Strategic Advisor, Nonprofit Research and Advanced AI, AWS Global Nonprofit Business

Description Amazon Web Services (AWS) Nonprofit Business (NPO) is seeking a research industry expert and strategic advisor with deep research background combined with expertise in advanced cloud services for research computing. This person will serve as an advisor and executive-level relationship builder across nonprofit research institutions and other similarly advanced customers with complex AI, model-building, and high-performance computing use cases—driving adoption of AWS’s advanced compute, AI/ML, and HPC services for research workloads.

The focus of this role is on leveraging cloud and advanced AI services to accelerate research and advance mission impact. The Strategic Advisor will operate across the NPO business as a shared strategic resource, building executive relationships at the C-suite, Chief Research Officer, and Principal Investigator level; influencing research computing policy (including NIH and NSF funding mechanisms); generating qualified pipeline across NPO Research territories and other similarly advanced accounts; and positioning AWS as the platform of choice for next-generation research computing.

This role builds the executive-level and industry-wide presence that opens doors, shapes market perception, and creates net-new demand across the portfolio. This position benefits all territories within the Nonprofit Research team as well as other NPO accounts with comparably advanced technical workloads, amplifying impact across the business.

Key job responsibilities

• Strategic Advisory & Strategic Engagement

Build trusted relationships at the C-suite, Chief Research Officer, and Principal Investigator level across research institutions and other similarly advanced NPO customers with complex AI/ML and model-building use cases.

Conduct executive listening sessions and strategic workshops to expose organizational goals, current structures, blind spots, and drive alignment with measurable accountability

Maintain tool-agnostic credibility to access senior decision-makers; serve as a trusted, objective resource for executive leaders

Build and maintain a set of active, deep executive relationships across NPO Research territories and other advanced accounts

Design and facilitate executive engagement programs (cohorts, roundtables, advisory boards) spanning both research institutions and advanced AI/ML customers

• Advanced Cloud Services for Research & AI/ML

Position AWS compute, storage, AI/ML, and HPC services as the platform for next-generation research computing — genomics pipelines, climate modeling, computational biology, AI for scientific discovery.

Develop and maintain deep expertise across research computing domains and advanced AI/ML architectures: genomics, computational biology, climate modeling, AI/ML for science, research data platforms, and large-scale model training

Proactively identify industry trends and position AWS to anticipate customer needs (e.g., AI for research, data platforms for climate science, high-performance computing for genomics, foundation model fine-tuning)

Define and execute go-to-market strategy for nonprofit research institutes and advanced AI/ML customers aligned with AWS business plans and priorities

Serve as the specialist advisory resource when NPO accounts require deep technical industry-specific credibility for complex AI, model-building, or HPC workloads

• Thought Leadership & Industry Presence

Deliver presentations at research events and industry conferences; contribute to advisory boards; publish through industry-appropriate channels (academic conferences, research publications, professional forums, LinkedIn)

Maintain credibility within the research community and among advanced AI/ML practitioners through continued scholarly and technical engagement

Contribute to research advisory board presence and seek committee participation that provides direct influence over research computing and AI adoption

Present to leadership, mapping research industry insights and emerging AI/ML trends and applications in the nonprofit sector to business value

• Pipeline Development & Business Growth

Generate qualified pipeline across NPO Research territories and other similarly advanced accounts through proactive business development

Identify and develop new workload opportunities in pipeline — including AI/ML model training, HPC migration, and cloud-nati…