Executive Advisor - Confluent

IBM
IBM

California, USA · Tokyo, Japan · Texas City, TX, USA

Posted on Jun 23, 2026
Introduction

At IBM Global Sales, we bring together innovation, collaboration, and expertise to help clients solve their most complex business challenges. Working across industries and geographies, you’ll partner with colleagues, clients, and partners to co-create solutions that drive digital transformation and lasting impact.Success in Global Sales is built on curiosity, empathy, and collaboration. You’ll connect technical understanding with strong people skills, building trusted relationships and shaping solutions that improve business and society. With world-class onboarding, continuous learning, and a supportive culture, IBM offers the tools and opportunities to grow your career. Join us and be part of a global team that’s passionate about driving innovation and making a difference.

Your role and responsibilities

We are hiring an Executive Advisor to help shape and scale our presence in the American

market.

This is a senior individual operator role with real weight on both sides of the mandate:

carrying strategic customer work in priority accounts while also establishing and scaling the Executive Advisory motion across AMER, building regional demand, repeatable field plays, and visible impact in strategic accounts.

At its core, Executive Advisory exists to help customers turn executive ambition into

something they can actually operationalize: clearer operating models, sharper roadmaps,

stronger governance, and measurable business value from data streaming and adjacent

transformation work.

This is not a pure strategy role and it is not a passive advisory role. We are looking for

someone who can work credibly with CIO, CTO, CDO, and equivalent leaders, but who is

equally comfortable creating traction, connecting the right people, pushing work forward

through ambiguity, and helping teams convert ideas into action.

The right person will be versatile, commercially credible, action-oriented, and influential

without relying on formal authority. They will know how to move between executive

conversations, account realities, internal alignment, and repeatable field plays without losing momentum.

Success in the first year will not be measured only by the quality of customer advisory work. It will also be visible in stronger internal pull, clearer positioning for the function, more repeatable plays, and a growing sense that Executive Advisory is an essential lever in strategic account outcomes across AMER.

What you'll do

· Lead executive advisory engagements in strategic AMER accounts, working with

senior customer stakeholders to shape vision, operating model, governance, roadmap,and adoption path for large-scale data streaming transformation.

· Help customers move from ambition to execution by translating broad transformation goals into practical next steps, decision frameworks, and measurable outcomes rather than stopping at high-level strategy.

· Translate advisory work into measurable customer and account outcomes, linking

strategic recommendations to adoption, value realization, executive sponsorship, and account growth.

· Partner closely with sales, customer success, solutions engineering, professional

services, and partners to increase the impact of strategic accounts and make

· Executive Advisory a sought-after capability in the region.

· Create momentum for the AMER model by codifying what works into reusable plays,

frameworks, and field-ready narratives that make the function easier to understand,

position, and pull into the right opportunities.

· Operate effectively in ambiguous situations, often where the brief is incomplete,

stakeholders are not aligned, and the path forward is not obvious, then bring

structure, energy, and forward motion.

· Build trusted relationships with senior internal and external stakeholders, connecting

· people across functions and creating alignment where no direct reporting line exists.

· Contribute to the broader evolution of the function by helping sharpen positioning,

improve how advisory work is attached to strategic account motions, and raise the

visibility of the team through quality, consistency, and thought leadership.

· Support executive business cases, ROI/TCO framing, and commercial storytelling

when that helps move a strategic opportunity forward.

Required education
High School Diploma/GED
Preferred education
Bachelor's Degree
Required technical and professional expertise

Significant experience in executive advisory, senior technology consulting, enterprise

transformation, or a closely related role, with a track record of operating credibly with

CIO, CTO, CDO, or equivalent customer stakeholders.

A strong bias for action. You do not wait for perfect structure, perfect ownership, or

perfect information before moving important work forward

The ability to influence without authority, align cross-functional stakeholders, and

create momentum across complex internal and customer environments.

Commercial credibility and good judgment. You understand how strategic advisory

work connects to account priorities, growth, renewals, value realization, and executive

sponsorship.

