Principal Customer Success Manager

Principal Customer Success Manager (CSM)

Whether you're an experienced professional or just getting started, your contributions matter at Fortra. If you're passionate about tackling meaningful challenges alongside talented team members committed to helping each other succeed, all while having lots of fun, we want to hear from you. We offer competitive benefits and salaries, personal and professional development opportunities, flexibility, and much more!

We are seeking an experienced and consultative Principal Customer Success Manager (CSM) to lead strategic engagements with a portfolio of high-value customers. In this role, you will serve as a trusted advisor to stakeholders at all levels, including the C-suite, ensuring customers realize sustained business value from our solutions. You will leverage your deep solution expertise and industry knowledge to identify opportunities, propose tailored strategies, and guide customers toward achieving and expanding their desired outcomes. As a senior leader in customer success, you will proactively manage escalations, foster executive relationships, and champion innovation to support customers' evolving business needs across the lifecycle.

Hiring in: Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Eden Prairie

What You'll Do

• Maintains a strong understanding of the company's solutions and emerging cybersecurity trends to offer valuable insights to customers and protect their interests.
• 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.
• Clearly articulates the return on investment (ROI) and long-term business impact of the company's solutions to help customers achieve their strategic objectives.
• 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.
• Develops strategic recommendations based on comprehensive data insights, identifying trends, risks, and opportunities to improve customer outcomes, influence decision-making, and advance customer success strategies.
• Develops and implements tailored action plans based on customer goals, ensuring alignment with both customer objectives and internal business strategies.
• Maintains high customer retention and recurring revenue retention rates.
• Manages customer satisfaction, ensuring an exceptional customer experience throughout the customer lifecycle.
• Creates and maintains referenceable and healthy customer relationships while establishing and maintaining executive-level customer partnerships.
• 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.
• Ensures customer success by aligning product value with desired business outcomes, fostering long-term partnerships and customer advocacy.
• 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, outcomes, and troubleshooting in critical situations.
• 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.
• Prioritizes customer needs and responds swiftly to potential risks or challenges, ensuring quick resolution of issues to maintain high satisfaction levels.
• 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.
• Identifies and nurtures upsell opportunities, collaborating with the sales team to drive additional business from existing accounts.
• Collects and communicates customer feedback to internal teams, ensuring the company's solutions continue to evolve in line with customer needs.
• Responsible for cross-departmental influence with Sales, Product, and Services teams to ensure successful onboarding, proactive support, and alignment of strategic solutions that deliver significant business value and support customer requirements and desired outcomes.
• Assists Customer Success 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 performance.
• Leads special projects aimed at enhancing customer engagement, optimizing processes, or contributing to broader business initiatives.
• Takes ownership of high-value and strategic customer accounts, working closely with customers to identify growth opportunities while maintaining executive-level alignment on goals and value realization.
• Proactively identifies potential churn risks and implements strategies to address them.
• Drives action across cross-functional teams to resolve critical issues and minimize customer attrition.
• Responsible for strategic customer risk mitigation, including developing and executing plans to ensure long-term customer retention.
• Develops, implements, and refines best practices, methodologies, and processes that enhance the efficiency and scalability of the Customer Success team, driving consistency in outcomes across accounts.
• Regularly assesses and reports on customer health metrics, providing insights on account status, retention risks, and growth opportunities to leadership.
• Develops and executes customer success strategies at the organizational level, working closely with C-suite leaders and managers to align initiatives with business objectives, including revenue growth, operational improvement, and customer satisfaction.
• Schedules and leads regular customer meetings and Executive Business Reviews (EBRs), focusing on customer business priorities and key initiatives, while providing product updates, strategic recommendations, and success plans.
• Ensures key subject matter experts and relevant stakeholders are engaged to provide the expertise and guidance needed for strategic customer discussions.
• Continuously refines and improves business analysis processes to enhance efficiency and customer outcomes.

Key Competencies

Innovation

• Generates creative, solution-focused ideas that drive improvement and add value.
• Challenges conventional thinking, learns from setbacks, and delivers enhanced outcomes.

Accountability

• Takes full ownership of assigned responsibilities, goals, and outcomes.
• Delivers high-quality work on time, with clear expectations and proactive communication.

Service Excellence

• Anticipates and responds to customer needs with professionalism, ensuring a positive and solution-oriented experience.
• Collaborates across teams and applies feedback to continuously improve service quality and customer satisfaction.

Teamwork

• Works collaboratively with team members to achieve shared goals and support team success.
• Values diverse perspectives and fosters an inclusive, respectful, and collaborative team culture.

Qualifications

• Minimum length of time in current role: Typically 10 to 12 years.
• 15+ years of related experience in Strategic Account Management, Customer Success Management, or a similar customer-facing role within a technical environment.
• Typically requires a bachelor's degree and 15+ years of experience, an advanced degree and 12+ years of experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Excellent presentation, written, and verbal communication skills.
• Strong interpersonal skills, high energy, and enthusiasm, coupled with integrity and authenticity.
• Demonstrated flexibility, results orientation, resourcefulness, and exceptional problem-solving abilities.
• Proven ability to manage demanding situations and effectively prioritize competing responsibilities.
• Strong organizational and time management skills with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Demonstrated cross-functional leadership and team coordination capabilities.
• Ability to establish credibility, motivate others, provide leadership, work effectively with a diverse customer base, and maintain a positive attitude.
• Proven ability to successfully navigate difficult and complex customer concerns.
• Creative problem-solver who confidently takes initiative and drives solutions.
• Proven ability to thoroughly investigate and resolve issues independently before escalating when necessary.
• Subject matter expertise across multiple products, solutions, or brands.
• Exceptional negotiation, influence, and persuasion skills, combined with persistence and tenacity.
• Strong account ownership with the ability to effectively engage stakeholders at all levels, including executive leadership, to