Customer Excellence Area Lead

Job Description

Area Leads are responsible for ensuring the success, growth, and retention of customers within their assigned region. They lead and develop a team of Customer Success professionals to maximize customer value realisation, drive adoption, and support risk mitigation. They oversee staffing to ensure CS resources meet project delivery needs and career progression goals. Additionally, they inspire, mentor, and develop a high-performing team, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and professional growth. While they do not directly manage Expert Services, Success Hub or Sales teams, they are responsible for ensuring strong alignment and collaboration across these functions to deliver customer success. They navigate complex customer landscapes, mitigate risks, and influence key stakeholders to maintain strong, long-term relationships, acting as a primary contact for key customers as well as a point of escalation for all customers within their Area or Region. By fostering an outcome-driven approach, they ensure customers realize the full potential of the ServiceNow platform, supporting renewals and expansion opportunities while driving operational consistency across engagements.

What are the unique job responsibilities for this role?

Commercial Ownership:

• Own customer adoption, NPS, reduction of undeployed apps and mitigation of downsell and loss risk across customers in the assigned region/area
• Act as post-sales counterpart and point of contact for the aligned Sales area leader
• Directly own & manage relationships with strategically important customers, acting as a trusted advisor, navigating organizational complexities to drive long-term platform adoption and business value.

Customer Success Delivery:

• Ensure alignment between Customer Success, Expert Services, Success Hubs and Sales teams to orchestrate seamless customer success and Impact delivery.
• Oversee execution of Impact delivery via Success Hubs for the relevant customers in the area
• Operate as the executive sponsor for the senior customer relationships
• Oversee and resolve high-impact escalations, mitigating risks and ensuring consistent customer health across accounts.

Capability Development & People Management: 

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Customer Success professionals across multiple levels, fostering a high-performance culture and career progression.
• Manage headcount planning and resource management to efficiently deliver success products
• Stay up to date with market/industry trends and technologies to uplift delivery excellence e.g. use cases for AgenticAI etc.
• Participate in and encourage teams to participate in Geo and Global role excellence and community forums to ensure adherence to governance frameworks and consistent best practices

Decision Rights

• CEG Area Leads will hold decision rights over:
• Staffing and resourcing decisions for Impact squads serving customers in their assigned area
• Hiring of customer success resources, acting as the hiring manager for these roles
• Any decisions that may have a financial impact on the Geo P&L must be approved by the CEG Major Area and/or CEG Geo Lead.

Qualifications

To be successful in this role you have:

• Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI's potential impact on the function or industry.

Background and Experience

• A track record for building and growing a world-class organization through talent acquisition, onboarding, and retention, characterized by high productivity and excellent morale
• Proven market experience for the nominated Area or Region
• Experience with the enterprise and demonstrated leadership to make rapid decisions and problem-solving in this environment.
• Excels in navigating a highly collaborative and highly matrixed environment
• Proven experience building and running a business with the right operational skills
• Demonstrated success in building a Services, Customer Engagement or Partner Engagement function
• Proven experience in customer engagement and relationships, acting as advisor and key point of contact for key customers.

 Desired Skills/Experiences 

• Broad-based business and technology professional with 15+ years of experience leading a large, high-growth organization delivering software based business solutions to large and small enterprises in the areas of Sales, Marketing, or Services and Support
• 10+ years of work experience in a leadership position
• 5+ years of work experience in enterprise software within the nominated Major Area / Market
• 5+ years in experience in customer success or related role
• Experience in driving collaborative partnerships across SI’s and Channel partners
• Knowledge and experience across the ServiceNow landscape, with focus on customer success and services
• Can thrive in a demanding, fast-paced environment.
• Excellent leadership, management, and interpersonal skills.
• High EQ and ability to lead with positive influence.
• Ability to build an operating model with tools, processes and people to drive a scaled model for customer success.
• Detailed understanding of best practices for enterprise CRM systems and experience with complex CRM and IT deployments
• Ability to work independently and in a strong team environment, and to deliver on detail as well as strategy
• Passion for technology and innovation
• Strong understanding of Cloud / SaaS Computing and the business benefits;
• Excellent communication and presentation skills in German Language 
• Analytical and negotiation skills
• Strong understanding of business processes and their implementation into enterprise applications
• A technical degree or technical pedigree