Remote - Maryland​/Alliances

Merkle is seeking a VP, Alliance Solutions Architect with deep Mar Tech expertise, particularly within the Salesforce ecosystem, to help shape, sell, and scale innovative customer experience solutions across our client portfolio. This role sits at the intersection of technology, strategy, and go-to-market execution, partnering closely with Salesforce and internal stakeholders to develop differentiated solution narratives, influence account growth, and create offerings that drive measurable business outcomes.

This is a highly visible individual contributor role focused on pre-sales strategy, solution development, alliance engagement, and thought leadership reporting into the Head of Alliance Solution Leads. The ideal candidate combines strong Salesforce platform knowledge with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into compelling business value for clients, prospects, partners, and internal teams.

What You’ll Do

• Partner with Salesforce stakeholders and Merkle growth teams to develop and execute joint go-to-market strategies, solution positioning, and growth initiatives.
• Lead executive-level client and prospect conversations focused on customer experience transformation, AI, automation, loyalty, CRM modernization, and cross-cloud solutioning.
• Serve as a trusted advisor during early-stage sales cycles, helping shape opportunities from discovery and qualification through proposal development and client presentations.
• Build and maintain strategic relationships across Salesforce, internal Merkle capability teams, and key client stakeholders.
• Develop solution narratives, offerings, accelerators, industry positioning, and thought leadership that demonstrate the value of Salesforce-powered customer experiences.
• Create and deliver compelling demonstrations, solution walkthroughs, and presentations that connect technology capabilities to measurable business outcomes.
• Collaborate with data, experience, technology, and industry teams to architect integrated customer experience solutions.
• Contribute to Salesforce alliance growth goals through pipeline influence, account expansion, and strategic opportunity development
• Help position Merkle as a leading AI and Salesforce partner through marketplace engagement, executive relationship building, enablement initiatives, and joint marketing activities.
• Drive innovation around emerging Salesforce capabilities including Agentforce, AI-powered experiences, automation, Data Cloud, and connected customer ecosystems.

What Success Looks Like

In this role, you will:

• Influence growth within existing client relationships and support expansion into net-new client opportunities.
• Build stronger Salesforce alliance relationships and elevate Merkle’s visibility within the partner ecosystem.
• Develop scalable solution narratives and offerings that support client acquisition and account growth.
• Help clients connect technology investments to measurable business outcomes, customer experience improvements, and operational efficiencies.
• Accelerate adoption of modern Salesforce capabilities across strategic industries including Retail, CPG, Healthcare, Entertainment, and other growth sectors.
• Act as a trusted technical leader who guides strategic opportunities without owning delivery execution.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in solution architecture, consulting, alliance management, pre-sales engineering, digital transformation, or client-facing technology leadership roles.
• Strong expertise within the Salesforce ecosystem, including Salesforce Core and broader customer experience capabilities.
• Experience with AI, Agentic business transformation and business process automation
• Experience building and executing joint go-to-market motions with Salesforce or another major enterprise technology platform provider.
• Demonstrated ability to engage executive stakeholders while maintaining credibility with technical and delivery teams.
• Experience translating business objectives into technology solutions and measurable outcomes.
• Ability to design, configure, and demonstrate Salesforce-based solutions in client-facing settings.
• Proven success supporting new business development, account growth, strategic pursuits, or complex client initiatives.
• Strong communication, storytelling, and presentation skills with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts.

Preferred Qualifications

• Salesforce certifications and hands-on platform experience.
• Experience with Salesforce Data Cloud, Agentforce, AI Cloud, Loyalty Cloud,…