Head of Solutions / Director of Presales

About This Role

Head of Solutions / Director of Presales

On site - Abu Dhabi

AppliedAI is a pioneering AI technology company headquartered in Abu Dhabi, committed to innovation and excellence in artificial intelligence solutions across regulated industries such as healthcare, insurance, government, and financial services.

About the role:

We are hiring a Head of Solutions to lead our entire pre-sales and solutions engineering function. You will own the technical win in every deal from first discovery to signed contract and build the team that delivers vertical-specific credibility to enterprise buyers across healthcare, banking and insurance.

This is Pillar 2 of our three-pillar GTM model. Sales (Pillar 1) owns the commercial relationship and quota. Partnerships (Pillar 3) owns all partner relationships globally. Solutions (your pillar) owns the technical sale: discovery, demos, POCs, technical validation, and the domain expertise that makes enterprise buyers in regulated industries say 'yes'.

You'll assign the right Solutions Consultant to every deal based on vertical fit and deal stage, not geography. Your team works across all geos (GCC, APAC, ROW) as a shared, vertically specialized resource.

You report directly to the VP of Revenue and will be a peer to the Head of Partnerships. You'll inherit a team of 6 and will be responsible for scaling it as deal volume grows.

Key Responsibilities:

Lead the pre-sales function across all geos and verticals (~40%):

• Own the technical win rate. Run weekly SC allocation meetings to assign the right vertical specialist to every deal.
• Personally engage on the highest-value and most complex deals the ones where a Head of Solutions in the room tips the outcome.
• Manage the three-in-a-box deal model: your Solutions Consultant provides technical validation, the geo Account Executive owns the commercial relationship, and the Partner Manager maintains channel continuity.

Build vertical depth in healthcare, banking, and insurance (~25%):

• Our clients buy vertically — a hospital CTO expects you to understand DRG codes, a Head of Trade Finance expects you to know SWIFT messaging, an insurance COO expects you to speak claims adjudication. You will deepen vertical expertise across the team through specialization assignments, vertical playbooks, and structured knowledge sharing.
• Collaborate with the Enablement Lead to translate deal experience into scalable training.

Scale and develop the Solutions team (~20%):

• Hire Solutions Consultants as deal volume requires.
• Develop the existing team through four defined career tracks: Solutions Consulting (client-facing), Architecture (complex enterprise builds), Platform Engineering (building the platform), and Leadership.

Connect pre-sales to delivery and product (~15%):

• Participate in the weekly GTM Leadership meeting where selling and delivery connect.
• Feed product and market signals from the field back to Engineering. Ensure that what is sold can be delivered — scope commitments, technical feasibility, and implementation timelines are your accountability.

Experience:

Required:

• You have 8–12+ years in pre-sales, solutions engineering, or solutions consulting at an enterprise software company, with at least 3 years leading a pre-sales team. You have managed SCs who work on $500K+ ACV deals with 6–12 month sales cycles.
• You have deep domain expertise in at least one of our verticals (healthcare, banking/financial services, insurance) and the ability to develop credibility in the others.
• You have operated in a model where Solutions Engineers are pooled across geos, not embedded in sales pods.
• You have sold through partners. Over 60% of our pipeline is partner-sourced.
• You are a player-coach. With a team of 4–6 today, you will personally run discovery on major deals, present to C-level buyers, and lead POCs — while simultaneously building the team and processes that scale beyond you.
• You are comfortable in a startup at $20M ARR. There is no established playbook. The vertical specialization framework, the Solutions Engineer allocation model, the career tracks, and the collaboration model with Sales and Partnerships all need to be built. You build and deliver, not delegate.

Preferred:

• Background at UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Celonis, Appian, Dataiku, C3.ai, or similar AI/automation enterprise platforms — particularly in their pre-sales or solutions leadership function.
• Experience with enterprise clients in the GCC or APAC markets. Understanding of how enterprise buying works in the Gulf, Southeast Asia, or India.
• Exposure to McKinsey, EY, Accenture, or Deloitte as consulting partners — understanding how to work alongside global consultancy teams on joint technical evaluations.
• Experience managing the transition of acquisition teams into a new organizational structure.
• You started as an Sales Engineer or Solutions Consultant and moved into leadership because you were the person the team went to for the hardest deals.

What We Offer:

• Collaborative, innovative, and growth-driven work environment.
• Competitive compensation, benefits, and career advancement opportunities.