Senior Business Planner, Gaming
About The Position
Microsoft Advertising is seeking a Senior Business Planner to drive business planning for its gaming ads business, spanning Xbox, King, Activision Blizzard, and broader gaming supply across console, PC, mobile, and streaming. The role takes initiatives from idea to delivery by sizing opportunities, building business cases, bringing customer and market evidence into product planning, and driving work through execution. The position develops strategic plans across gaming advertising demand, supply, products, and platforms; supports publisher planning with quantified business cases and monetization and ad policy considerations; and collaborates across Product, Engineering, Operations, Finance, and Sales. It also brings customer, market, competitive, and field insights into recommendations and product prioritization, including responsible evaluation of AI-generated insights. The planner communicates plans and measurable outcomes to stakeholders and leaders through written documents, meetings, and presentations.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree and 6+ years of experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
- 3+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
Nice To Haves
- Bachelor's degree and 12+ years of experience in engineering, product/technical program management, data analysis, or product development, or equivalent experience.
- 8+ years of experience managing cross-functional and/or cross-team projects.
- At least 1 year of experience reading and/or writing code, such as sample documentation or product demos.
- Experience in gaming, entertainment, or media, or working with publishers and advertisers to create and sell media products.
- Strong familiarity with the digital environment and a clear understanding of the media planning and buying process.
- A proven track record of working across diverse stakeholders, including Sales, to define and execute strategic initiatives with passion, precision, and excellence.
- Ability to navigate, build trust, and influence through hands-on engagement with leadership across business and engineering teams.
- Sound business judgment and ability to make decisions using strategic thinking, bias for action, and operational excellence.
- Ability to communicate at an executive level through visual, written, and verbal communication in a global context to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Ability to thrive in a fast-moving, exciting, and often ambiguous environment.
Responsibilities
- Develop detailed project plans, timelines, and deliverables for assigned workstreams, consolidating milestones and dependencies across projects.
- Identify and manage interdependencies across workstreams to prevent bottlenecks and support timely delivery.
- Lead governance rhythms and execution, provide regular stakeholder updates, and maintain clarity on project status and risks.
- Develop strategic plans to drive and transform the gaming business across demand, supply, products, and platforms, and influence initiative prioritization.
- Lead workstreams for opportunity identification and sizing, demand strategy, and business requirements documentation so gaming enters planning cycles with quantified positions.
- Coordinate with cross-functional teams to make business and demand plans comprehensive and rationalized across publishers, surfaces, and sales motions.
- Support publisher planning with opportunity sizing and business cases, including monetization and ad policy considerations.
- Structure ambiguous situations into defined plans using root-cause identification, hypothesis testing, and implementation of proposals.
- Use customer, field, market research, and stakeholder insights to develop recommendations and provide thought leadership on growth opportunities.
- Use AI and automation to synthesize data and identify patterns, while owning the integrity, relevance, and limitations of AI-generated insights used for business decisions.
- Contribute to gaming ads competitive intelligence and market benchmarking, and represent that evidence in product planning and prioritization forums.
- Communicate and advocate plans to business leaders through written documents such as memos, perspectives, and business requirements documents, as well as meetings and presentations.
- Build data-driven end-to-end storylines that demonstrate measurable outcomes.
- Deliver recommendations and implications to stakeholders to facilitate discussion and decision-making.
- Partner across Product, Engineering, Operations, Finance, and Sales to ensure alignment.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
