Director of Business, Planning & Commercial Intelligence

Overview

The Licensing Strategy team leads the evolution and modernization of our commercial business and licensing strategies to shapehow our field, partners, and customers engage with our commercial experience. We foster an inclusive and diverse culture of individuals who can grow their careers in a supportive environment.

This is an opportunity to combine strategic business planning with building commercial systems. You will lead through influence, mentor junior staff, and bring clarity, technical judgment, and disciplined execution to an ambitious Commercial Intelligence roadmap.

As the Director of Business, Planning & Commercial Intelligence, you will shape and scale the internal intelligence platform that helps Microsoft teams navigate complex commercial policy and licensing decisions. You will own the Commercial Intelligence vision, strategy, roadmap, and end-to-end experience, beginning with Licensing Navigator and expanding into broader commercial knowledge domains. Working closely with Engineering, you will help shape AI-powered experiences that leverage Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), grounding and retrieval, and agent-based capabilities to transform complex commercial knowledge into accurate, trustworthy, and actionable intelligence.

You will translate user and business needs into prioritized product requirements, align senior stakeholders across Business Planning, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, Legal, Commercial Operations, and Sales, and drive execution from discovery through launch, adoption, and continuous improvement. Success requires a combination of strategic business thinking, product leadership, technical judgment, executive influence, and the ability to operate independently in a highly ambiguous and rapidly evolving AI environment.

Job Location: This role is located in Redmond, WA, Mountain View, CA, and New York City, NY. This role is flexible in that you may work from home up to 40% of the time.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positivelyimpactour culture every day.

Responsibilities

Own the Commercial Intelligence vision, strategy, and long-term roadmap, beginning with Licensing Navigator and expanding the platform into broader solutions that address high-value commercial decisions.

Shape AI-powered Commercial Intelligence experiences with Engineering using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), grounding and retrieval, and agent-based capabilities, evaluating technical approaches against business needs, intelligence quality, user experience, and responsible AI standards.

Lead business planning for Commercial Intelligence from discovery and prioritization through delivery, launch, adoption, and continuous improvement, establishing clear scope, priorities, tradeoffs, and success criteria.

Translate complex commercial policies, business requirements, user workflows, and knowledge sources into clear product requirements and scalable intelligence experiences.

Partner closely with Engineering to define requirements for knowledge repositories, retrieval and grounding strategies, RAG quality and evaluation, AI-generated outputs, and integration with agent-based experiences.

Establish measures of adoption, intelligence quality, accuracy, decision usefulness, and operational impact, using evidence and user feedback to continuously improve experiences and guide roadmap investment.

Define quality, evaluation, privacy, security, data-access, governance, and responsible AI requirements with Engineering, Legal, and policy partners to support trusted expansion of Commercial Intelligence.

Build durable partnerships across Business Planning, Engineering, Product Marketing, Finance, Legal, Commercial Operations, and Sales/Partner organizations to align milestones, dependencies, launches, and adoption.

Align executives and senior stakeholders around the Commercial Intelligence vision, roadmap, investment priorities, progress, and key tradeoffs.

Develop business cases and investment recommendations that connect roadmap decisions with commercial value, user impact, operational efficiency, and sustainable growth.

Lead through influence in a highly matrixed environment, creating clarity from ambiguity and independently driving complex initiatives with minimal direction.

Mentor and coach junior ICs through product reviews, strategic guidance, and knowledge sharing, helping raise the team's capabilities in strategic thinking, product leadership, and AI literacy.

Required/minimum qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Engineering/Computer Science, Economics, Business, or related field AND 6+ years product management, strategy consulting, finance, business/corporate development, or related experience

OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Engineering/Computer Science, Economics, Business, or related field AND 12+ years product management, strategy consulting, finance, business/corporate development, or related experience

OR Master's Degree in Business Administration (MBA), or related field AND 8+ years product management, strategy consulting, finance, business/corporate development, or related experience

OR equivalent experience.

Experience in business planning or product management translating complex business needs into delivered technology solutions.

Demonstrated independent ownership of strategic roadmaps, investment choices, and outcomes across complex, multi-year initiatives.

Ability to partner deeply with Engineering, assess technical tradeoffs, and turn strategy into actionable requirements and delivery plans.

AI literacy, including the ability to evaluate emerging capabilities, limitations, quality, and responsible use in intelligence solutions.

Ability to understand user needs, prioritize opportunities, and balance experience quality, feasibility, and business value.

Analytical skills, including business cases, financial modeling, experimentation, and meaningful measures of adoption and impact.

Ability to lead through influence, resolve ambiguity, and align partners without direct authority.

Excellent executive communication, with clear narratives that frame strategic choices, technical considerations, and investment tradeoffs.

Model Microsoft’s culture and values in all aspects of collaboration, leadership, and execution.

Experience building intelligence or analytics solutions within Microsoft or similarly complex enterprise product ecosystems.

Understanding of commercial licensing, business models, and the information needs of field, partner, and business teams.

Record of synthesizing technical, financial, legal, and user considerations into clear product strategy, while mentoring others.

Business Planning IC5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $130,900 - $251,900 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $165,600 - $272,300 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here:

https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances.

If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.

Insights from previous hires

Top skills: Account Management, Business Development, Business Planning, Business Strategy

Common previous titles: Senior Strategy Manager, Senior Strategist, Learning Manager, Senior Manager, Senior Director Sales, Senior Category Manager, Business Program Manager, Leasing Manager, Recruiter, Principal Program Manager