Account Executive, Direct Sales
Higher Education Specialist
Do you have the higher education expertise and strategic acumen to shape markets, create demand, and establish Dell Technologies as the leading partner for digital transformation in U.S. colleges and universities?
Higher education is undergoing profound transformation, shaped by artificial intelligence, changing student demographics and engagement patterns, staff burnout, heightened cybersecurity risk, and new opportunities to reimagine teaching, learning, research, and community engagement in a digital economy. Dell Technologies collaborates with colleges and universities to advance their missions of recruiting, retaining, educating, and graduating students by providing secure, scalable, and cost-optimized multicloud and modern infrastructure solutions that span the campus data center, public cloud, and edge environments.
Institutions increasingly turn to Dell to establish a modern digital foundation, enhance the student experience, accelerate research, modernize constituent services, and enable institutional innovation and agility.
Role Overview
The Higher Education Strategist shapes markets, creates demand, and positions Dell as a thought leader in U.S. colleges and universities through strategic advisory work, executive relationship-building, and thought leadership. This role identifies and qualifies opportunities at the top of the funnel, provides market intelligence, and establishes Dell's credibility with senior institutional leaders.
This is a strategic advisory and market-shaping role, not a sales support or deal execution role.
The strategist engages directly with senior higher education leaders to understand their most pressing challenges and long-term goals, then works with Dell account teams and internal stakeholders to align the right strategies, solutions, and partnerships. They spend significant time on campus and in virtual executive conversations, facilitating dialogue among diverse stakeholders and building deep, trusted relationships.
The strategist serves as a bridge between vertical expertise and technical credibility. They bring deep knowledge of higher education - including governance, funding, academic and research missions, and institutional dynamics - combined with technical fluency often gained as former CIOs or CTOs who have led infrastructure modernization, cloud migrations, research computing, and cybersecurity initiatives. This dual expertise allows them to engage leaders on both strategic priorities and technical challenges, connecting how Dell's capabilities address both. When an AE brings a strategist to a meeting, they're bringing someone who understands higher education, understands technology, and can connect the two.
This role is supported by vertical leaders and the Head of Public Strategy to ensure effective cross-functional collaboration and organizational influence.
What Success Looks Like in Year One
In your first year, you will have:
- Established trusted relationships with 7-9 senior institutional leaders at strategic accounts
- Shaped 4-5 strategic opportunities contributing to meaningful pipeline growth
- Positioned Dell as a thought leader through 2-3 major conference speaking engagements
- Facilitated 4-6 high-impact strategic engagements that deepen relationships and uncover opportunities
- Delivered enablement that measurably improves sales teams' ability to engage higher education stakeholders
- Become a trusted resource for account executives who leverage your expertise to win deals
Key Responsibilities: EXTERNAL - Higher Education Institutions & Industry
Strategic Advisory & Discovery
- Lead discovery conversations with institutional leaders to understand strategic priorities and desired outcomes across teaching, learning, research, student success, and campus operations, with particular depth in technical areas such as infrastructure modernization, cloud migration, research computing, cybersecurity, and data strategy
- Help higher education leaders align technology initiatives with institutional strategic plans and long-term visions
- Provide consultative guidance on digital campus strategies, hybrid and online learning, research computing, student experience, and data-informed decision making
Executive Relationship Development
- Build and sustain trusted relationships with senior institutional leaders including Presidents, Provosts, CIOs, CFOs, Deans, and Vice Presidents
- Extend Dell's reach beyond IT contacts to engage academic affairs, student success, enrollment, finance, research, and operational leaders
- Serve as strategic advisor to institutional leaders, aligning Dell's capabilities with their missions
Strategic Engagements & Programs
- Design and participate in Executive Briefing Center sessions, Visioning Days, and workshops that bring together academic, administrative, and IT stakeholders to explore future-state possibilities
- Design strategic events including roundtables, summits, and market briefings that position Dell and create demand
- Foster collaborative partnerships between institutions and Dell, including pilots, co-innovation initiatives, and joint storytelling
Opportunity Creation & Top-of-Funnel Pipeline Development
- Identify and qualify strategic opportunities at the top of the funnel, shaping them before they become formal RFPs and positioning Dell early in decision-making
- Make strategic connections across and within institutions to support integrated strategies and uncover opportunities
- Help institutional customers network with one another, sharing best practices and facilitating communities of practice
Thought Leadership & Market Presence
- Position Dell as a thought leader through speaking at conferences, delivering keynotes, serving on panels, and contributing to content that spotlights higher education innovation
