Director, Customer Retention

About the role

This senior leadership position is responsible for building and scaling a high‑impact customer retention organization within a fast‑growing SaaS environment. The role transforms customer care and support functions into a proactive, revenue‑protecting retention engine and owns the strategy and execution of lifecycle initiatives that drive activation, reduce churn, and improve long‑term customer value.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and scale multiple customer care and retention teams focused on proactive engagement, churn prevention, and value realization.
• Redesign the customer care function into a structured retention and de‑escalation organization.
• Develop and operationalize retention frameworks, playbooks, and workflows that improve activation and adoption.
• Own early‑lifecycle success, ensuring customers achieve value within the first 90 days.
• Identify at‑risk customers using behavioral and usage data and implement proactive intervention strategies.
• Partner cross‑functionally with Product, Customer Success, Support, Marketing, and Sales to improve the end‑to‑end experience.
• Translate frontline insights into actionable product improvements and business recommendations.
• Establish and manage retention KPIs such as NRR, GRR, churn rate, activation milestones, and escalation resolution metrics.
• Build scalable operating models, SOPs, and forecasting systems for revenue retention visibility.
• Lead workforce planning, capacity modeling, and organizational design for retention teams.

Required profile

• 12+ years of experience in customer success, retention, support, or lifecycle management within SaaS or high‑growth tech environments.
• 5+ years of experience managing managers and leading large, multi‑layered customer‑facing teams.
• Proven track record of improving Gross Revenue Retention and Net Revenue Retention through structured programs.
• Experience transforming reactive support organizations into proactive, revenue‑focused retention teams.
• Strong understanding of customer lifecycle metrics, including activation, onboarding success, and time‑to‑value.

Required skills