Comfort working across ambiguity, switching gears between strategy, facilitation,

account reality, internal building, and practical execution as needed.

Strong communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to simplify complex ideas,

run senior conversations well, and land messages with both executives and delivery

teams.

A natural inclination to connect people, create follow-through, and make the whole

system work better, not just deliver your own workstream.

Evidence of creating reusable intellectual property, playbooks, frameworks, or

methods that improve consistency and scale beyond a single engagement.

Familiarity with business-case shaping, ROI/TCO framing, and commercial storytelling

is helpful.

ABOUT BUSINESS UNIT

IBM has a global presence, operating in more than 175 countries with a broad-based geographic distribution of revenue. The company’s Global Markets organization is a strategic sales business unit that manages IBM’s global footprint, working closely with dedicated country-based operating units to serve clients locally. These country teams have client relationship managers who lead integrated teams of consultants, solution specialists and delivery professionals to enable clients’ growth and innovation. By complementing local expertise with global experience and digital capabilities, IBM builds deep and broad-based client relationships. This local management focus fosters speed in supporting clients, addressing new markets and making investments in emerging opportunities. Additionally, the Global Markets organization serves clients with expertise in their industry as well as through the products and services that IBM and partners supply. IBM is also expanding its reach to new and existing clients through digital marketplaces.

YOUR LIFE @ IBM

In a world where technology never stands still, we understand that, dedication to our clients success, innovation that matters, and trust and personal responsibility in all our relationships, lives in what we do as IBMers as we strive to be the catalyst that makes the world work better.

Being an IBMer means you’ll be able to learn and develop yourself and your career, you’ll be encouraged to be courageous and experiment everyday, all whilst having continuous trust and support in an environment where everyone can thrive whatever their personal or professional background.

Our IBMers are growth minded, always staying curious, open to feedback and learning new information and skills to constantly transform themselves and our company. They are trusted to provide on-going feedback to help other IBMers grow, as well as collaborate with colleagues keeping in mind a team focused approach to include different perspectives to drive exceptional outcomes for our customers. The courage our IBMers have to make critical decisions everyday is essential to IBM becoming the catalyst for progress, always embracing challenges with resources they have to hand, a can-do attitude and always striving for an outcome focused approach within everything that they do.

Are you ready to be an IBMer?

ABOUT IBM

IBM’s greatest invention is the IBMer. We believe that through the application of intelligence, reason and science, we can improve business, society and the human condition, bringing the power of an open hybrid cloud and AI strategy to life for our clients and partners around the world.

Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are not only one of the largest corporate organizations in the world, we’re also one of the biggest technology and consulting employers, with many of the Fortune 500 companies relying on the IBM Cloud to run their business.

At IBM, we pride ourselves on being an early adopter of artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain. Now it’s time for you to join us on our journey to being a responsible technology innovator and a force for good in the world.

IBM is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

OTHER RELEVANT JOB DETAILS

IBM offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits program. Eligible employees may have access to:

- Healthcare benefits including medical & prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & well being

- Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long- term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance based salary incentive programs

- Generous paid time off including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, 12 weeks parental bonding leave in accordance with IBM Policy, and other Paid Care Leave programs. IBM also offers paid family leave benefits to eligible employees where required by applicable law

- Training and educational resources on our personalized, AI-driven learning platform where IBMers can grow skills and obtain industry-recognized certifications to achieve their career goals

- Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences

We consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

This position was posted on the date cited in the key job details section and is anticipated to remain posted for 21 days from this date or less if not needed to fill the role.

IBM will not be providing visa sponsorship for this position now or in the future. Therefore, in order to be considered for this position, you must have the ability to work without a need for current or future visa sponsorship.

The compensation range and benefits for this position are based on a full-time schedule for a full calendar year. The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location. Pay increment and frequency of pay will be in accordance with employment classification and applicable laws. For part time roles, your compensation and benefits will be adjusted to reflect your hours. Benefits may be pro-rated for those who start working during the calendar year.

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