Head of Customer Success & Operations

Zurich
Illinois

Position Title: Head of Customer Success & Operatio ns

Overview

The Head of Customer Success & Operations is a senior leader responsible for driving customer satisfaction, retention, operational excellence, and scalable service delivery. This role integrates strategic leadership with hands-on execution to ensure our customers achieve maximum value from our products and services, while embedding efficient processes across the organization.

The ideal candidate blends strong customer-centric thinking with deep operational expertise and cross-functional leadership capability.

Key Responsibilities:

Customer Success Leadership

  • Strengthen and manage the end-to-end customer success strategy, ensuring customers realize ongoing value and positive business outcomes.
  • Lead and mentor a high-performing Customer Success organization, including onboarding, account management, customer support, and renewals.
  • Build a customer health framework leveraging analytics, feedback, adoption metrics, and predictive indicators.
  • Drive customer retention, reduce churn, and support expansion opportunities in partnership with Sales.
  • Establish executive-level relationships with strategic customers, act as an escalation and advocacy point.

Operational Excellence

  • Oversee operational strategy and execution across service delivery, process optimization, and continuous improvement.
  • Bolster scalable systems, workflows, and standardized operating procedures across the customer lifecycle.
  • Partner with Product, Sales, Technology, and Finance to ensure alignment on customer needs, service levels, and growth priorities.
  • Implement dashboards, KPIs, and performance metrics to measure efficiency, quality, and customer outcomes.
  • Lead quarterly business reviews (QBRs), operating reviews, and forecasting for customer success and operations.

Transformation

  • Define the long‑term vision for Customer Success & Operations, aligning with company strategy and growth objectives.
  • Support company-wide transformations and improvement by providing process and capabilities design and project management.
  • Identify opportunities to optimize customer journeys, streamline processes, and enhance digital enablement.
  • Champion customer insights across the organization to inform product development and market strategy.
  • Drive cross-functional transformation programs that improve service delivery, customer experience, and operational scalability.

Key Competencies

  • Customer-centric mindset with passion for delivering world-class experiences.
  • Strategic thinker with strong operational discipline.
  • Strong leadership and team development capabilities.
  • Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive change.
  • Data literacy and comfort with dashboards, forecasting, and KPIs.
  • High level of accountability and ownership.

Success Measures (KPIs)

  • Customer retention and net revenue retention (NRR).
  • Customer satisfaction (CSAT), NPS, and customer health scores.
  • Operational efficiency metrics (SLAs, cycle times, cost-to-serve).
  • Time-to-value for customers.
  • Team engagement and retention.
  • Process maturity and scalability.

People Leadership

  • Build, inspire, and retain a talented team of customer success managers, operations leaders, analysts, and support staff.
  • Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and customer obsession.
  • Develop competency frameworks, career paths, training programs, and coaching structures.

Basic Qualifications:

  • Bachelors Degree and 10 or more years of experience in the Customer Relationship area
    OR
  • High School Diploma or Equivalent and 12 or more years of experience in the Customer Relationship area
    AND
  • 10 or more years experience in the marketing of customers
  • Management experience
  • Experience in presenting to corporate clients/customers

Preferred Qualifications:

  • Proven track record of building and scaling customer success or operations organizations.
  • Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making skills.
  • Experience working cross‑functionally and influencing at senior leadership levels.
  • Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and executive presence.
  • Demonstrated ability to drive transformation and implement scalable processes.
  • Experience in [Insurance, SaaS, cyber, professional services].
  • Background in operational frameworks (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma, ITIL, Customer Success best practices).
  • Experience managing global teams or multi-region service delivery.
  • MBA or advanced degree a plus.

Your pay at Zurich is based on your role, location, skills, and experience. We follow local laws to ensure fair compensation. You may also be eligible for bonuses and merit increases. If your expectations are above the listed range, we still encourage you to apply—your unique background matters to us. The pay range shown is a national average and may vary by location. The proposed Salary range for this position is $115,200.00 - $188,700.00 , with short-term incentive bonus eligibility set at 20%.

We offer competitive pay and comprehensive benefits for employees and their families. [Learn more about Total Rewards here .]

Why Zurich?

At Zurich, we value your ideas and experience. We offer growth, inclusion, and a supportive environment—so you can help shape the future of insurance. Zurich North America is a leader in risk management, with over 150 years of expertise and coverage across 25+ industries, including 90% of the Fortune 500®.

Join us for a brighter future—for yourself and our customers.

Zurich in North America does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, age, disability, protected veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation, pregnancy or other characteristics protected by applicable law. Equal Opportunity Employer disability/vets.

Zurich complies with 18 U.S. Code § 1033.

Please note: Zurich does not accept unsolicited CVs from agencies. Preferred vendors should use our Recruiting Agency Portal.

Location(s): AM - Illinois Virtual Office, AE - Remote Work, AM - Arizona Virtual Office, AM - California Virtual Office, AM - Colorado Virtual Office, AM - Connecticut Virtual Office, AM - Delaware Virtual Office, AM - Florida Virtual Office, AM - Georgia Virtual Office, AM - Hawaii Virtual Office, AM - Idaho Virtual Office, AM - Indiana Virtual Office, AM - Kansas Virtual Office, AM - Kentucky Virtual Office, AM - Louisiana Virtual Office, AM - Maine Virtual Office, AM - Maryland Virtual Office, AM - Massachusetts Virt. Office, AM - Michigan Virtual Office, AM - Minnesota Virtual Office, AM - Mississippi Virtual Office, AM - Nebraska Virtual Office, AM - Nevada Virtual Office, AM - New Hampshire Virt. Office, AM - New Jersey Virtual Office, AM - New York Virtual Office, AM - North Carolina Virt. Office, AM - North Dakota Virtual Office, AM - Ohio Virtual Office, AM - Oklahoma Virtual Office, AM - Oregon Virtual Office, AM - Pennsylvania Virtual Office, AM - Rhode Island Virtual Office, AM - South Carolina Virt. Office, AM - South Dakota Virtual Office, AM - Tennessee Virtual Office, AM - Texas Virtual Office, AM - Utah Virtual Office, AM - Virginia Virtual Office, AM - Washington DC Virt. Office, AM - Washington St Virt. Office, AM - West Virginia Virt. Office, AM - Wisconsin Virtual Office, AM - Wyoming Virtual Office
Remote Working: Yes
Schedule: Full Time
Employment Sponsorship Offered: No

Linkedin Recruiter Tag: #LI-RA1 #LI-DIRECTOR #LI-REMOTE

Posted 2026-02-27

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