Director of Retail Activation & Customer Success

National Association of Convenience Stores•Alexandria, VA

4d•$140,000 - $190,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Retail Activation & Customer Success is a mission-critical, customer-facing leader responsible for converting retailer interest and commitments into live deployments, sustained usage, and measurable adoption. The role advances TruAge’s priorities of opening more doors, accelerating activation, and scaling adoption across convenience and fuel retailing and adjacent age-restricted industries. Serving as the operational leader for retailer activation and customer success, the Director owns the end-to-end retailer journey—from recruitment and qualification through implementation, technical onboarding, go-live, transaction readiness, adoption, expansion, and ongoing customer success. The Director reports to the NACS Vice President of Retail Engagement, Research & Education and partners closely with the TruAge CEO and NACS Vice President of Technology. The role leverages NACS’ retailer relationships and engagement infrastructure to accelerate recruitment, streamline activation, and drive sustained usage. As TruAge scales nationally, the Director will build and lead the team, processes, playbooks, and performance metrics needed to scale thousands of retailers and tens of thousands of locations while delivering an exceptional customer experience. This hands-on, results-oriented leadership role combines building a scalable operating model with direct accountability for execution, including leading a lean team, coordinating complex partner-dependent implementations, resolving stalled deployments, and delivering predictable activation and adoption outcomes. The position is in-office, with work-from-anywhere days and approximately 10% travel. The salary range is $140,000–$190,000, with actual compensation based on relevant experience, education, skills, and other qualifications. A comprehensive benefits package is offered. NACS describes its culture as highly collaborative and centered on working together from the office.

Requirements

10+ years of progressive leadership experience in customer success, enterprise implementations, retail activation, field operations, account management, or customer operations within high-growth technology, SaaS, or retail environments.
Proven success building and leading hands-on customer-facing teams responsible for retailer recruitment, onboarding, implementation, activation, adoption, and long-term customer success.
Demonstrated ability to convert retailer commitments into live deployments, sustained usage, and measurable business outcomes.
Experience managing complex, multi-site enterprise deployments involving POS providers, technology and service partners, and retailer operations and IT teams.
Ability to resolve technical and operational barriers, manage implementation dependencies, influence partners without direct authority, and establish scalable rollout processes.
Strong commercial and operational acumen, including success expanding retailer relationships, accelerating time-to-activation, driving adoption and transaction volume, coaching teams, and delivering predictable deployment outcomes.
Data-driven operational leadership, using CRM and customer success platforms to manage retailer pipelines, implementation milestones, activation conversion rates, customer health, usage metrics, deployment forecasts, and operational performance.
Exceptional executive communication, cross-functional leadership, and change management skills, including the ability to align internal departments, external partners, and senior customer stakeholders around activation, adoption, and growth objectives.
Customer-first, organized, collaborative, process-oriented, calm under pressure, and able to balance strategic thinking with execution.
Passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Nice To Haves

Relevant industry experience in convenience retail technology, POS systems, payments, identity verification, digital identity, fintech, hospitality technology, or enterprise software.
Experience with age-restricted products or franchised or distributed retail networks.
Familiarity with CRM and customer success platforms such as HubSpot.

Responsibilities

Lead the end-to-end retailer activation strategy for the convenience channel, including recruiting, qualifying, and activating new retailer partners.
Develop and manage the retailer activation pipeline, drive engagement from initial interest through deployment, and prioritize opportunities to maximize door growth.
Manage relationships among major oil companies, state associations, and POS companies to support rollouts, joint marketing, communications, integrations, and activations.
Maintain viable-universe projections and retailer adoption forecasts based on POS readiness, software releases, partner releases, and other dependencies.
Prioritize activation opportunities based on retailer readiness, POS availability, technical dependencies, and support capacity; translate growth objectives into phased rollout plans.
Partner with NACS Retail Engagement and TruAge commercial relationship owners on strategic account transitions and market expansion; align account ownership, readiness criteria, and handovers.
Lead retailer implementation activities, including enterprise onboarding, implementation planning, technical onboarding, POS coordination, retailer training, operational readiness, in-store materials and signage, go-live planning, launch management, transaction monitoring, early-life support, adoption monitoring, and expansion planning.
Establish delivery responsibilities, milestones, and escalation routes with internal teams, POS providers, service providers, and retailer IT teams, coordinating implementation while designated technology owners retain technical configuration, integration development, and technical issue resolution.
Personally resolve complex operational blockers and senior retailer escalations, securing decisions and maintaining momentum across parties outside the Director’s direct control.
Deliver consistent onboarding and activation experiences that reduce implementation timelines and accelerate time-to-value.
Drive retailer adoption, engagement, sustained transaction usage, satisfaction, retention, and expansion opportunities.
Establish usage expectations, success metrics, and customer health indicators; identify underperforming locations and lead recovery plans with clear ownership and timelines.
Translate TruAge’s value into practical outcomes for retailer operations and store teams through frontline training, change management, and ongoing adoption support.
Develop customer success programs and executive business reviews that demonstrate results, strengthen retailer relationships, and cultivate reference customers and industry advocates.
Partner with Technology, Product, Marketing, Government Relations, and Operations to prioritize retailer feedback, improve workflows, eliminate operational friction, and build or revise scalable processes, playbooks, and standard operating procedures.
Use available onboarding tools, technical documentation, and training resources, developing additional tools as needed.
Establish KPIs, dashboards, forecasting, and operational reporting to monitor activation performance and customer health.
Produce reliable location-level activation forecasts, explain forecasts, identify systemic causes or opportunities, and implement corrective actions.
Establish common reporting definitions for locations committed, configured, live, and actively transacting, and track sustained adoption alongside new activations.
Build and lead a customer-facing organization responsible for retailer recruitment and activation, onboarding and implementation, government-relations liaison work related to state legislation and data privacy coalitions, customer support and technical coordination, adoption and lifecycle management, and continuous improvement.
Own activation strategy, priorities, resource planning, team performance, and escalations; delegate day-to-day retailer progression and deployment coordination to the Activation & Growth Manager with clear decision rights and accountability.
Coach and develop the Activation & Growth Manager and wider team, establish consistent working standards, and identify the skills and staffing needed to scale.