Deep understanding of research computing paradigms including HPC, genomics pipelines, AI/ML for scientific discovery, large-scale model training, and cloud-based research data platforms.
• Familiarity with research funding ecosystems (NIH, NSF, private foundations) and understanding of grant-funded technology procurement.

Preferred qualifications

• Ph.D. in a life sciences, computational, or physical sciences discipline strongly preferred.
• Recognized name within the nonprofit research community or advanced AI/ML community — known and respected by peers as a thought leader and practitioner.
• Prior experience as a Principal Investigator, Research Director, Department Head, or equivalent research/technical leadership role.
• Experience with cloud-based research computing architectures, AI/ML model training at scale, and digital transformation in research or advanced computing settings.
• Existing relationships with leadership at major research funders (NIH, NSF, Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or equivalent).
• Track record of influencing research policy or funding mechanisms at the institutional level.
• Experience designing and delivering executive engagement programs (cohorts, roundtables, advisory boards).

Pay

The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement).

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