Principal APN Programs Lead, Scalable GTM and Funding Programs

This position is part of the AWS Specialist and Partner (ASP) Organization, within the WW Scalable GTM and Funding Programs team. As a Senior Technical Business Development leader for Specialization and APN Programs, you will define and drive the worldwide strategy for how AWS validates, develops, and scales partner capacity and capability—ensuring the right partners are equipped to deliver the right outcomes for customers across every workload and industry. You will own the strategic direction of the AWS Specialization Program—a multi-billion-dollar revenue-generating segment of the AWS Partner Network encompassing thousands of partners across the full portfolio of designations—and lead its transformation from a manually-operated validation framework into an agentic, AI-powered partner development platform. Your charter is to dramatically increase the number of partners who have proven capacity and capability to serve customers, while reducing the friction and cost of validation at scale. You will architect the next generation of programmatic partner key performance indicators that feed AWS recommendation engines (Marketplace, Solution Matching Engine, Field Advisor), directly shaping how customers discover and select partners. This is a strategy-defining role. You will set the multi-year vision for how specialization drives AWS Partner Network growth, you will work across the team to define key partner performance metrics and index and influence investment priorities, make trade-off decisions across competing stakeholder demands, and influence senior leadership on program direction. You will create entirely new mechanisms—including agentic program that use AI to automate partner assessment, launch readiness, and cohort management at scale. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in AWS Partner Network strategy, technical business development at enterprise scale, and the ability to drive organizational alignment around a bold, forward-looking vision in ambiguous environments. Key job responsibilities Specialization & APN Strategy - Define and own the strategy for AWS Specialization Program, setting the vision for how partner validation drives AWS Partner Network growth and customer outcomes - Architect the strategic shift from designation-as-gate to designation-as-growth-accelerator, increasing the number of partners with proven capacity and capability to serve customers - You develop customer intake signals of what is needed from partners to drive business transformation across different partner types (ISVs, SIs, Startups) - Develop the partner performance index that drives AWS Specialization Program achievement and renewals - Set priorities and make trade-off decisions across the specialization and partner portfolio, balancing stakeholder demand against resource constraints and strategic impact - Influence AWS senior leadership on program direction, securing alignment on business value, resource investment, and acceptable trade-offs Agentic APN Program Design - Create and drive the vision for an Agentic APN Program that partner performance data and AI to automate partner assessment, validation, renewal, and development at unprecedented scale - Design autonomous program operations that significantly reduce human-in-the-loop processing, enabling the team to manage exponential partner growth without linear headcount scaling - Architect AI-powered launch readiness frameworks that compress designation launch cycles from months to weeks - Define how agentic systems generate partner development recommendations, automatically routing partners to enablement resources based on capability gaps and customer demand AWS Partner Network Growth & Partner Capability - Own the strategy for increasing the total addressable partner base with validated, customer-ready capabilities across priority workloads. This includes understanding the needs of customers across Geos and market trends. - Work across Core Programs and Delivery team to influ…