VP of Customer Success

uConnect is on a mission to help more people realize their potential by improving access to career services for all people - early in their lives and throughout their careers. Initially focused on the traditional higher education market, uConnect's All-In-One Virtual Career Center is used by a wide range of institutions including UCLA, MIT, and Baton Rouge Community College to radically improve utilization of career services, career readiness and student outcomes. 
We're a mission-driven team working in a fun and collaborative culture which puts people first. We have a physical office in Cambridge, MA but operate as a fully remote organization, encouraging mobility, and for all employees to work from their ideal environment. uConnect is backed by leading technology investors including Growth Street Partners, Strada Education and LearnLaunch.

As the VP Customer Success at uConnect, you will lead a high-performing team focused on delivering exceptional client experiences across the full customer lifecycle, from onboarding through renewal, expansion, and support. You will be responsible for delivering measurable customer outcomes, driving net revenue retention and ensuring exceptional customer experiences at scale. 
You’ll define and execute the strategy that aligns customer goals with uConnect’s mission, enabling your team to deliver consistent, high-impact engagements across customer lifecycle. This is a strategic and hands-on operational role, you will design and implement programs that drive product adoption, customer engagement, renewal execution and expansion opportunities, all while continuously improving internal processes and operational efficiency. 
You'll work closely with cross-functional teams to champion the voice of the customer and ensure we have the systems, playbooks, tools and data in place to deliver consistent, repeatable success at scale. 

Strategy & Execution

• Own and execute customer success strategy across onboarding, account management and customer support to maximize revenue retention and drive expansion and product adoption
• Define key performance indicators (NRR, upsells, renewal rate, CSAT, time to value) and implement repeatable playbooks to achieve them 
• Roll up your sleeves to build processes, write content, or jump in on key renewals when needed, this role is both strategic and operational 

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Sales, Product, and Marketing to align customer needs, expansion opportunities, budget priorities and value realization 
• Act as voice of customer in roadmap discussions, renewal forecasting, and company planning
• Work with leadership team on customer strategy and high-risk accounts

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high performing team made up of Onboarding Manager, CSMs, and Customer Support
• Be a player-coach, model expectations, give direct feedback, and jump in to support team execution when necessary 
• Develop and manage team to performance standards that support scale and customer outcomes 
• Model best-in-class objection handling and renewal conversations, support team directly on high-risk accounts while coaching confidence and ownership

Customer Experience & Operations

• Own full lifecycle of customer support operations from triage to resolution, including ticketing, SLAs, escalation process, and day-to-day queue 
• Implement tools and systems to improve team operations, efficiency, visibility and responsiveness
• Continuously improve internal workflows, engagement models, and self service resources to deliver great customer experience 

Required Skills & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in business, communications, marketing, or a related field. 
• 8+ years of experience leading and scaling high-performing Customer Success teams and driving retention strategies, including at least 3+ years in a senior or leadership capacity. Proven ability to lead/manage onboarding, CSM and support functions in rapidly changing SaaS environment 
• Player-coach leadership style with a track record of both strategic design and hands-on execution, including leading and managing escalations, renewal conversations and customer objection handling. 
• Experience building and scaling customer lifecycle strategics, segmentation models, and engagement framework that drives retention, product adoption and revenue growth.
• Operational expertise implementing processes, tooling, and systems (e.g., Vitally, hubspot, Gong) to scale customer success, optimize support delivery and measure impact via KPIs. 
• Strong leadership presence and collaboration skills, proven ability to influence Pr