Director, Customer Success
Culture Amp · Chicago · $200,000–$240,000 (stated in the posting)
We’re big believers in the power of IRL, so for most roles we ask Campers to work from their local Culture Amp office an average of 2 days a week to unlock connection, pace and culture together.
Join us on our mission to make a better world of work.
Culture Amp is the world’s leading employee experience platform, revolutionizing how 25 million employees across more than 6,000 companies create a better world of work. Culture Amp empowers companies of all sizes and industries to transform employee engagement, drive performance management, and develop high-performing teams. Powered by people science and the most comprehensive employee dataset in the world, the most innovative companies including Canva, On, Asana, Dolby, McDonalds and Nasdaq depend on Culture Amp every day.
Culture Amp is backed by leading venture capital funds and has offices in the US, UK, Germany and Australia. Culture Amp has been recognized as one of the world’s top private cloud companies by Forbes and most innovative companies by Fast Company.
For more information visit cultureamp.com.
Role Purpose
The Director, Customer Success (internally we call it Customer Experience (CX)) Pod Leader is accountable for driving customer value, retention, and expansion across a shared book of business within a cross-functional pod. This role leads a team of Customer Success Managers and Renewals Managers with the same rigor, commercial edge, and coaching intensity expected of a senior CS leader ; while operating as an equal partner to the Director, Sales in building one unified GTM engine.
This role requires operating differently than most CX leaders have to date in tech, specifically around co-leadership and commercial ownership that is tied to revenue.
Duties & Responsibilities
CX Practice Leadership
- Own the pod's renewal forecast and maintain forecast integrity, speak to week-over-week movement, and translate CSM inputs and your own book inspection into a dependable, consistent number that leadership can rely on.
- Lead pod territory design within your book of business. Working with your Sales Pod Leader and RevOps, translate the pod's assigned accounts into clearly defined CSM and RM territories that optimize for coverage, collaboration, and customer continuity.
- Diagnose and manage portfolio health through monitoring adoption trends, engagement signals, and risk indicators using Vitally, Salesforce, and Gong; ensuring a no-surprises renewal motion through early identification, strong value realization and proactive mitigation of at-risk accounts.
- Lead renewals process discipline and set strategy for renewal negotiations, manage commercial timelines, and hold the team accountable for securing outcomes well ahead of renewal dates; own GRR as a personal accountability.
- Coach CSMs and Renewals Managers into strategic advisors to develop the team through a consistent operating rhythm of 1:1s, performance coaching, feedback, and career development conversations that build capability and drive accountability.
- Serve as executive sponsor on high-stakes accounts and act as the senior CX point of contact for complex escalations, expectation resets, and moments where the partnership with the customer is at risk.
- Drive adoption goal-setting and outcome delivery to set adoption goals across the pod's book, hold the team accountable to specific account plans, and move the team from reactive firefighting to proactive customer engagement.
- Manage team performance rigorously and lead them through structured performance management, ensure high standards are celebrated and gaps are addressed, and contribute to hiring and onboarding decisions that raise the bar of the team.
Shared Pod Responsibilities (co-owned with the Director, Sales)
- Own the customer lifecycle as a shared responsibility and partner closely with the Sales Pod Leader to ensure seamless handoffs, no gaps in customer coverage, and a joined-up experience from acquisition through adoption, renewal, and expansion.
- Set the tone for one GTM engine. Model cross-functional trust, unified customer engagement, and shared accountability across Sales and CX; the pod operates as one team with one commercial goal.
- Co-create the pod's GTM play roadmap and partner with the Sales Pod Leader to identify the Sales & CX quarterly plan and roadmap of plays and customer segments the pod will prioritize; document the approach and recommend plays upward to regional and functional leadership.
- Optimize jointly for NRR and value creation to ensure every pod decision, from resource allocation to customer prioritization, connects to long-term value creation and predictable net revenue retention.
- Drive AI fluency and tool adoption across the pod to actively model the use of AI tools to improve efficiency and output quality; hold the team accountable for building AI-enabled habits into their daily workflow.
- Synthesize and deliver joint pod QBRs to co-present quarterly business reviews covering pod performance across Sales, CX, and customer health dimensions
- Serve as the pod's ultimate escalation point and own the resolution of complex, cross-functional, or customer-facing issues within the pod; engage senior or cross-functional partners (Support, People Science, RevOps) when the situation requires it.
- Build a pod culture of performance to set a clear vision for the pod alongside the Sales Pod Leader, translate strategy into focused execution, and create an environment where ambition, accountability, and collaboration thrive.
Experience & Knowledge Needed
- Demonstrated success as a Customer Success leader, with direct accountability for GRR, renewal outcomes, and a team's performance against retention and adoption goals.
- Experience owning and delivering a renewal forecast, including speaking to movement, risk, and the specific actions driving the result.
- Deep understanding of CS methodology, LAER frameworks, and value-based customer engagement in a B2B SaaS environment.
- Proven ability to coach and develop CS practitioners into high-performing strategic advisors.
- Commercial confidence, comfortable navigating renewal negotiations, expansion conversations, executive-level customer engagement, and escalations.
- Experience working cross-functionally with Sales, People Science, Implementation, Support, and RevOps to drive customer outcomes.
- Demonstrated ability to work through ambiguity and lead a team through change, evolving models, or new ways of working.
Qualifications Needed
- Strong coaching and people leadership capabilities, with the ability to build accountability and develop talent.
- Senior leadership presence and communication skills required for high-stakes customer moments and internal stakeholder alignment.
- Data fluency, proficiency with Vitally, Salesforce, and Gong (or equivalent) to diagnose risk and drive team performance.
- Alignment with Culture Amp values and behaviors.
For this role, the estimated On Target Earnings (OTE) range is listed below. In addition to your OTE salary, your compensation package will include additional components such as equity and benefits.
The actual salary will vary based on various factors, including market and individual skills, capabilities and experience, objectively assessed during the interview process. If you're interviewing for this role, speak with your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about the total compensation and benefits for this role.
We believe in fair & equitable pay at Culture Amp, and therefore, we build pay equity into all our programs in addition to conducting annual pay equity audits.
Perks & Benefits
At Culture Amp, our people are at the heart of our success. We offer competitive pay and a total rewards package designed to support you at work and in life. This includes:
- Equity through our Employee Share Option Program, so you can share in our long-term success
- Learning programs and coaching to help you thrive and grow
- Quarterly refresh days, an extended end-of-year break and a monthly allowance to support your wellbeing and lifestyle
- Inclusive parental leave from day one
- A MacBook and budget to set up your home workspace, enabling flexibility
- Five annual social impact days to to give back to causes that matter to you
- Medical insurance coverage for you and your family (Available for US & UK only)
Our rewards are designed to support different needs and life stages, recognising that what matters most can vary from person to person.
Research shows that candidates from underrepresented backgrounds may hesitate to apply if they don’t meet every requirement, but your unique experience matters. If you’re interested in joining us, we strongly encourage you to apply and help us build a more diverse and impactful team.
Accommodations & Data Privacy
If you require reasonable accommodations or adjustments due to a disability to complete the online application or to participate in the interview process, please contact accommodations@cultureamp.com and identify the type of accommodation or assistance you are requesting. Do not include any medical or health information in this email. The Reasonable Accommodations team will respond to your email promptly.
More jobs at Culture Amp · Sales & Business Development jobs in Chicago