Value-Added Distributor (VAD) Marketing Manager

Introduction

Ecosystem partners are essential to driving growth across IBM's Hybrid Cloud and AI strategy. The Value-Added Distributor (VAD) Marketing Manager plays a critical role in increasing IBM's mindshare with, through, and to its distributor ecosystem. This role is responsible for aligning distributor marketing activities with sales targets and business unit objectives, while continuously simplifying and enhancing the partner experience.

The VAD Marketing Manager ensures that IBM's global marketing strategy is effectively executed across distributors to drive demand for IBM products, solutions, and services.

Your role and responsibilities

• Develop and execute the global VAD marketing strategy across key focus areas: demand generation for partners, pipeline acceleration, new partner acquisition and expansion, and partner enablement.
• Collaborate with regional teams (Americas, APAC, EMEA, Japan) to create and implement quarterly marketing plans with distributors that support and exceed revenue goals.
• Develop scalable and targeted global marketing programs aligned with IBM's strategic priorities, including focused products, SaaS, and Select Territory
• Serve as the dedicated marketing counterpart to Global VAD Managing Directors, co-creating global programs aligned with channel sales objectives.
• Design and lead global partner recruitment and activation initiatives in collaboration with VADs.
• Act as a subject matter expert (SME) to educate distributors on IBM marketing resources (including co-marketing) and best practices, while also representing the voice of the distributor and partners within IBM.
• Champion the integration of business partners into IBM-led marketing initiatives and events to maximize impact and efficiency.
• Leverage data and tools to monitor global VAD performance, analyze campaign results, and optimize future marketing efforts.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Master's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

• Experience in marketing, with a focus on demand generation program management.

• Understanding business partners, distributors, or third-party organizations.

• Proficiency in using data analytics tools to monitor and measure marketing performance

• Budget management skills, including oversight of marketing investments.

• Ability to manage process controls and ensure compliance across marketing activities.

• Excellent written and oral English communication skills; the ability to present and communicate ideas clearly and persuasively at all levels including executive stakeholders.

Preferred technical and professional experience

• B2B partner marketing experience, with an understanding of partner business models and varying levels of marketing maturity.
• Experience designing and executing campaigns to recruit and activate partners or clients.
• Familiarity with agentic workflows and how to leverage them for marketing efficiency and scale.

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

For additional information about location requirements, please discuss with the recruiter following submission of your application.

Client-provided location(s): Bucharest, Romania

Job ID: IBM-67574

Employment Type: OTHER

Posted: 2025-10-28T18:49:56