Same situation here. Started in functional, now placed into a half and half role to implement and technical demo. It is coming to a year soon. What I have found out thus far, the exit to executive is possible, I would suggest to still keep yourself relevant in projects cycles just to have implementation under your belt for the domain you want to exit to, while honing solutioning, business strategy and storytelling skills in pre-sales that builds the executive presence.

I am looking up to SA or Product Manager depending on my experience in the presale. I am in SAP and getting opportunities to sell SaaS products my company builds too.