Director, Solutions Consulting - Defense and Intelligence

Appian Corporation•McLean, VA

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Appian is seeking a Director, Solutions Consulting to lead and scale a world-class team of pre-sales engineers. This role involves architecting complex solutions for vital enterprises, bridging the gap between sophisticated business needs and Appian's platform capabilities. The Solutions Consulting organization is undergoing a transformation (SC 2.0) to redefine the role of a trusted advisor, focusing on storytelling, co-creation, and strategic shaping with technical credibility and business insight. The ideal candidate will be a self-starter passionate about the mission, redefining the Pre-Sales or Sales Engineering profession. This role is crucial for driving customer acquisition, fueling corporate growth, and helping customers understand the business value of Appian's technology. The Director will own Solutions Consulting performance across a region, vertical, or line of business, architecting team structure, developing managers, driving operational excellence, and ensuring consistent SC 2.0 execution. This requires strong leadership, technical credibility, commercial ownership, and a deep commitment to coaching.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Engineering, Computer Science, Business, or a related technical or business field, or equivalent practical experience.
12-15 years of experience in Solutions Consulting, Pre-Sales Engineering, Technical Consulting, Professional Services, Enterprise Architecture, or related enterprise software roles.
Experience leading managers, senior managers, or region-wide Solutions Consulting teams.
Proven success aligning GTM strategy with Product, Customer Success, Marketing, and Sales leadership.
Strong executive presence, organizational leadership, operational discipline, and talent development capability.
Ability to travel to customer locations and field events as required by the assigned region or market up to 70% Travel.
A customer-obsessed mindset and the ability to engage directly with clients, build trusted relationships, and ensure Appian solutions align with their strategic objectives.
Exceptional communication and influencing skills, including the ability to uncover business priorities, engage executives and technical decision-makers, lead strategic discussions, and resolve technical concerns.
The ability to act as a true co-seller with Account Executives, sharing accountability for account planning, opportunity qualification, pipeline progression, and revenue outcomes.
The ability to translate business objectives and requirements into solution designs that clearly demonstrate how Appian addresses strategic challenges.
Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to design creative, practical solutions for complex customer environments.
A commitment to reusable asset creation, knowledge sharing, coaching, and continuous improvement as part of Appian’s SC 2.0 operating model.
Technical fluency across modern enterprise environments, including application architecture, integrations, APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure, data models, workflow, and enterprise systems.
Familiarity with customer IT and business landscapes, including ERP, CRM, data, workflow, AI, partner solutions, and existing enterprise architecture.
Ability to design architectures that integrate Appian into enterprise environments to extend value and accelerate ROI.
Ability to deliver persona-based, outcome-oriented demos and narratives that connect Appian capabilities to measurable business value.
Ability to support or lead disciplined evaluations, including POCs and POVs, with clear executive sponsorship, written success criteria, defined timelines, and measurable outcomes.
Ability to develop and contribute reusable assets, including demos, architectural blueprints, frameworks, and customer success stories.

Nice To Haves

Experience building custom demos, prototypes, POCs, POVs, or technical solution architectures for enterprise customers.
Technical depth to respond to functional and technical elements of RFIs, RFPs, security reviews, and architecture discussions.
Familiarity with production environments, including application servers, web servers, databases, APIs, integrations, and enterprise architecture patterns.
Familiarity with Business Process Management, workflow automation, application development platforms, case management, AI-enabled automation, or enterprise orchestration platforms.
Experience with enterprise platforms such as Salesforce or ServiceNow; these skills translate well into Appian’s Enterprise-Grade Orchestration environment.
Experience conveying customer requirements and market feedback to Product Management teams.
Experience contributing reusable demos, technical assets, enablement content, customer stories, industry points of view, or thought leadership.

Responsibilities

Own SC performance across regions, verticals, or business lines.
Architect SC organizational structure, pods, talent deployment, and coverage models.
Directly coach Senior Managers and Managers; build the leadership pipeline through promotion planning, calibration, and targeted mentorship.
Lead quarterly business reviews, performance tracking, territory design, hiring plans, and cross-region reporting.
Align with Product, Enablement, Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing stakeholders to translate roadmap innovation into story-ready and demo-ready assets.
Ensure process discipline across DemoHub usage, AI/Data Fabric/Process HQ adoption, storytelling quality, forecast hygiene, and AE/SC execution standards.
Drive consistent leadership operating rhythms, inspection standards, and performance accountability across teams.
Lead, coach, develop, and retain a high-performing team of Solutions Consultants.
Partner with Sales leadership to define and execute regional, vertical, or functional sales strategy.
Drive AE/SC alignment, account planning, opportunity qualification, pipeline discipline, and shared accountability for revenue outcomes.
Inspect and coach SC 2.0 execution, including early-stage engagement, discovery quality, demo quality, storytelling, POC/POV governance, and technical win strategy.
Ensure customer evaluations are disciplined, with executive sponsorship, written success criteria, defined timelines, clear Mutual Action Plans, and measurable outcomes.
Drive team accountability for demo reuse, customer story creation, reusable asset contribution, and enablement adoption.
Spend meaningful time in the field with SCs and customers, providing real-time coaching through preparation, observation, and debriefs.
Collaborate with Product, Marketing, Professional Services, Customer Success, Partners, Enablement, and Sales leadership to translate roadmap innovation into field-ready stories, demos, and sales plays.
Use metrics and operating rhythms to track team performance, forecast accuracy, pipeline impact, technical win rates, enablement progress, and talent development.
Model Appian’s values of Intensity and Excellence by creating a high-performing, accountable, customer-focused team culture.
Develop and contribute reusable assets, including demos, architectural blueprints, frameworks, customer stories, and enablement content, to help scale best practices across the global Solutions Consulting organization.
Represent Appian with credibility at customer meetings, executive briefings, field events, conferences, seminars, and internal enablement sessions.