What is a Head of Customer Success?
A Head of Customer Success leads the CS function — owning customer retention, expansion revenue, health scoring, and the overall customer experience post-sale. They manage a team of CSMs, build the playbooks and systems that drive customer outcomes, and partner with Sales on expansion and renewal motions. At a startup, the Head of CS is often the first CS leader, inheriting a team of individual contributors and building the management layer from scratch.
At what stage should you hire a Head of Customer Success?
Series A to Series B, when the CS team has grown to 3–8 CSMs and needs dedicated management, or when churn and expansion are becoming material enough that leadership needs a dedicated owner for those metrics. The trigger: the VP of Sales or CEO is spending significant time on customer escalations that a CS leader should be handling.
What does a Head of Customer Success do at a startup?
- Lead, hire, and develop a team of Customer Success Managers
- Own net revenue retention (NRR), gross revenue retention (GRR), and expansion revenue targets
- Build and iterate CS playbooks: onboarding, QBRs, health scoring, escalation protocols
- Implement and optimize customer health scoring and early warning systems
- Partner with Sales on renewal and expansion motions
- Serve as executive sponsor for strategic accounts during escalations
- Report on CS metrics to executive team and board
Key skills and qualifications
- 5–10 years of customer success experience, with 2+ years in a management role
- Track record of owning NRR targets and improving retention metrics
- Experience building CS playbooks and team processes from scratch
- Strong executive-level communication — must present confidently to customers and board
- Familiarity with CS tooling: Gainsight, ChurnZero, Totango, or similar
- Data-driven: comfortable with cohort analysis, health scoring models, and NRR reporting
Why hire your Head of Customer Success through RFS?
- CS leadership is a high-leverage hire at Series A/B — strong CS leaders pay for themselves through retained and expanded revenue
- 29-day average time to hire — CS leadership searches are competitive; our network moves faster
- Pre-vetted for management track record and NRR ownership experience
- 300+ placements at VC-backed startups, including multiple CS leadership hires
- No upfront fees — contingency model, aligned with finding the right fit
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