Principal Industry Strategist- Space Force

CDW•Virtual - Illinois, IL

3d•$157,500 - $182,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Industry Strategist - Principal (Space Force) is a former industry leader that serves as trusted advisors to customers and internal teams, helping CDW anticipate industry needs and deliver differentiated value. Industry strategists are customer-facing experts who help build and maintain relationships with customers and their leaders and help shape CDW’s strategic direction and solutions within a specific industry segment. This role blends deep industry knowledge with technology insight to strengthen customer relationships, drive growth and influence solution development.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or 15+ years of experience working in the specific industry or equivalent experience
Excellent customer-facing skills with experience building trusted executive-level relationships.
Understanding and influence on technology trends and solution architecture within the industry.
Experience leading enterprise-wide technology implementations including integration, configuration, troubleshooting, training, and adoption.
Excellent leadership, facilitation, strategic planning, and problem-solving abilities.
Excellent communication, presentation, negotiation, and collaboration skills.
Proven ability to influence across organizational boundaries and manage multiple priorities.
Experience navigating procurement processes and uncovering new opportunities.
Ability to travel as needed.

Nice To Haves

Experience as an IT C-Level, or IT Vice President, is a plus.
5+ years experience as a consultant, is a plus.
Experience leading IT strategy and operations in a regulated, complex ecosystem, is a plus.
15 or more years’ experience in assessing business drivers and translating them into qualifiable, quantifiable and tactical solutions, is a plus.
Understanding technologies and the challenges of implementing new technologies into a highly regulated and complex technology ecosystem, is a plus.
Industry-relevant or technology-specific certifications, is a plus.
Strong knowledge and understanding of standard industry regulations i.e. FERPA, HIPAA, GDPR, CPRA, is a plus.

Responsibilities

Build and maintain trusted relationships with customer executives, program leaders, operational stakeholders, and technical teams.
Lead strategic discussions that shape customers’ long-term vision, technology posture, and organizational maturity.
Design, present and demonstrate industry aligned strategies, solutions, architectures, and partner technologies.
Participate in onsite meetings, executive briefings, business reviews, and advisory sessions to guide customer decision making.
Influence customer requirements by collaborating across stakeholder groups and helping define solution direction.
Mentor associate and staff level industry strategists in their responsibilities.
Serve as subject matter expert during customer presentations, sales cycles, solution briefings, and large opportunity pursuits.
Articulate CDW’s value proposition clearly to customers, partners, and sellers.
Build the strategy for training and mentoring CDW sellers on industry trends, competitive insights, solution messaging, and customer engagement strategies.
Support sellers in navigating complex procurement environments and identifying additional opportunities.
Participate in customer webinars, conference calls, and internal enablement activities to drive team readiness.
Shape customer’s board level vision into strategic sales opportunities.
Lead the process to translate industry problems into scalable, repeatable solution offerings aligned with CDW’s portfolio.
Partner with engineering, services, product, and logistics teams to design complete solution packages.
Coordinate many technology partners participation, ensuring solutions integrate capabilities that address real industry use cases.
Assist with qualifying and scoping solution opportunities within target accounts.
Support the development of new offerings that incorporate emerging technologies, regulatory needs, and customer demand patterns.
Serve as a recognized industry thought leader within CDW’s strategist organization, guiding how technology can positively impact the segment. Mentor other industry strategists in these efforts.
Monitor emerging trends, regulatory shifts, competitive movements, and technology innovations relevant to the industry.
Evaluate and build the strategy to bring to market new technology approaches to understand their value, the problems they solve, their market potential, and alignment with CDW’s strategic roadmap.
Lead the identification of target markets and high-value account segments where CDW can expand its influence.
Represent CDW at conferences, industry events, briefings, and professional forums to strengthen brand presence and credibility.
Strategist participants represent relevant industry expertise with capacity/availability to actively participate in all sessions and events of the briefing and participates in one or more agenda sessions.
Builds and facilitates one or more sessions/panels.
Acts as an Ambassador to customer attendees.
Supports the role of the Strategist Lead as required.
Strategist Lead represents relevant industry expertise with capacity/availability.
Drive agenda design and thematic development.
Drive attendee recruitment.
Drive partner recruitment.
Drive session content development.
Coordinate session deliverables (e.g., panel materials, meeting participation); enforces partner compliance with event guidelines, etc.
Informs Briefing Committee of status, issues requiring mitigation, etc.