VP Professional Services & Support

VP of Professional Services & Support

Location: Latham, NY in-office presence required
Reports To: General Manager & VP for Transportation

This is an opportunity for a dynamic leader who wants to be at the heart of the public sector software industry. As our VP of Professional Services & Support, you'll be the go-to leader ensuring that our K12 transportation customers don't just adopt our solutions - they thrive with them. You'll be working directly with our General Manager, Director of Sales and Senior Director of Development to drive successful adoption of the industry-leading for school bus fleets of 20 to 20,000 vehicles.

The Vice President of Professional Services & Support is responsible for overseeing the strategic vision, execution, and continuous improvement of our customer-facing services and support operations. This role involves leading teams dedicated to implementation, project management, onboarding, training, customer success, and product support to ensure customer satisfaction, retention, and success with our solutions. The VP will collaborate with Development, Sales and other internal teams to align services and support with overall company objectives.

To serve our clients well you will need to know our clients and partners well. As the VP of Professional Services & Support you will invest energy getting out into the market, meeting with clients and partners, attending tradeshows, user conferences and more – often being seen as the face of our K12 transportation business to those who depend on our technology in their daily operations.

While you need to deeply understand business operations and software technology, you also need to be a passionate people leader to thrive in this role and be someone who loves mentoring and inspiring people to achieve greatness. Your focus will be on cultivating a collaborative, customer-first culture where innovation flourishes, and challenges become opportunities.

Responsibilities

1. Strategic Leadership:
   Develop and execute a comprehensive strategy for professional services, onboarding, and customer support that aligns with the company's goals.
   o Drive innovation in service delivery and support models to enhance customer satisfaction and retention.
   o Establish metrics and KPIs to measure the success of the services and support functions.
2. Team Leadership and Development:
   o Lead, mentor, and develop high-performing teams across services and support functions for our K12 transportation software and telematics customers
   oFoster a culture of customer-centricity, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
   o Recruit, retain, and develop top talent to build scalable operations.
3. Customer Experience:
   o Ensure a seamless customer journey from project kick off to ongoing support.
   o Act as an advocate for customers, working to resolve issues and improve processes that impact the customer experience.
   o Regularly gather and analyze customer feedback to inform improvements.
4. Operational Excellence:
   o Optimize workflows, tools, and processes to enhance efficiency and service quality.
   o Manage budgets and resources to achieve operational goals and financial targets.
   o Leverage technology, including project accounting, CRM and support tools, to improve service delivery.
5. Collaboration and Alignment:
   o Partner with Sales, Development and other internal teams to align goals, share insights, and optimize the customer journey.Collaborate with Tyler’s Chief Client Officer to help create programs that drive customer engagement and loyalty.
   o Contribute to product development by:
   1. Having a constant awareness of client and partner needs gathered through routine interactions with those stakeholders.
      2. Sharing insights and feedback from customer interactions.
      3. Acting as a key stakeholder in the product development lifecycle, helping to ensure alignment between customer needs and product features.
      4. Collaborating with product management teams to prioritize customer-driven enhancements and bug fixes.
      5. Participating in product release planning to ensure seamless rollout and adoption of new features.
6. Financial Responsibilities:
   o Manage the P&L to meet revenue, expense and margin objectives/targets.
   o Ensure accurate budgeting, forecasting, and planning according to the vision/strategy/objectives.
   o Measure efficiency across entire team operations, execution, delivery, customer contracts, planning, budgeting/forecasting, revenue tracking, and implementation management.
   o Assist the sales and development teams (when needed and appropriate) in key contract negotiations.
   o Monitor and measure profitability by project.
7. Administration Responsibilities:
   o Conduct performance management evaluations of staff in accordance with the Divisional Performance Factors (performance evaluations, discipline, hiring/firing, compensation) and timelines
   oDevelop a training and assessment plan to educate the services staff on their respective product suite.
   o Evaluate/enhance/update and enforce all policies/procedures to identify inefficiencies and potential threats/problem

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, technology, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• 12+ years of experience in customer support, professional services, or related roles, with 7+ years in senior leadership positions.
• Proven track record of scaling service and support operations in a software or technology environment.
• Strong strategic thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal abilities.
• Familiarity with SaaS business models, customer lifecycle management, and related technologies.
• Passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences.
• Solid technical implementation management skills, with hands-on expertise in deploying complex solutions for enterprise clients.
• Excited to be in-office with your peers; required to work in our Latham NY office 4x a week to stay closely connected with our teams and collaborate in person.
• Ability to manage powerful client personalities with strong executive presence and help teams find collaborative solutions to meet needs for diverse stakeholders
• Strong presentation skills in both written content and video content.
• Action oriented and willing/able to function in a continually transforming environment.
• Clear thinker, with a structured approach to identifying and solving problems.
• Willingness to travel 8-12 times per year for important events or customer meetings.