VP of Customer Success

SchooLinks is a series A venture-backed startup that's solving mission-critical problems in college and career readiness. With a fresh take from technology stack to product design, SchooLinks has become the household name for college and career readiness in many states, serving millions of students and families.     

With customers in more than 35 states, 10+ states experiencing 2x growth, and 30-50% market share in key states, SchooLinks has been consistently named Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. Our largest logos include Chicago Public Schools, Dallas ISD, Newark, Houston…  Districts typically adopt SchooLinks at a district level (from 6th through 12th grade) on 3-5-year contracts. Our current gross retention is 97%. SchooLinks implementation can range from 2 weeks to 10 months+ depending on data complexity, district size, and amount of products purchased. Once implemented, SchooLinks is the mission control for some of the most critical workflows, such as college application management, state-mandated activities, and accountability tracking.

The current post-sale functions include 

• Customer Success: project management, onboarding, renewal and expansion 
• Support: Live chats  
• Implementation Specialist (for data/config heavy products) 
• Training 
• Data integration and account provisioning (tier 2 escalation)

We’re looking for a VP of Customer Success that is a proven leader with a track record of scaling SaaS customer success organizations at venture-backed startups (series A or later). This role will develop and lead a strong, knowledgeable, and proactive client-facing team. The VP will drive a results-oriented culture and will architect, execute, and continuously improve operational plans and processes. 

Reporting directly to the CEO, the VP of Customer Success will be responsible for managing the full CS department. This consists of implementation, account management, expansion and renewals.

The ideal candidate is 

• Hands-on - not afraid to roll up sleeves and execute, whether it’s leading a client call or creating a presentation or model, they are not afraid to execute. We need this person to lead from the front and be exceptional at the things that we’re asking CSMs to do on an account level (relationship management, consensus building, intuition about when implementation might be going off the rails, collaboration with other functions in SchooLinks, etc)
• Technical - not afraid of technical details of the implementation and cares about the actual implementation process. When technical problems come up, they should be able to synthesize and help facilitate finding a solution 
• Proactive - they look for problems to solve, processes to improve, and areas to coach. They don’t wait for things to be escalated to them. 
• Accountable - to company goals around upsell and retention, personal deliverables for teammates on the executive team, and fosters a culture of similarly accountability in their own department to hold CSMs and other function accountable in delivering a high degree of execution fidelity 
• Fast-paced - used to working in a fast-paced environment, and can make decisions and execute on ideas. We understand the importance of change management, but we need to operate on the scale of days and weeks and not months and quarters to move projects and initiatives forward both internally and externally.
• Data-driven & operationally minded - ability to approach problems with an analytical eye based on data and people dynamic. Ability to instrument, analyze, create, and critique processes. Concretely this means excel modeling for capacity, analyzing data from implementation-software.
• A thought partner and teammate to other executive team members -  SchooLinks has a strong leadership team culture and subscribes to the “radical candor” communication style. You’ll be joining a talented, ambitious, and devoted team of peers leading other departments and you’ll need to work closely with them to align the CS department with broader goals and initiatives in the company
• Excited and willing to be always leaning -  our vertical is changing quickly and subject to legislative change, fast trend switches, a lot of market forces and M&A. Internally we’re always pushing to iterate our methods– you have to be excited by change and the opportunity, understand the need to be nimble. 
• Inspirational  - someone who can motivate and instill confidence in our team and customers 

Responsibilities: 

• Hit GRR and NRR goal via managing all the teams mentioned above
• Coach and grow CSMs and managers on the team 
• Serve as the escalation point for the team for large account issues 

• This role includes responsibilities for the range of Customer Success activities including adoption & advocacy, account management, as well as outcomes including renewals & expansion
• Continue to design & operationalize a customer post sale experience that supports new business growth 
• Measure, analyze, and report on customer usage, and health, and use this data to continually optimize and improve performance. Drive an accurate renewal forecasting process & reporting cadence.
• Recruit, inspire and grow the remarkable team of professionals across products & geographies
• Foster collaboration within the team and other functions and across customer lifecycle
• Improve upon our account management strategy to ensure proper relationship breadth across our customer base. Steward exec sponsor accounts and steer escalated customers back to a healthy state

Requirements

• 5+ years experience in leading customer-facing organizations, ideally in enterprise software and SaaS
• Gone team building and scaling (growth phase) with a venture backed startup from a Series A through D company
• Ability to manage influence through persuasion, negotiation, and consensus building
• Strong commercial chops – ideally honed through both post sales & sales experience
• Strong empathy for customers AND passion for revenue and growth
• Analytical and process-oriented operational mindset
• Demonstrated desire for continuous learning and improvement
• Enthusiastic and creative leader with the ability to inspire others
• Excellent communication and presentation skills