Director, Commercial Customer Success
United StatesRemote8+ YOE
Summary
Own and scale Vanta's Commercial Customer Success function and Partner CS motion. Define strategy, lead managers and CSMs, and drive retention, adoption, and expansion outcomes.
About the role
What you’ll do
- Own the Commercial CS strategy and vision: Define a clear vision, strategy, and success metrics for Commercial Customer Success, translating Vanta’s company goals into functional priorities and a concrete operating plan.
- Build and scale Partner Customer Success: Design and grow how Vanta drives customer outcomes through our partner customer success program — working cross-functionally to establish the model, enablement, and shared metrics for a partner customer success motion that scales our impact.
- Design an operating model that scales without losing the human touch: Apply process, automation, and AI to handle volume efficiently across the Commercial segment, while protecting and strengthening the one-to-one, customer-facing motion that still drives value here. Build the segmentation and playbooks that take low-value work off CSMs' plates so their time goes where relationships and outcomes are actually won.
- Lead and develop leaders: Hire, coach, and develop a team of CS managers and CSMs. Set the talent bar, build succession depth, and raise overall team capability and judgment.
- Drive results across retention, adoption, and expansion: Own the metrics that matter — gross and net retention, adoption, time-to-value, and expansion — and establish the operating cadence to manage them with urgency and transparency.
- Lead cross-functionally: Partner with Sales, Account Management, Partnerships, Product, Support, Marketing, and Rev Ops to align on customer needs, remove blockers, and advocate for the Commercial and partner segments.
How to be successful in this role
- Proven CS leadership at scale: Track record leading a Customer Success function and managing managers, with direct accountability for retention and expansion outcomes.
- Experience scaling Commercial CS motions: Built or scaled efficient CS motions for mid-market / commercial segments, balancing scaled programs (digital, one-to-many, pooled, AI) with the high-touch, relationship-driven motion the segment still requires.
- Partner / ecosystem experience: Experience building or operating customer success through partners, channel, or an ecosystem motion (strongly preferred).
- Functional strategy and operating-model design: Demonstrated ability to define functional strategy and build CS methodology — playbooks, segmentation, and operating systems — that scale across teams.
- Data-driven decision making: Uses data, frameworks, and strong judgment to make timely decisions and run an operating cadence against clear KPIs.
- Deep understanding of SaaS business models: Experience operating in a SaaS environment and the economics of a recurring-revenue book.
- Cross-functional leadership and influence: Able to align and influence peer leaders across the business to advance customer and company goals.
- Open to using AI to amplify their skills and strengthen their work - demonstrating curiosity, a willingness to learn, and sound judgment in applying AI responsibly to improve efficiency and impact.
Nice to Have
- Partner / ecosystem experience: Experience building or operating customer success through partners, channel, or an ecosystem motion.
What you can expect
- Industry-competitive salary and equity
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, with 100% of employee-only benefit premiums covered for most medical plans
- 16 weeks paid Parental Leave for all new parents
- Health & wellness stipend
- Remote workspace, internet, and cellphone stipend
- Commuter benefits for team members who report to the SF and NYC office
- Family planning benefits
- Matching 401(k) contribution with immediate vesting
- Flexible PTO policy, plus 80 hours of Sick Time
- 11 company-paid holidays
- Virtual team building activities, lunch and learns, and other company-wide events!
Skills
Customer SuccessSaaSRetentionExpansionCross-functional LeadershipData-driven Decision MakingOperating Model DesignPartner EcosystemAITeam Leadership