Senior Director, Business Development

We are looking for a seasoned Senior Director of Business Development to lead our growth strategy in the AI and data infrastructure space. This is a high-visibility, strategic role that sits at the intersection of technology and commerce, responsible for identifying, developing, and closing new business opportunities while shaping the company's long-term market positioning in one of the fastest-evolving sectors in technology. Key Responsibilities As Senior Director, you will own the end-to-end business development motion for AI-driven markets. You will develop and execute go-to-market strategies targeting hyperscale’s, cloud providers, AI infrastructure companies, and enterprise customers building out large-scale storage and compute environments. You will stay ahead of market trends from the growth of AI training clusters and inference workloads to evolving data center architectures and translate those insights into actionable customer acquisition strategies. You will work closely with product, engineering, and marketing teams to ensure our HDD roadmap and value proposition are aligned with where the market is heading. You will champion the voice of the customer internally, helping shape product direction based on what top-tier prospects and partners need. A core part of this role is building and maintaining executive-level relationships with key accounts and ecosystem partners. Internally, you will set alignment across the Sales and Marketing organization on customer segmentation, market prioritization, and messaging, ensuring the team is rowing in the same direction as the industry evolves. What We’re Looking For The ideal candidate brings a rare combination of technical depth and commercial acumen. You should have a strong grasp of storage and data infrastructure, including HDD technology, system architecture, and how storage fits into broader AI and cloud computing stacks. You understand how hyperscalers and AI companies think about capacity planning, TCO, and infrastructure scaling, and you can speak fluently with both engineers and C-suite executives. On the business side, you have a proven track record of building and executing BD strategies that have resulted in meaningful revenue growth. You know how to build pipeline from scratch, navigate long enterprise sales cycles, and close complex deals. You are comfortable operating with ambiguity and thrive in fast-moving markets. You bring 12+ years of experience in business development, strategic sales, or market strategy roles within the storage, semiconductor, cloud infrastructure, or AI hardware space. A bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, or a related technical field is preferred, with an MBA or equivalent business experience considered a strong plus. Direct experience working with hyperscalers, AI infrastructure companies, or large enterprise data center customers is highly desirable. Western Digital is committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees and will not discriminate against any applicant or employee based on their race, color, ancestry, religion (including religious dress and grooming standards), sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), gender (including a person’s gender identity, gender expression, and gender-related appearance and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth), age, national origin, sexual orientation, medical condition, marital status (including domestic partnership status), physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, protected medical and family care leave, Civil Air Patrol status, military and veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. We also prohibit harassment of any individual on any of the characteristics listed above. Our non-discrimination policy applies to all aspects of employment. We comply with the laws an ... (truncated, view full listing at source)