Head of Customer Retention - Carrier

Company Description

Zayo provides mission-critical bandwidth to the world’s most impactful companies, fueling the innovations that are transforming our society. Zayo’s 141,000-mile network in North America and Europe includes extensive metro connectivity to thousands of buildings and data centers. Zayo’s communications infrastructure solutions include dark fiber, private data networks, wavelengths, Ethernet, and dedicated Internet access. Zayo serves wireless and wireline carriers, media, tech, content, finance, healthcare and other large enterprises.

Zayo is seeking a Head of Customer Retention for the Carrier vertical who will lead Customer Retention leaders and Customer Account Managers accountable for the post-implementation customer relationship, recurring revenue, and customer continuity across Zayo's Carrier portfolio. This leader will set the strategy, operating model, and capabilities required to improve renewals, retention, churn, revenue preservation, lifecycle engagement, and expansion.

As the senior Customer Retention leader for the Carrier segment, this role owns customer health, revenue growth and preservation, gross and net revenue retention, renewal performance, churn performance to budget, and portfolio financial performance. The Head of Customer Retention will lead through Senior Managers, set clear performance expectations, and create a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.

This leader will partner with Sales and other senior Zayo leaders to translate customer insights, renewal and churn forecasts, commercial opportunities, financial objectives, and operational priorities into coordinated action. The role will sponsor strategic customer relationships and help shape Zayo's Carrier customer strategy.

Zayo is relentless in its pursuit of world-class customer excellence. As the senior Customer Retention leader for Carrier, you will be a critical driver of that ambition - building a scalable organization, developing exceptional leaders, strengthening strategic customer relationships, and delivering measurable growth and financial results.

Customer Retention Organization

The Customer Retention organization provides a world-class post-implementation lifecycle experience that anticipates customer needs, preserves recurring revenue, strengthens customer continuity, delivers measurable value, and exceeds expectations.

Working closely with Sales and teams across Sales Engineering, Commercial Operations, Finance, Billing, Legal, Deal Management, Service Assurance, Service Delivery, Product, Engineering, and Operations, Customer Retention helps deliver Zayo's customer commitments and business objectives.

We are committed to building a high-performing organization where leaders develop leaders, knowledge is shared, diverse experiences are valued, and continuous learning, mentoring, and professional growth are part of our culture.

Location: This remote work position will consider applicants that reside in the continental United States.

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and inspire a team of Customer Retention leaders accountable for the post-implementation lifecycle, recurring-revenue performance, renewals, retention, churn management, and customer continuity for Carrier customers, while delivering exceptional customer and business outcomes.

• Define and execute the overall Customer Retention strategy for the Carrier vertical, aligning customer priorities and market dynamics with Zayo's broader commercial and financial objectives.

• Establish a scalable Customer Retention operating model for customer health and risk identification, renewal planning and negotiation, churn forecasting, save strategies, disconnect repurposing, customer continuity, lifecycle engagement, and expansion.

• Own the organization's performance against key commercial outcomes, including revenue growth, recurring-revenue preservation, gross and net revenue retention, renewal performance, churn performance to budget, discount discipline, and financial performance.

• Establish a disciplined approach to identifying growth signals and capturing expansion opportunities, partnering closely with Sales to grow recurring revenue while ensuring Customer Retention owns defined renewal and retention motions that increase seller capacity.

• Establish disciplined churn forecasting, root-cause analysis, and mitigation across the Carrier portfolio, including save, replacement, portability, migration, relocation, decommissioning, disconnect-repurposing, and contract-restructuring strategies.

• Establish executive-level customer engagement and governance strategies and personally sponsor key Carrier relationships, building trusted commercial, technical, and operational partnerships with decisionmakers and senior customer stakeholders.

• Drive customer value realization across Zayo's portfolio of services, ensuring customers understand, achieve, and recognize the value of their Zayo relationship.

• Establish and enforce commercial governance for renewal pricing, discounting, credits, early termination liability, portability, contract exceptions, rate increases, correct order and revenue treatment, margin, capital recovery, and long-term account value.

• Establish and oversee performance objectives, KPIs, customer health measures, renewal and churn forecasts, operating rhythms, and business reviews, including clear accountability for churn performance to budget, renewal performance, gross and net revenue retention, average discount rate, and month-to-month revenue renewed.

• Develop and coach Senior Managers and other Customer Retention leaders, strengthening leadership capabilities, commercial acumen, talent management, and organizational effectiveness.

• Build a strong leadership pipeline and succession plan by attracting, developing, engaging, and retaining high-performing leaders and Customer Retention talent.

• Anticipate business challenges and systemic customer risks, establish mitigation strategies, and take ultimate functional accountability for executive escalations and cross-functional resolution of complex or high-impact issues.

• Communicate strategy, portfolio performance, financial results, customer insights, risks, opportunities, and progress to senior leadership in a clear, compelling, and data-driven manner.

• Serve as a trusted and dependable member of the broader Customer Retention leadership team, contributing to enterprise-wide strategy, capability development, and organizational priorities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience; advanced degree preferred.

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in Customer Retention, Account Management, Sales, Customer Experience, Telecommunications, Technology, or a related B2B environment.

• 5+ years of experience leading leaders and managing managers, with a demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing, multi-layered organizations.

• Proven experience leading customer organizations with accountability for significant recurring revenue, renewals, retention, churn, customer experience, and financial outcomes.

• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including demonstrated experience driving revenue growth, preserving recurring revenue, improving gross and net revenue retention, managing renewal economics, and delivering against financial or P&L objectives.

• Proven ability to develop and execute customer and commercial strategies across a large, complex customer portfolio or market segment.

• Demonstrated experience leading post-implementation account management at scale, including customer health and risk management, renewal planning and negotiation, churn forecasting and mitigation, save strategies, customer continuity, and growth partnership with Sales.

• Strong understanding of complex B2B customer environments, preferably within telecommunications, networking, cloud infrastructure, digital infrastructure, or related technology services.

• Demonstrated ability to evaluate and govern customer, contractual, operational, and financial tradeoffs involving pricing, term, margin, capital recovery, credits, early termination liability, portability, and contract exceptions.

• Exceptional executive presence and communication skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders, engage customer executives, and communicate complex business issues and strategies with clarity and credibility.

• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships and influence outcomes across internal and external stakeholders, including at executive levels.

• Proven ability to lead organizational change, create scalable operating models, improve processes, and drive digital transformation in a dynamic business environment.

• Strong strategic thinking, business judgment, problem-solving, project leadership, and prioritization skills.

• Experience with CRM, customer retention and renewal management, financial reporting, business intelligence, and other technology platforms used to manage customer and business performance.

• Willingness and ability to travel as needed.

Estimated base salary range: $215,000 - $235,000 USD / annually

#LI-Remote

The base pay range shown is a guideline and reasonable estimate for this role. It takes into account the wide variety of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions. Actual compensation offered may vary from the posted range based upon geographic location, work experience, skill level, certifications, and other business and organizational needs. Non- sales roles may be eligible to participate in a discretionary annual incentive plan. Sales roles may be eligible to participate in a sales incentive plan.

Additionally, this position may be eligible for certain benefits, such as health insurance, life insurance, disability retirement plans, paid time off.

The posting will be active for a minimum of 3 days. The active posting will continue to extend by 3 days until the position is filled.

Benefits, Rewards & Wellness

• Excellent Health, Dental & Vision Insurance
• Retirement 401(k) Savings Plan
• Generous paid time off policy including paid parental leave

Zayo is an equal opportunity employer to all protected groups, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation as part of the employment selection process, please contact us.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.

As part of the application, hiring, onboarding, and/or employment process, Zayo or its affiliates, partners, and vendors may collect, store, and use biometric identifiers and biometric information (collectively, “Biometric Data”), such as fingerprints, facial geometry scans or other unique biological characteristics. Zayo uses CLEAR1, a third-party identity verification service, to verify applicant identity during the hiring process. CLEAR1 may collect Biometric Data, including facial geometry scans and/or other biometric identifiers, to authenticate your identity. Biometric Data will be retained pursuant to CLEAR1’s policies, which can be found here: Zayo will not sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from any applicant's or employee's Biometric Data. By proceeding with your application, you acknowledge this disclosure. Prior to any collection of Biometric Data — including through CLEAR — you may be presented with a separate consent form and asked to provide your written authorization in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws, including the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (CUBI), and other applicable biometric privacy statutes.