Strategic AI, NeoClouds & NVIDIA Business Development Lead

ABOUT THE JOB: DDN is seeking a highly connected, commercially oriented Director of AI Sales to accelerate growth across APAC through strategic collaboration with NVIDIA, AI infrastructure providers, Neoclouds/NVIDIA Cloud Partners (NCPs), and the broader AI technology ecosystem. This role will be reporting to worldwide vice president of NCP & AI Native sales and serve as the primary regional connector between DDN's APAC Sales organization, NVIDIA's regional sales and technical teams, key Neocloud/NCP partners, and DDN's NVIDIA headquarters organization. The Director will build relationships, identify opportunities, create alignment across organizations, and help DDN gain earlier and more strategic participation in major AI infrastructure opportunities. This is primarily a business development and relationship leadership role, with approximately 80% of the focus on ecosystem engagement, relationship development, opportunity creation, and field collaboration, and 20% on technical fluency and solution positioning.     What Will You Do: NVIDIA Regional Engagement   • Build and maintain strong relationships with NVIDIA sales, business development, solution architecture, and ecosystem teams across APAC. • Establish DDN as a trusted infrastructure partner for NVIDIA field teams pursuing strategic AI opportunities. • Connect DDN account teams with the appropriate NVIDIA sales and technical resources and identify NVIDIA-influenced opportunities early. • Work closely with DDN's NVIDIA HQ team to navigate NVIDIA organizational structures, executive relationships, technical influencers, and decision-makers. • Ensure regional intelligence and field activity are connected back to DDN's broader global NVIDIA strategy. Neocloud & NCP Development   • Identify and develop relationships with Neoclouds, GPU cloud providers, NVIDIA Cloud Partners, sovereign AI providers, and emerging AI infrastructure companies across APAC. • Map key decision-makers, technical influencers, investors, customers, and ecosystem relationships surrounding priority AI infrastructure providers. • Connect DDN field teams to emerging Neocloud/NCP opportunities and help coordinate multi-party pursuit strategies. • Identify expansion opportunities within established AI infrastructure customers and new opportunities with emerging providers. • Help DDN understand where GPU capacity is being deployed across APAC and which organizations are likely to become important future AI infrastructure buyers. Regional AI Business Development   • Serve as a business development overlay to DDN's APAC sales organization for strategic AI opportunities. • Collaborate with Account Executives, Sales Engineers, Strategic AI sellers, partner teams, and regional leadership on account and opportunity strategies. • Create connections across customers, NVIDIA, Neoclouds, technology partners, and DDN resources that improve DDN's ability to win. • Develop account and ecosystem maps for priority AI opportunities and support executive meetings, partner engagements, and strategic pursuits. • Identify emerging trends, companies, workloads, and investment patterns that should influence DDN's regional strategy. AI Ecosystem & Technology Partnerships   • Identify ISVs and technology partners that are becoming influential in AI infrastructure buying decisions. • Work with DDN's ISV and Technical Alliances organization to develop relationships and joint motions with priority software and platform partners. • Understand where orchestration, data platforms, inference technologies, AI frameworks, and security platforms influence infrastructure decisions. Technical & Solution Fluency   • Maintain working knowledge of DDN's AI infrastructure portfolio and its role in GPU-intensive environments. • Understand at a high level how storage, networking, data movement, GPU utilization, training, inference, checkpointing, and AI data pipelines affect infrastructure architecture. • Understand NVIDIA's major AI infrastructure architectures, platforms, and ecosystem motions sufficiently to identify where DDN adds value. • Recognize when deeper technical engagement is required and bring the appropriate DDN Solution Engineering, Solution Architecture, Field CTO, Product, or Engineering resources into the opportunity. • Translate technical differentiation into customer and partner business value. GEOGRAPHIC SCOPE The role will cover APAC and requires the ability to operate across highly diverse markets, cultures, business practices, and stages of AI infrastructure adoption. The successful candidate will prioritize markets with significant GPU investment, Neocloud activity, sovereign AI initiatives, hyperscale infrastructure development, and AI-native company formation. Frequent travel throughout the region and close collaboration across time zones will be expected.     WHAT WILL YOU BRING: - 10+ years of experience in enterprise technology sales, business development, alliances, AI infrastructure, cloud, data infrastructure, or related markets. - Strong track record of developing executive and field relationships across complex technology ecosystems. - Demonstrated ability to create opportunities through relationships and ecosystem engagement rather than relying solely on traditional direct selling. - Experience working collaboratively with field sales and technical organizations. - Strong understanding of enterprise infrastructure and the evolving AI technology ecosystem. - Ability to engage credibly with sales executives, technical leaders, partners, customers, and senior executives. - Excellent executive communication, presentation, and relationship-building skills; ability to operate independently in an entrepreneurial environment. Preferred Experience - Existing relationships within NVIDIA or the NVIDIA partner ecosystem. - Experience with Neoclouds, GPU cloud providers, NCPs, hyperscalers, AI infrastructure companies, or AI-…