Account Director - Aerospace & Defense

Account Director – Aerospace & Defense

Cognizant is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, helping clients become data-enabled and data-driven in the digital era. Our industry-based, consultative approach helps companies evolve into modern businesses. By leading clients in using technologies crucial to modern enterprises such as IoT, artificial intelligence, digital engineering & cloud, we enable new business and operating models that unlock new value in markets around the world.

Cognizant’s unwavering focus on our clients is led by over 350,000 associates, who deliver services and solutions tailored to specific industries and the outstanding needs of the organizations we serve.

Account Directors are key contributors to commercial side of Cognizant IT and Consulting Business. They support the Client Partner and act as business owners for assigned accounts, leading the day-to-day activities and P&L of these accounts. The CRM works with delivery teams to enhance backlog, optimizing the resource mix and navigating scope changes to ensure client expectations are met. They work towards establishing a positive client experience.

A CRM's shared measures are margin, revenue, client satisfaction & employee retention. CRM role-specific measures are renewal win rates, revenue, and margin.

• Forge relationships with VP/CXO decision makers across IT and business teams in the A&D.
• Map client organization, build outstanding relationships with new business units, and build a sales strategy for developing new business opportunities
• Drive collective focus with multiple teams on larger multi service line deals
• Drive revenue by prioritization, structuring, and leading digital engagements
• Own and deliver on revenue and Total Commercial Value targets
• Lead financial and contract terms, negotiation, and outsourcing discussions
• Understand the client priorities, challenges, opportunities and provide solution and services, by demonstrating Cognizant capability and offerings and articulating value propositions
• Build and establish trusted relationships with client collaborators and elevate brand and service perception
• Lead and Drive RFPs / proactive proposals for renewals, extensions, and support new business growth
• Track industry trends relevant to client business, collaborate with internal capability organizations and provide proactive ideas, solutions and thought leadership
• Strategize, plan and complete to a revenue and pipeline growth

• Knowledge of Aerospace and Defense domain and demonstrated experience in this domain for 7+ years
• Regulated industry experiences in A&D covering the Compliance and Security aspects including but not limited to

• ITAR Compliance
• NIST 800-171 & NIST 800-53
• CMMC 2.0 Level 2 Security Controls related aspects
• Microsoft’s GCC – Government Community Cloud
• AWS GovCLoud
• FedRAMP experience

• Demonstrated ability to manage entire sales lifecycle from opportunity identification (focus on farming) to negotiation/contracting.
• Capable of working with clients to envision, structure and specify solution requirements. Demonstrated ability to close deals ranging in size from $250K to $5M+
• 5+ years of experience in software development and implementation areas.
• Strong knowledge on current industry trends and capabilities in software, experience and quality engineering disciplines.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills. Capable of structuring and editing presentations and proposals leveraging content that is both self-generated and provided by colleagues
• Self-drive, flexibility and ownership of objectives
• Logical and structured approach to presenting opinions/views and interpretation of information
• Demonstrated ability to influence decisions…