Vice President, Global Customer Experience & AI-Powered Support

Zendesk • San Francisco, CA

11d • Hybrid

About The Position

Join us at Zendesk, where we're on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet. We're accelerating that ambition by building products rooted in AI, automation, and intelligent customer experiences, because behind every interaction lies an opportunity to make a human connection. The Opportunity Lead Zendesk’s global customer support organization as we define the future of AI-powered customer experience. This is not a traditional support leadership role. You will build and govern a global, AI-orchestrated support model that combines intelligent automation, expert human support, knowledge operations, and premium services to deliver exceptional customer outcomes, improve retention, and establish Zendesk as the industry benchmark for AI-native CX. As a senior member of the Global CX leadership team, you will operate at the intersection of Product, Engineering, Sales, Customer Success, Renewals, and Finance. You will transform our highest-volume customer touchpoint into a strategic source of customer intelligence, product insight, and commercial value.

Requirements

• 20+ years of progressive leadership experience in enterprise SaaS, technology, or consulting, including 10+ years leading global, multi-functional teams.
• Proven experience leading large-scale transformation within complex, enterprise customer support environments.
• Experience operating and optimizing AI-powered support or service systems at production scale, including resolution, escalation, quality, and feedback mechanisms.
• Deep expertise leading global, 24/7 technical support organizations serving complex enterprise customers.
• Direct experience owning or scaling a revenue-generating support/Premier business, including P&L, commercial strategy, and capacity planning.
• Strong understanding of knowledge operations and how knowledge architecture influences AI resolution quality.
• Demonstrated success leading organizational transformation, role redesign, reskilling, and workforce evolution.
• Strong commercial and financial fluency, including NRR, cost-per-resolution, deflection, and support economics.
• Executive-level influence with the ability to align Product, Engineering, Sales, Success, Renewals, and Finance without relying on formal authority.
• Hands-on familiarity with Zendesk and AI-enabled support technologies, analytics, and operational intelligence.

Nice To Haves

• Transformed global support organizations through AI and automation.
• Built and scaled monetized or premium technical support businesses.
• Led AI governance, knowledge operations, or service transformation at enterprise scale.
• Operated complex technical support environments across cloud, security, developer platforms, or other sophisticated technology ecosystems.
• Bridged Product, Operations, and Customer Experience to translate customer signals into business and product outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Own the performance and evolution of Zendesk’s AI-powered support model across email, messaging, voice, and self-service.
• Drive autonomous resolution, deflection quality, CSAT, FCR, SLA performance, and cost-per-resolution.
• Define effective AI-to-human escalation strategies and seamless handoffs.
• Establish AI quality, risk, and governance frameworks, including response standards and hallucination mitigation.
• Build feedback loops that turn resolution failures and escalation patterns into improvements to AI, workflows, and knowledge.
• Use predictive analytics and operational telemetry to identify emerging support needs, customer risks, and opportunities for proactive resolution.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to provide production-scale evidence that informs AI capabilities, configuration, governance, and roadmap priorities.
• Lead a 300+ person global advocate organization delivering 24/7 technical support across segments, channels, and regions.
• Evolve the organization from volume-based support to complexity-based, specialist-led resolution.
• Build career paths, competency frameworks, and operating models for an AI-augmented workforce.
• Maintain high standards for customer outcomes, quality, SLA performance, and enterprise escalations.
• Establish modern AI-assisted quality and coaching frameworks focused on resolution effectiveness rather than procedural compliance.
• Design segment-calibrated service models that balance efficient AI-first support with high-touch expertise for Commercial and Enterprise customers.
• Serve as the executive authority for high-sensitivity customer escalations and critical customer moments.
• Own the strategy, operations, and P&L for Zendesk’s monetized Premier support business.
• Define differentiated support offerings and value propositions for enterprise customers.
• Drive revenue growth while maintaining world-class service delivery.
• Establish pricing, capacity, and commercial operating models in partnership with Finance, Sales, Renewals, and Customer Success.
• Develop outcome-based metrics demonstrating the relationship between premium support, adoption, retention, and customer ROI.
• Equip Sales and Solutions Consulting with validated operational proof points that strengthen the enterprise sales motion.
• Build the knowledge and intelligence infrastructure required to support AI at scale and make Zendesk our most credible customer reference.
• Establish Knowledge Operations as a disciplined, performance-managed function.
• Create governance for taxonomy, semantic structure, content quality, and freshness.
• Use AI interaction and escalation data to identify and remediate knowledge gaps.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to optimize retrieval and AI consumption of knowledge.
• Lead Zendesk’s internal Center of Excellence, using our own platform in production to validate capabilities and generate evidence-based product feedback.
• Turn operational learnings and measurable results into implementation playbooks and customer-facing proof points.
• Create a unified operating model across Customer Experience and the broader business.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to translate customer interaction data into roadmap priorities and systemic product improvements.
• Work with Customer Success and Renewals to connect support performance to retention and NRR.
• Partner with Sales to strengthen the commercial value proposition of premium support.
• Work with Finance to optimize investment across AI and human resolution models and maintain disciplined P&L management.
• Establish clear operating cadences, dashboards, KPIs, and accountability mechanisms that drive continuous improvement.
• Represent Zendesk externally as a practitioner and thought leader in AI-powered CX.

Benefits

• Competitive executive package including performance-based incentives and meaningful equity.
• Hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.
• US annualized base salary range for this position is $289,000.00-$433,000.00.
• This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed