Chief Operating Officer/Chief Experience Officer

Position Summary

Safeware is seeking a Chief Experience Officer based in Lanham, Maryland, reporting to the President, to lead and transform the full experience our customers have with the company, from first engagement through quote, order, delivery, and post-sale support.

Lanham, Maryland is in the greater Washington, D.C. area, and the person in this role should be located within a reasonable commuting distance of Safeware’s headquarters in Lanham as well as the company’s main distribution location in Columbia, Maryland. Many Safeware employees live in Prince George’s County, Anne Arundel County, Howard County, and other surrounding counties, making the role well suited for a leader based in the broader central Maryland and D.C. region.

Safeware is a sales‑led distribution organization serving customers nationwide, with the largest majority of its business centered on government and public sector accounts. While Safeware is often described as a distributor, the business is not currently built around a traditional inventory‑heavy distribution model. Much of the business is fulfilled through supplier drop‑ship relationships. As a result, customer experience depends not only on internal process excellence, but also on strong commercial discipline, cross‑functional coordination, supplier alignment, and clear communication. Importantly, leveraging traditional and emerging technologies will be a key to our future success.

This is a critical executive role at the intersection of customer strategy, commercial execution, operations, and business‑led technology modernization. The right leader will understand how to create a world‑class customer experience in a complex environment where customers are buying solutions, speed, trust, and accountability, and not simply products.

About Safeware

Founded in 1979, Safeware Inc. is a trusted distributor and service provider of safety products for use before, during, and after emergencies and in mission‑critical operations. Headquartered in Lanham, Maryland, with locations nationwide, Safeware is built on a foundation of dedicated professionals committed to protecting those who protect others. As the company continues to grow, it builds on a long‑standing reputation for expertise, responsiveness, strong relationships, and reliable execution.

Role Overview

The Chief Experience Officer is Safeware’s senior executive leader for the end‑to‑end customer journey, from the moment a customer engages with Safeware through order placement, fulfillment, and post‑sale support. This leader is accountable for customer experience outcomes and for the operational systems and cross‑functional coordination that make the Safeware brand promise real. This role sits at the intersection of customer experience, operations, and technology. The Chief Experience Officer does not need to be a technologist but must be a strategic technology leader who can set the vision, define business requirements, and hold vendors and internal partners accountable for outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Customer Experience Strategy and Ownership

• Define and own Safeware’s customer experience strategy, setting the standard for what it means to be the best and easiest company to do business within the markets Safeware serves.
• Own and drive customer experience outcomes across the full lifecycle, including satisfaction, retention, long‑term customer value, repeat business, and broader growth progress.
• Architect and deliver a fully integrated customer experience platform, including self‑service capabilities, AI‑enabled account support, e‑commerce excellence, and punch‑out marketplace functionality.
• Ensure Safeware’s brand promise is embedded into every customer touchpoint, so customers experience customization, accessible expertise, and frictionless purchasing.
• Use data, customer intelligence, and frontline insight to continuously improve the experience and build feedback loops that surface problems before they become losses.
• Provide consistent operational leadership for the company, and in particular the managers and employees tasked with operations within the company.

Sales‑Led Customer Journey

• Shape the customer experience.
• Ensure Safeware’s commercial model, sales process, service structure, and supporting workflows reflect the reality that customers buy solutions, expertise, responsiveness, and confidence, not just products.
• Partner closely with sales and marketing leadership to strengthen the experience from first touch through conversion, account development, and long‑term customer retention.
• Improve how customers navigate complex purchasing environments, including quoting, contracts, ordering, communication, and issue resolution.
• Ensure customer experience directly supports commercial growth and reinforces Safeware’s position as a trusted partner, not just a product source.

Customer Order Experience

• Own the full customer order experience, including order accuracy, issue resolution, shipment visibility, return rate reduction, and customer communication through delivery.
• Identify and eliminate friction in the fulfillment process, including manual steps, disconnected systems, poor handoffs, and communication gaps that create customer frustration.
• Drive integration of fulfillment data into the customer experience so customers always know where their orders are, what to expect next, and how issues will be resolved.
• Build the operating muscle required to support fulfillment at significant scale, including the processes, staffing models, supplier coordination, and technology needed to handle substantial growth.
• Lead improvement of the customer order process in a business where much of the volume is fulfilled through supplier drop‑ship relationships, requiring strong coordination across internal teams and external partners.

