Prospect Intelligence & GEO Strategy Lead

NetApp, Inc.•San Jose, CA

1d•$196,350 - $270,000

About The Position

The Prospect Intelligence Lead & LLM Visibility Optimizer is a highly strategic role, both externally and internally, with deep understanding of the data infrastructure, cloud, and AI markets. This role is responsible for two business-critical activities in support of NetApp’s revenue acceleration and market leadership priorities. This distinguished technical leader and expert story-teller will (1) aid NetApp in capturing, analyzing, curating, and communicating insights into prospective customers, and (2) will drive the optimization of NetApp’s LLM visibility in the data infrastructure platform for AI space. The leader in this role is a key driver to accelerate durable revenue growth by strengthening demand and expanding pipeline for land accounts. In support of the Revenue Acceleration priority this role will combine first-hand and second-hand prospect audience insights, market and competitive intelligence, technical fluency, and high-caliber data synthesis and storytelling – helping key executive leaders understand how the company, its portfolio, solutions, and services are perceived amongst non-NetApp customers. A core responsibility is to build direct executive-level insight channels to better understand closed-lost opportunity customers (and partners) and the root causes of their decisions not to select NetApp for their solution purchases. Upon collection, the individual in this role would integrate those signals with data points from other research to inform cross-functional prioritization and future direction. Engaging directly with prospects, customers, technology and channel partners, internal field marketing and sales teams, industry analysts, and influencers; they will synthesize those inputs with research and team-generated data; and translate findings into compelling stories and presentations for senior NetApp executives to drive strategy and decision making. The leader in this role is also a key driver to establish the awareness of NetApp being the #1 data infrastructure platform for AI by outperforming VAST, driving exponential growth and share across Enterprise, NeoClouds, and Hyperscalers. In support of our Market Leadership priority this role will lead two critical external motions to strengthen NetApp visibility in large language models (LLMs) and AI-driven buying journeys, leveraging the broad set of customer, partner, and analyst insights in external communication, while enabling the external entities to post their perspectives. First, this leader translates customer, partner, and analyst insights into credible external vendor communications, including market narratives, proof points, case studies, review content, and analyst-informed messaging that improves how the company is surfaced, cited, and differentiated in AI-generated recommendations. Second, this leader collaborates with internal teams to encourage third parties—including customers, partners, analysts, and influencers to share their own positive perspectives, experiences, success stories, and opinions across public channels such as LinkedIn, Reddit, blogs, review platforms, and other digital forums, expanding the volume of trusted third-party content that shapes AI-driven buyer discovery. Together, these motions will strengthen NetApp’s growth and increase NetApp’s market visibility in the early stages of vendor evaluation.

Requirements

Strong industry and market understanding and competitive instinct, with the ability to identify what matters strategically and connect signals to business implications.
Substantive NetApp portfolio knowledge, technology depth and engineering fluency sufficient to engage credibly (present to and able to answer questions) with technical buyers, product leaders, and engineering teams.
15+ years of progressive experience spanning insights, market intelligence, strategy, product marketing, GTM leadership, technical marketing, analyst relations, consulting, or related field.
Strong analytical judgment with experience interpreting both formal research and informal first-hand insight sources.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to move seamlessly from detailed evidence to concise executive messaging.
Proficiency and experience in utilizing and understanding Large Language Models / AI as a key source of early information gathering in the B2B purchasing process.
Exceptional storytelling ability, including synthesizing disparate inputs into clear strategic narratives, decision frameworks, and recommendations.
Demonstrated success in senior-level external engagement, including interviewing or advising customers, prospects, partners, analysts, or other market stakeholders.
Experienced presenter with strong executive presence and the ability to communicate effectively with senior leadership audiences.
Demonstrated ability to lead and influence cross-functional teams – spanning marketing, sales, product, and engineering – without direct authority, including experience managing multi-million- dollar program budgets and shaping strategy at the Director level.
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, or a technical field required; MBA or advanced degree strongly preferred, particularly where it complements a technical undergraduate foundation.

Nice To Haves

The ideal candidate is equal parts market strategist, technically credible operator, relationship builder, and storyteller – someone who has spent a career at the intersection of AI, cloud, and enterprise infrastructure and knows the landscape from the inside.
They are naturally curious, commercially sharp, with business acumen, and confident engaging C-Suite and senior audiences both externally and internally.
They know how to go beyond surface-level feedback, ask the right questions, detect patterns early, and convert ambiguity into a point of view that leaders can act on.
They are an experienced, data-driven presenter who builds the narrative from the numbers – not around them – and brings the executive presence and cross-functional leadership judgment required for a high-level role at NetApp.
In support of our high-achievement principles we are seeking a leader that 1) innovates to elevate by being curious, continuously improving, challenging the way we work, removing barriers to achieve our high standards; 2) drives results by making customer imperatives their own standard, driving accountability, and actively contributing to change; and 3) excels with the broader team by cultivating a collaborative and inclusive problem-solving culture, challenging respectfully and executing collectively.

Responsibilities

Lead a direct, high-value executive interview motion across key external audiences including prospects, partners, field sales and marketing leaders, competitive intelligence teams, analysts, and influencers to capture potential and lost prospect insights.
Build trusted relationships with senior external stakeholders in order to uncover nuanced feedback, validate assumptions, and identify emerging risks and opportunities.
Apply strong market and technical credibility – grounded in AI, cloud infrastructure, and data storage - to engage deeply on product, platform, architecture, and innovation topics with sophisticated audiences.
Assess market dynamics, customer priorities, competitive moves, and technology shifts to identify patterns that matter for the business.
Synthesize the above, using qualitative and quantitative inputs from interviews, surveys, research, community signals, and team-generated data, into a cohesive, NetApp-executive-ready view of the market that connects insights directly to actions and business outcomes.
Assist the Active Intelligence team in translating complex findings into clear storylines, strategic recommendations, and executive-level narratives that drive alignment and action.
Raise the quality and impact of insight development across the team by reviewing available data, sharpening interpretation, and helping shape stronger stories and recommended actions.
Participate in developing of the quarterly and ad-hoc insight packages, talking points, executive briefings, and presentations for senior leaders and their teams with specific focus on prospect data.
Drive alignment across insights, with strategy, product, engineering, sales, marketing, product marketing, and executive stakeholders to ensure findings are relevant, actionable, and timely.
Represent Influence and Insights with executive presence in internal reviews, leadership discussions, and audience-facing settings where credibility and presentation quality matter.
Responsible for architecting the GEO strategy and recommending LLM content to improve NetApp visibility in the AI-driven customer buying journey.
Develop a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO),- and LLM-friendly content strategy that improves NetApp visibility in the AI-driven customer buying journey.
Establish a framework for all content owners to incorporate key insights into evolving content, specifically for digital public-facing content.
Bring the voice of customers, partners and industry analysts to external communities by guiding our community team to optimally represent NetApp thereby improving NetApp’s visibility in the AI-driven customer buying journey.