Director - Client Specialist

Job ID: 26013335Posted: 2026-09-17Location: Phoenix, AZ, United States; Sunrise, FL, United StatesSalary: $107250 - $196750 annually + sales incentive + equity (if applicable) + benefitsJob Function: SalesSchedule: Full timeShift: DayCareer Area: Sales & Relationship ManagementCompany: American ExpressDescriptionAmerican Express is the leading payment card issuer for small businesses in the United States and supports business owners with products and services to help them run and grow their businesses. Global Commercial Services (GCS) is committed to service and innovation and offers our Commercial Card Members a wide range of differentiated products and services.GCS is the Global leader in the Corporate Payments Solutions space and subsequently continues to be an exciting and fast-growing business. GCS is a core operating group of American Express and has delivered robust growth over the past decade. GCS partners with small businesses and corporate clients to help them manage business expenses and make large purchases through proprietary payment solutions and expense management tools.The Director, Client Specialist Team will lead a high-impact client engagement organization responsible for strengthening relationships, supporting prioritized clients, resolving complex escalations, and driving measurable commercial outcomes. This leader will modernize how CST supports clients by combining consultative relationship management, disciplined escalation ownership, data-driven prioritization, and scalable engagement models that improve retention, deepen customer value, and expand spend opportunities.This role requires a strategic operator who can lead through complexity, anticipate client needs, and deploy the right resources at the right moments. The Director will oversee teams that support unmanaged, high-value, and strategically important clients across multiple segments, ensuring the organization delivers timely, consistent, and differentiated support while identifying opportunities to improve the end-to-end client experience.Success in this role requires strong enterprise leadership, commercial judgment, executive communication, and the ability to influence across Sales, Risk, Credit, Servicing, Product, Marketing, Operations, and other partners. The Director will act as a senior advocate for clients and colleagues, using customer feedback, portfolio trends, frontline insights, and emerging tools—including automation, analytics, and AI-enabled capabilities—to shape solutions, remove friction, and deliver a coordinated, world-class client experience.Responsibilities• Set the vision, priorities, and operating strategy for the Client Specialist Team, including service standards, escalation protocols, performance expectations, and resource alignment.• Own key client and business outcomes across the portfolio, including retention, spend growth, client satisfaction, engagement quality, sales effectiveness, and escalation resolution.• Strengthen consultative client engagement by ensuring colleagues uncover customer needs, communicate value, navigate complex client dynamics, and identify opportunities to deepen relationships and grow spend.• Develop focused engagement strategies for priority client populations, including Vacant Portfolios, Political & Prominent, Top Client Referrals, and other strategically important segments.• Serve as the senior escalation owner for complex, sensitive, and high-value client situations, ensuring clear ownership, timely resolution, and balanced decisions across customer, commercial, risk, and enterprise priorities.• Champion the voice of the customer and frontline colleague by translating feedback, escalation themes, service trends, and portfolio insights into actionable recommendations.• Build strong cross-functional partnerships across Sales, Risk, Credit, Servicing, Product, Marketing, Operations, Technology, and other teams to remove barriers and create scalable solutions.• Modernize and scale the CST operating model through improved segmentation, coverage strategy, workflows, reporting, colleague enablement, automation, analytics, and AI-enabled tools.• Maintain a strong control and compliance environment, including adherence to policies, procedures, privacy expectations, regulatory requirements, and responsible use of data and technology.QualificationsKnowledge and Skills• Strategic and commercial leadership, with the ability to translate business priorities into clear plans and measurable outcomes.• Strong client relationship management, consultative engagement, retention, growth, and escalation resolution capabilities.• Business, financial, and portfolio acumen, including the ability to use data and insights to identify opportunities and make informed trade-offs.• Executive communication and influence, with the ability to align senior stakeholders across organizational boundaries.• Proven people leadership, including leading through leaders, developing talent, and building high-performing teams.• Transformation mindset, with experience simplifying processes, leveraging technology, and scaling capabilities responsibly.• Strong judgment, risk awareness, and commitment to compliance, customer treatment, and responsible decision-making.Leadership Attributes• Enterprise mindset with strong customer and colleague advocacy.• Strategic thinker who can balance long-term direction with disciplined execution.• Commercially oriented leader focused on measurable outcomes.• Change leader who challenges the status quo and brings others along.• Talent-focused leader who builds capability and develops future leaders.• Accountable, collaborative, and comfortable leading through ambiguity.• Data- and technology-aware leader who uses emerging tools to improve client and team outcomes.Experience• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience; advanced degree preferred.• Significant experience in sales, client management, client success, commercial strategy, service leadership, portfolio management, or related disciplines.• Proven experience leading high-performing teams, developing leaders, and building organizational capability.• Demonstrated success driving client and business performance across retention, growth, client experience, escalation quality, and operational execution.• Strong track record influencing senior stakeholders and leading complex cross-functional initiatives.• Experience operating in a highly regulated environment.• Experience leading or transforming inside sales, client engagement, client success, service recovery, escalation management, or similar capabilities strongly preferred.• Demonstrated ability to use data, customer insights, digital tools, and commercial judgment to shape strategy and scale effectiveness.Depending on factors such as business unit requirements, the nature of the position, cost and applicable laws, American Express may provide visa sponsorship for certain positions.