Director, Emerging GSI Business Development

Palo Alto Networks•Santa Clara, CA

1d•$210,000 - $289,250•Remote

About The Position

Our Mission At Palo Alto Networks®, we’re united by a shared mission—to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you’re in the right place. Who We Are In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us! This role is remote, but distance is no barrier to impact. Our hybrid teams collaborate across geographies to solve big problems, stay close to our customers, and grow together. You will be part of a culture that values trust, accountability, and shared success where your work truly matters. Job Summary As the Director of Emerging GSI Business Development, you will lead the global strategy, creation, and execution of programmatic go-to-market (GTM) strategies targeting high-potential, emerging Global System Integrators (GSIs). These are partners who may not have massive bookings today, but possess the strategic capability, footprint, and alignment to become massive revenue engines tomorrow. This role sits at the intersection of programmatic scale and entrepreneurial business development. You will build the global frameworks, onboarding plays, and monetization models that turn under-penetrated GSIs into thriving, repeatable sources of partner-led growth. This is a high-impact, global position that requires a strategic builder who is motivated by overall program bookings and programmatic KPIs. Your Impact 1. Drive Programmatic Scale with Emerging GSIs Design & Execute Global Programs: Build robust, repeatable global frameworks for onboarding, enablement, incentives, and lifecycle management specifically tailored to emerging GSI partners. Create the Repeatable Blueprint: Standardize product-centric GTM plays (e.g., for SASE, Cortex, NGFW) that can be easily adopted, contextualized, and scaled by regional ecosystem teams across different geographies. Establish Onboarding Excellence: Own the initial partner incubation phase, ensuring new GSIs move quickly from contract signing to active market engagement. 2. Commercial Modeling & Offer Development Monetization Strategy: Partner with GSIs to define joint value propositions, develop solution storyboards, and consult on commercial packaging, end-customer pricing models, and billing structures. Service Definition: Assist partners in building managed or professional service offerings wrapped around Palo Alto Networks technology, driving early-stage pipeline visibility. Contractual Alignment: Lead business development activities and collaborate with Legal and executive stakeholder teams to structure foundational partner agreements. 3. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Measurement Global-to-Regional Orchestration: Serve as the central point of coordination, working closely with regional channel teams and distributors to ensure global programmatic strategies match local market dynamics. Performance Tracking: Manage and optimize the program based on strict programmatic KPIs (e.g., partner activation rates, service launches) alongside overall program bookings performance. Internal Evangelism: Act as an internal thought leader to product management, marketing, and sales leadership, advocating for the unique needs of the emerging GSI ecosystem.

Requirements

10-15+ years of professional experience in Enterprise Tech
Minimum of 5 years of experience directly building, launching, or managing partner GTM programs, global alliances, or partner-centric business development initiatives.
Demonstrated experience taking early-stage or low-booking partner relationships and transforming them into scalable, high-growth engines.
Comfortable discussing cybersecurity trends, architectures, and platform benefits (SASE, Cloud Security, XDR) to align business models, without requiring a deep systems engineering background.
Experience operating across multiple geographic regions and influencing matrixed internal and external stakeholder groups.
Highly self-motivated, execution-focused, and comfortable building frameworks from the ground up in a fast-paced environment.
Bachelor’s degree or higher

Nice To Haves

Relevant industry or business certifications are a plus.

Responsibilities

Build robust, repeatable global frameworks for onboarding, enablement, incentives, and lifecycle management specifically tailored to emerging GSI partners.
Standardize product-centric GTM plays (e.g., for SASE, Cortex, NGFW) that can be easily adopted, contextualized, and scaled by regional ecosystem teams across different geographies.
Own the initial partner incubation phase, ensuring new GSIs move quickly from contract signing to active market engagement.
Partner with GSIs to define joint value propositions, develop solution storyboards, and consult on commercial packaging, end-customer pricing models, and billing structures.
Assist partners in building managed or professional service offerings wrapped around Palo Alto Networks technology, driving early-stage pipeline visibility.
Lead business development activities and collaborate with Legal and executive stakeholder teams to structure foundational partner agreements.
Serve as the central point of coordination, working closely with regional channel teams and distributors to ensure global programmatic strategies match local market dynamics.
Manage and optimize the program based on strict programmatic KPIs (e.g., partner activation rates, service launches) alongside overall program bookings performance.
Act as an internal thought leader to product management, marketing, and sales leadership, advocating for the unique needs of the emerging GSI ecosystem.