Senior Account & Relationship Executive

Wolters Kluwer•Houston, TX

About The Position

The Account Manager protects and grows the commercial relationship across an assigned portfolio of Wolters Kluwer ELM customers. This senior individual-contributor role owns renewal and expansion strategy, opportunity execution, pricing, contracting, revenue forecasting, and commercial account planning. The Account Manager acts as a strategic commercial advisor to General Counsel, Legal Operations, Finance, Procurement, and Technology stakeholders, developing an understanding of customer priorities, buying processes, competitive environments, and growth potential to shape renewal and expansion strategies. The role anticipates commercial risk and opportunity, mobilizes cross-functional resources, and influences outcomes without direct authority. Customer Success leads the customer success plan, adoption, customer health, value realization, and risk recovery; Account Management leads renewal execution, expansion, pricing, contracting, and the commercial forecast. The Account Manager partners with Customer Success and teams across Technical Account Management, Support, Product, Professional Services, Solution Consulting, Finance, and Legal to coordinate customer strategy and deliver commercial commitments.

Requirements

7+ years of progressive experience in Account Management, Sales, Customer Success, Enterprise Software, or a related customer-facing discipline.
5+ years managing strategic, complex, or enterprise customer relationships.
Demonstrated experience owning renewals, expansion opportunities, pricing, and commercial negotiations.
Proven ability to retain and grow complex enterprise customer relationships.
Experience developing and executing strategic account plans.
Experience managing complex procurement, legal, and contracting cycles.
Experience building business cases and value propositions for enterprise software investments.
Experience forecasting recurring revenue and managing renewal and expansion pipeline.
Demonstrated ability to engage credibly with senior executives, economic buyers, and functional leaders.
Experience identifying and addressing competitive threats and account risk.
Strong negotiation, executive communication, presentation, and relationship-management skills.
Strong operational discipline and experience using CRM systems and structured sales methodologies.
Experience leading cross-functional teams in a SaaS or enterprise software environment.
Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and internal teams without direct authority.

Nice To Haves

Experience in Legal Operations, Legal Technology, Enterprise Legal Management, eBilling, Matter Management, CLM, ERP, Procurement, or Financial Systems.
Experience supporting Fortune 1000 or similarly complex global enterprise customers.
Familiarity with corporate legal department operations, including legal spend management, outside counsel management, matter management, and legal operations.
Experience selling or expanding enterprise SaaS platforms, data, analytics, AI, or professional services.
Experience managing competitive displacement, account defense, or complex renewal situations.
Experience working in highly regulated industries or complex global stakeholder environments.
Experience partnering with Customer Success teams on adoption, value realization, customer health, and retention.
Experience working within a highly matrixed global organization.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute commercial account plans and establish renewal, retention, and expansion objectives for assigned customers.
Understand customer business priorities, commercial environment, buying process, competitive landscape, and stakeholder structure.
Maintain stakeholder maps and accurate, current account, opportunity, contact, and activity information in the CRM.
Identify revenue retention and growth risks and lead the appropriate commercial response.
Own renewal timelines, commercial strategy, forecasts, negotiations, contract execution, and close.
Begin renewal planning according to the established cadence and maintain mutual action plans through signature.
Use Customer Success insights on customer health, adoption, value realization, and risk to inform renewal strategy.
Develop pricing, term, packaging, and multiyear strategies that support customer value and company objectives.
Lead engagement with Procurement, Legal, Finance, and other commercial stakeholders, and coordinate internal approvals for pricing, concessions, contract terms, and deal structure.
Address competitive threats, commercial objections, and renewal barriers; share retention accountability with Customer Success while owning commercial execution and forecast accuracy.
Own expansion pipeline, opportunity strategy, commercial execution, and close within assigned accounts.
Qualify customer needs and expansion signals, lead discovery, and partner with relevant teams to develop business cases and value propositions.
Position WK ELM offerings, including Passport, TyMetrix 360°, LegalVIEW BillAnalyzer, Legal Collaborator, AI, and related products and services.
Expand relationships across Legal, Legal Operations, executive teams, Finance, Procurement, and Technology.
Maintain accurate expansion pipeline, close plans, next steps, and revenue forecasts; drive cross-sell, upsell, and aligned adoption of platforms, users, modules, data, AI capabilities, and services.
Build credible relationships with senior customer stakeholders and lead strategic commercial discussions about the long-term relationship.
Partner with Customer Success on Quarterly Business Reviews and Executive Business Reviews, leading commercial, renewal, and growth discussions.
Develop executive sponsorship and mobilize company leadership when executive engagement can advance retention or growth.
Understand customer organizational dynamics, decision criteria, budget cycles, and approval processes; represent the customer's commercial perspective internally.
Maintain complete, accurate, and timely renewal and expansion forecasts and apply required sales methodology, qualification standards, opportunity stages, and inspection cadence.
Create and maintain close plans and mutual action plans with clear owners, milestones, decision criteria, and dates; promptly communicate material changes to timing, value, probability, risk, or customer commitment.
Manage account pipeline coverage and progression, and deliver account updates, risk assessments, and recommended actions in forecast and executive reviews.
Align commercial account plans with customer success plans and value realization priorities, using customer insights to inform renewal and expansion decisions.
Coordinate with Technical Account Management, Support, Professional Services, Product, Marketing, Solution Consulting, Finance, Legal, and leadership to address service matters, customer needs, competitive intelligence, approvals, and agreements.
Establish clear ownership across internal teams, maintain a coordinated customer message, and influence cross-functional outcomes without direct authority.