Technology Modernization as Business Owner

• Lead evaluation, selection, and implementation of a next‑generation e‑commerce platform to replace the current proprietary environment, with strong self‑service and punch‑out marketplace capabilities.
• Own CRM strategy from the business side, including integration into the broader operating environment and, if needed, selection and implementation of a replacement platform in partnership with technology leadership.
• Set business requirements and own outcome accountability for major modernization efforts, including Prophet 21 data work, e‑commerce evolution, CRM decisions, data strategy, and the development of customer‑facing and internal workflow tools, applications, dashboards, and other business‑enablement solutions.
• Champion Safeware’s AI strategy as a business leader, including AI‑powered customer intelligence, workflow automation, and practical productivity improvements across operations and service.
• Drive the design and adoption of business tools that improve visibility, execution, and decision‑making across the customer journey, including customer workflows, internal apps, dashboards, and related digital capabilities.
• Partner closely with technology leadership through ongoing transition and modernization efforts, providing input on future technology leadership needs.

Operational Continuity and Scale

• Take ownership of operational continuity, ensuring no disruption to customer service, fulfillment execution, and supply chain coordination.
• Capture and document critical institutional knowledge, preserving what works while identifying what must evolve to support the next stage of growth.
• Build and lead a high‑performing operations and customer experience team, with the bench strength required for succession, scale, and sustained execution.
• Build the operating discipline needed to support Safeware’s growth ambitions without compromising responsiveness, customer confidence, or service quality.

Executive Leadership and Cross‑Functional Partnership

• Model the Safeware Way, Wisdom, Accountability, Relationships, and Excellence, across every team and interaction.
• Serve as a true peer to leadership across sales and marketing, finance, technology, and HR.
• Work collaboratively across the executive team, taking direct responsibility for both sales growth and strong expense management through operational efficiency.
• Represent the voice of the customer in every strategic conversation and enterprise priority discussion.
• Lead through influence, judgment, and accountability, aligning functions that do not report directly to this role but materially shape the customer experience.

Candidate Profile

What We Are Looking For

The ideal candidate has done this before. They have taken a company’s customer experience from fragmented to best in class while simultaneously modernizing the operations behind it. They are tech strategic without needing to be technologists. They lead with values and deliver with accountability.

Experience and Qualifications

• 10+ years of senior leadership experience in distribution, including direct experience as an operation executive in a distribution environment, or in a closely adjacent industry.
• Demonstrated track record of building or transforming the customer experience end to end, not just improving scores, but redesigning the journey, the systems, and the team behind it.
• Hands‑on experience owning the customer order process, including accuracy, issue resolution, shipment visibility, and customer‑facing execution at scale.
• Experience leading or actively partnering on major platform modernization involving e‑commerce, CRM, ERP, data, or related systems.
• Track record of scaling an organization through significant revenue growth, ideally in the $200M to $500M+ range.
• Experience leading customer experience transformation that included self‑service, e‑commerce, digital buying, punch‑out capabilities, or similar customer‑facing improvements.
• Experience with Prophet 21 or similar ERP environments and familiarity with data, master data, or related business modernization efforts.
• Experience evaluating, selecting, implementing, or replacing customer‑facing platforms in a B2B environment.
• Public sector experience, including operating in, selling to, or understanding public procurement and contract vehicles, is strongly preferred.

Leadership Capabilities

• Customer obsessed with strong operational discipline.
• Able to hold customer experience and execution quality to the same high standard.
• Tech strategic mindset that sets vision, defines requirements, and holds partners accountable for outcomes.
• Strong relationship builder with executive peers, frontline teams, suppliers, channel partners, and customers.
• Financial fluency, including understanding of margin, lifetime value, cost to serve, and how customer experience investments translate to growth.
• Strong change leadership, able to move people through transformation without losing the culture that made Safeware successful.
• High accountability, and trusted through consistency rather than title.

Safeware is an equal opportunity employer.