Principal Customer Success Manager – Public Sector

The Principal Customer Success Manager (CSM) is responsible for managing a portfolio of high-value, strategic customers, building, and maintaining strong, long-term business relationships. As the trusted advisor, the Principal CSM builds relationships with all customer stakeholders (up to the CXO level) and ensures customers derive tangible value from the company’s solutions. Principal CSMs in this role are seasoned, consultative business advisors who bring solution expertise and ensure the adoption of the most appropriate products, services, and strategies to help customers achieve and expand upon their desired outcomes.Throughout the Fortra customer lifecycle, the Principal CSM acts as the customers advocate. They work closely with customers to identify business challenges and opportunities, proposing tailored Fortra solutions. By fostering strong executive-level relationships, the Principal CSM gains deep insights into customers' industries, businesses, and operations, positioning themselves as a trusted advisor. They manage customer escalations, share market trends and key insights, and proactively present opportunities to introduce innovative technologies and services to support customers' evolving business needs.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Cybersecurity Knowledge: Maintains a strong understanding of the company’s solutions and emerging cybersecurity trends to offer valuable insights to customers and protect their interests.
• Solution Expertise: Provides expert guidance on product capabilities, ensuring solutions are customized to fit customer-specific needs and industry requirements. Prescribes the adoption and use of product features, functionality, and services to help customers achieve their desired outcome goals.
• Value Communication: Clearly articulates the return on investment (ROI) and long-term business impact of the company’s solutions to help customers achieve their strategic objectives.
• Customer Journey Management: Establishes and manages the customer journey, ensuring each phase—from onboarding to renewal—drives satisfaction, adoption, and retention. Understands customers' business drivers and success criteria to develop and advise on tailored Customer Success Plans.
• Data Analysis and Insights: Develops strategic recommendations based on comprehensive data insights, identifying trends, risks, and opportunities to improve and enhance customer outcomes, guide and influence decision-making and advance customer success strategies.
• Action Plan Execution: Develops and implements tailored action plans based on customer goals, ensuring alignment with both customer objectives and internal business strategies.
• Customer Health Ownership: Maintains high customer retention and recurring revenue retention rates. Manages customer satisfaction, ensuring an exceptional customer experience throughout the customer Creates and maintains referenceable and healthy customers while establishing and maintaining executive-level customer relationships.
• Stakeholder Management: Fosters strong relationships across customer organizations, collaborating with stakeholders from frontline teams to executive leadership to align company solutions with customer goals. Partners with executive-level customers to identify business challenges and develop tailored solutions by promoting Fortra offerings. Works closely with Sales Engineers and Account Executives to design solutions, create account plans, and identify cross-selling opportunities within Fortra’s portfolio to meet performance and revenue targets.
• Customer Outcome Focus: Ensures customer success by aligning product value with desired business outcomes, fostering long-term partnerships and customer advocacy.
• Communication Skills: Delivers clear, impactful presentations tailored to various audiences, ensuring complex topics are understood by both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Actively participates in diagnosing and resolving escalated customer concerns, serving as the leadership focal point for communication of outcomes and troubleshooting in critical situations.
• Empathy and Engagement: Manages complex customer relationships with empathy, engaging customers on a personal level to better understand their needs and provide timely solutions. Develops and maintains strong relationships with assigned customers, gaining insight into their industry, business, and operations, and serving as a trusted advisor to key influencers and decision-makers.
• Sense of Urgency: Prioritizes customer needs and responds swiftly to any potential risks or challenges, ensuring quick resolution of issues to maintain high satisfaction levels.
• Attention to Detail: Ensures accuracy and consistency in all customer deliverables, maintaining high-quality standards in both communication and strategy execution. Regularly updates CRM and tools with new opportunities, current account details, and other relevant business information.
• Upsell and Expansion Opportunities: Identify and nurture upsell opportunities, collaborating with the sales team to drive additional business from existing accounts.
• Customer Feedback Loop: Collect and communicate customer feedback to internal teams, ensuring the company’s solutions continue to evolve in line with customer needs.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Responsible for cross-departmental influence with sales, product, and services teams to ensure successful onboarding, proactive support, and alignment of strategic solutions to add significant business value to align with customer requirements and business outcomes.
• Mentorship: Assists CSM team members by sharing best practices and offering guidance to promote high performance within the customer success function. Provides training and mentorship to less experienced CSMs, helping them develop their skills and improve their performance.
• Special Projects: Lead special projects aimed at enhancing customer engagement, optimizing processes, or contributing to broader business initiatives.
• Strategic Account Management: Take ownership of high-value and strategic customer accounts, working closely with these customers to identify opportunities for growth and maintaining executive-level alignment on goals and value.
• Risk and Churn Mitigation: Proactively identifies potential churn risks and implements proactive strategies to address them. Drives actions with cross-functional teams to resolve critical issues and minimize customer attrition. Responsible for Strategic customers customer risk mitigation and developing and executing risk mitigation plans to ensure long-term customer retention.
• Process Optimization and Best Practices: Develop, implement, and refine best practices, methods, and processes that enhance the efficiency and scalability of the Customer Success team, driving consistency in outcomes across accounts.
• Customer Health Metrics and Reporting: Regularly assess and report on customer health metrics, providing insights on account status, retention risks, and growth opportunities to upper management.
• Strategy and Collaboration: Develops and executes customer success strategies at the organizational level, working closely with C-suite leaders and managers to ensure alignment with business objectives that will drive key company initiatives, increasing revenue, improving operations, or enhancing customer satisfaction. Schedules and leads regular meeting cadence and executive business reviews with customers, focusing on the customer’s business and key initiatives, providing product and feature updates on Fortra offerings to deliver on the customer key business objectives and create success plans to outline strategies.  Ensure key subject matter experts and other relevant stakeholders are engaged to provide the intimate direction needed for the customer’s strategic discussions.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Minimum length of time in current role: Typically, 10 to 12 years
• Related work experience: 15 years of related experience in strategic account management/customer success management in a technical environment
• Education requirements: Typically requires a bachelor's degree with 15 years of experience; or an advanced degree with 12 years of experience; or equivalent
• Excellent presentation, written, and oral communication skills
• Possesses strong interpersonal skills, high energy, and enthusiasm, paired with unwavering integrity and authenticity. Demonstrates flexibility, results-oriented focus, resourcefulness, and exceptional problem-solving abilities. Excels in managing demanding situations and effectively prioritizing tasks.
• Strong organizational and time management skills with the ability to manage multiple projects
• Cross functional leadership and team coordination skills
• Ability to gain credibility, motivate and provide leadership; work with a diverse customer base; maintain a positive attitude.
• Proven ability to navigate difficult and complex customer concerns with ease
• Creative problem-solver who acts confidently – spearheading solutions to problems that arise
• Proven ability to thoroughly investigate and resolve issues resourcefully before escalating
• Subject matter expert in multiple brands
• Exhibited exceptional negotiation and persuasion skills, combined with unwavering tenacity
• Account ownership and ability to effectively navigate all levels, including executive levels, of client organizations to build strategic, healthy business relationships
• Able and willing to travel on-site for customer visits as required by the business (up to 25%)

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