Account Director - Inflight Entertainment

Thales; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 600,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Thales in the United Arab Emirates seeks an Account Director to own the commercial relationship with a strategic airline account, and to lead cross-functional teams to drive profitable order intake and the expansion of recurring services revenue beyond the core hardware base.

You will act as the customer advocate, build executive sponsorship, and ensure alignment of internal resources to meet customer objectives with a focus on long-term partnership and regional growth.

Qualifications

• Bachelor degree in business administration, marketing, sales, engineering, or a relevant field; Master degree preferred.
• Fifteen or more years of experience in sales, key account management, or commercial roles within the airline or aviation industry.
• Direct, demonstrable experience with IFE, inflight connectivity, or onboard digital and passenger experience products (mandatory).

Responsibilities

• Serve as lead commercial point of contact for the customer account team.
• Build relationships with senior executive and C level stakeholders and strategic ecosystem partners across the region.
• Develop trusted advisor relationships with key customer stakeholders and executive sponsors.
• Ensure the timely and successful delivery of Thales solutions according to customer needs and objectives.
• Communicate progress of monthly and quarterly initiatives to stakeholders.
• Collaborate with sales and account teams to grow opportunities within the account.
• Mentor cross-functional product teams and manage issues impacting customer experience.
• Lead account team to provide proactive world class support focused on responsiveness and speed.
• Maintain CRM Salesforce inputs and updates.

Skills

Leadership

Account management

Negotiation

Stakeholder management

Customer success

Business development

Education

Bachelor degree in business administration, marketing, sales, engineering, or relevant field

Master degree preferred

Tools

Salesforce

Microsoft Office

Job description

The Account Director owns the commercial relationship with a strategic airline account and acts as the customer advocate inside Thales working across internal functions to ensure the customer needs are understood and satisfied. The role secures sustainable and profitable growth above market by building a true long term partnership with the customer applying a systematic and customer centric account management approach that maximises mutual value. The Account Director is the lead commercial point of contact and the decision maker on matters affecting the account including impact on profit and loss within the defined commercial mandate. The role engages established and prospective customer stakeholders to build intelligence drive customer success and generate sales and serves as the point of escalation for the account. The Account Director communicates the value of the full Thales Group portfolio not only IFE and in particular leads the expansion of digital connectivity and recurring services revenue alongside the core IFE hardware base. This role is critical to the future commercial performance of the IFE business in the region. It carries one of the largest and most complex airline relationships in the portfolio sets the strategic direction for that account and converts deep customer understanding into profitable order intake and growing wallet share over the long term Essential Functions

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Ensure Customer Success through Serving as the lead commercial point of contact for the customer account team
• Building relationships with senior executive and C level stakeholders and strategic ecosystem partners across the region
• Developing trusted advisor relationships with key customer stakeholders and executive sponsors
• Ensuring the timely and successful delivery of Thales solutions according to customer needs and objectives
• Communicating the progress of monthly and quarterly initiatives clearly to internal and external stakeholders
• Collaborating with the sales and account teams to identify and grow opportunities within the account
• Supporting cross functional integrated product teams and acting on issues impacting the customer experience
• Managing customer expectations survey activity and experience scorecards to sustain a high level of customer satisfaction
• Leading the account team to provide proactive world class support focused on responsiveness quality and speed of resolution

Customer Commercial Negotiations and Customer Strategy

• Owning and growing the account end to end against the account plan delivering order intake and margin commitments
• Leading complex commercial negotiations from opportunity through to signed contract coordinating pricing legal product and program teams to secure profitable outcomes
• Driving the shift toward digital connectivity and value based services converting recurring revenue and selling services opportunities beyond the installed hardware base
• Developing new business with the existing customer and identifying areas of improvement to meet sales targets Forecasting and tracking key account metrics and working with marketing to establish effective support

Customer Analysis and Consultation

• Creating and maintaining the account development plan opportunity pipeline capture plans and accurate forecasting
• Maintaining customer priority status and aligning internal resources accordingly
• Preparing reports and professional presentations to communicate opportunities trends and issues to customer teams and senior management
• Leading customer quarterly business reviews with stakeholders and executives
• Maintaining inputs and updates in the Customer Relationship Management tool CRM Salesforce as appropriate

Qualifications

• Bachelor degree in business administration, marketing, sales, engineering, or a relevant field; Master degree preferred
• Fifteen (15) or more years of experience in sales, key account management, or commercial roles within the airline or aviation industry
• Direct, demonstrable experience with IFE, inflight connectivity, or onboard digital and passenger experience products (mandatory)
• Ten or more years establishing and implementing account plans, roadmap, and strategy across internal and external strategies, contracts, budget, and objectives
• Ten or more years in contract management associated with issue and litigation resolution and customer complaint management
• Proven ownership of large, complex business to business accounts, including order intake in the tens of millions of US dollars
• Track record of selling services, software, or connected solutions, not only hardware
• Experience operating inside or selling to a major international airline with a complex, multi stakeholder decision structure
• Proficient with CRM (Salesforce) and the Microsoft Office suite; excellent communication and negotiation skills
• Domestic and international travel required, up to 35 percent or more
• An existing network within major Gulf or international carriers
• Background with an IFE original equipment manufacturer, an airline IFE or product team, a connectivity provider, or a systems integrator
• Demonstrated experience transitioning a hardware account toward recurring services revenue
• Understanding of avionics or aviation digital and connectivity technology
• Self motivated and self directed, able to operate autonomously with a results oriented, can do mindset
• Able to mentor and lead an account team and to manage competing priorities effectively