- Monitor and interpret trends in higher education and translate them into insight for customers and internal teams
Key Responsibilities: INTERNAL - Dell Technologies
Strategic Account Support
- Partner with sales teams to inform and strengthen account strategies, bringing vertical expertise and technical credibility that helps account executives understand dynamics, motivations, challenges, and context
- Provide strategic input in account planning sessions on governance, funding cycles, policy influences, and long-term priorities
Market Intelligence & Enablement
- Develop and deliver enablement programs on higher education market trends, institutional structures, stakeholder roles, and strategic engagement approaches
- Provide market intelligence that shapes how Dell positions its offerings in higher education
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Solution Influence
- Facilitate collaboration across sales, presales, services, and Strategically Aligned Businesses to create cohesive engagement plans
- Provide strategic context to help internal teams leverage higher education relationships to co-create solutions
- Provide input to product, services, and solution teams to influence offerings that better support institutional needs
Voice of the Customer & Marketing Partnership
- Serve as voice of the customer into marketing, portfolio, and business units, ensuring messaging and content reflect higher education realities
- Work with marketing as a higher education SME to review and refine content for relevance and accuracy
- Identify and connect marketing and sales teams with customer stories, references, and advocates
What This Role Is Not Responsible For
- Writing RFP responses, proposals, or contracts
- Running tactical customer events tied to individual deals
- Moving opportunities through the sales funnel or closing deals
- Providing ongoing one-on-one coaching to individual account executives on basic sales skills
- Filling tactical gaps in sales execution
- Serving as a general resource for ad hoc higher education questions from internal teams
Collaboration Model
When consulted on activities outside core strategic responsibilities (such as RFP responses, tactical events, or deal execution), the strategist provides strategic context, market intelligence, or institutional insight, then steps back. Execution responsibility sits with the appropriate functional owner (sales, marketing, presales, etc.).
Required Experience & Qualifications
Required:
- Bachelor’s degree and 10+ years of experience working within or closely with higher education institutions.
- Proven ability to build trusted relationships with senior higher‑education leaders, including presidents, provosts, CIOs, and CFOs.
- Demonstrated experience leading strategic, consultative, and executive‑level engagements, including discovery, facilitation, and high‑stakes communication.
- Established thought leadership through conference speaking, publications, or major transformation initiatives in higher education.
- Strong understanding of higher education ecosystems—governance, funding, accreditation, and digital transformation—paired with technical fluency across cloud, infrastructure, cybersecurity, research computing, and data platforms.
- Excellent communication and cross‑functional collaboration skills, active participation in higher‑ed associations, and willingness to travel up to 60%.
Preferred:
- Master's degree in education, information technology, computer science, business, or related field strongly preferred
- Doctorate-level degree in education, information technology, computer science, business, or related field
- Direct leadership or senior-level experience in a higher education institution
- Direct experience as CIO, CTO, or senior technology leader in higher education with hands-on responsibility for infrastructure, cloud, research computing, security, or data initiatives
- Experience facilitating executive workshops or strategy sessions
- Leadership positions within higher education associations, consortia, or professional networks
Core Competencies & Attributes
- Executive presence & adaptive communication: Confidently engages presidents, provosts, CIOs, and trustees while tailoring complex technical and strategic concepts to diverse audiences.
- Institutional systems thinking: Understands how academic, research, finance, student success, and IT functions interconnect and identifies where technology creates cross‑institutional impact.
- Consultative discovery & strategic synthesis: Uncovers true institutional priorities and translates complex challenges into clear, actionable strategic options aligned with governance and culture.
- Cross‑silo relationship building: Builds trust across academic, administrative, and technical stakeholders, creating connections that enable collaboration and shared vision.
- High‑stakes facilitation & influence without authority: Designs and leads strategic conversations among leaders with competing priorities, shaping outcomes through insight and credibility rather than formal power.
- Vertical and technical expertise: Combines deep higher‑education knowledge with strong technical fluency to connect institutional strategy with modern infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity, and data solutions.
Compensation
Dell is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The Total Target Compensation range for this position is $270,000 - 325,000, which includes base salary and commissions.
Benefits and Perks of working at Dell Technologies
Your life. Your health. Supported by your benefits. You can explore the overall benefits experience that awaits you as a Dell Technologies team member — right now at MyWellatDell.com
Who we are
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