Sr Dir, Customer Success

Palo Alto Networks

5d • Remote

About The Position

As a Sr. Director, Account Health Management, you will be a key leader within the Palo Alto Networks Global Customer Service (GCS) organization, responsible for leading the Account Health Team across NAM. This high-impact role will focus on driving customer engagement and excellence for Palo Alto Networks' most strategic customers. The Account Health Team comprises Service Delivery Leaders and Customer Success Managers. This team collectively acts as the Voice of the Customer, managing post-sale services engagements for these top-tier clients, leading services engagements to deliver value by driving adoption and consumption across the Palo Alto Networks’ Security platform. Your role will involve managing and mentoring this team, focusing on employee morale, development initiatives, and effectively driving success metrics and KPIs for both the managers and their teams. You will ensure your team effectively supports customers in maximizing the security and value of their investments in Palo Alto Networks products. Ultimately, you will contribute to the broader GCS mission of ensuring all customers are reliably deployed, fully adopted, technically healthy, and achieving value from their Palo Alto Networks investments. This position requires a strategic mindset and the ability to effectively communicate and influence at senior levels, both internally within the organization and externally with customers. This includes engaging closely with key customer stakeholders such as CISOs, CIOs, CTOs, and leaders from security, network, cloud, and security operations teams within the world’s largest and most well-known organizations. You will also need to build strong cross-functional interlocks and operating cadences with Sales, Product, and Technical Consulting teams in your Area.

Requirements

• 10+ years of professional experience in a high-growth SaaS/Cloud Enterprise Organization or similar, including at least 5+ years in a leadership capacity.
• Demonstrated experience leading global direct/indirect teams of 10+ in customer success, professional services, and/or support organizations.
• Proven track record of managing quantified metrics and execution programs to deliver exceptional results and customer satisfaction.
• Extensive customer-facing experience in senior roles, including the ability to effectively communicate and influence C-level executives and various levels of technical and non-technical depth within client teams.
• Expertise in managing customer escalations, balancing customer expectations, and negotiating successful resolutions.
• Experience leading teams to deliver large technology programs to strategic customers, with expertise in 2+ of the following areas: Network Security, Cloud Security, Product Development, Security Operations, or DevSecOps.
• Proven ability to work effectively in a highly matrixed and fast-growing organization, building strong working relationships across multiple functions and mediating conflict.
• A strategic mindset with P&L/Run the Business experience, capable of scaling operations, and strong operational, analytical, and problem-solving skills with a track record of driving transformational improvements.
• Thought leadership and the ability to anticipate and quickly adapt to changing customer and company needs.
• Proven ability to develop customer relationships, understand their businesses, and develop a shared vision for accelerating their business success.
• STEM Bachelor’s Degree required or equivalent experience

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree preferred.
• Client-focused program management expertise preferred.
• Skilled in customer success software (e.g., Gainsight, Salesforce, Smartsheet, Clarizen, Jira) preferred.

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Development: Manage and mentor a team of Service Delivery Leaders and Customer Success Managers. Foster team cohesiveness, focusing on employee morale and development initiatives to promote internal retention. Set team goals aligned with overall organizational objectives, and provide regular performance feedback to direct reports. Build a growth mindset-oriented culture that promotes diversity, continuous improvement, a sense of urgency, and customer outcomes. Inspire and attract top talent to your team.
• Account Health Management & Customer Outcomes: Lead the Account Health Team to drive customer engagement and excellence for top-tier customers in the region. Act as a single accountable post-sales leader for customer outcomes, partner execution, and day-to-day post-sales execution and operations in your geography. Accountable for executive engagement, account health, and risk mitigation. Oversee customer planning, deployment, account-level reviews, and escalations. Maintain executive relationships and act as an escalation point to ensure stakeholder alignment and provide proactive, prescriptive advice for outstanding Customer Success. Handle all escalations, executive engagement, and at-risk account interventions. Drive success metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to effectively manage Customer Account Health Managers and their teams. Track and report on customer success metrics, including net promoter score, customer satisfaction, service level agreements, and value realization.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Business Leadership: Lead the communication channel into the business, manage business change, and drive process improvements. Partner with Sales teams to develop success plans, assess customer health, identify expansion opportunities, and ensure renewals. Engage with Professional Services for implementations and extended expertise deployments. Partner with Sales and Product field leaders to drive adoption and retention. Engage and coordinate customer delivery across Palo Alto Networks teams, including Product Management, Engineering, and Support. Build strong cross-functional interlocks and operating cadences with Sales, Product, and Technical Consulting teams in your area. Ensure consistent application of global playbooks per product. Provide field feedback and interlock with Product/Engineering. Align with Support, which is globally owned but locally deployed.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager