Director of Customer Success, Gorgias
$235.4-277.1k
OTE
The conversational AI platform for eCommerce
Open for applications
The conversational AI platform for eCommerce
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
$235.4-277.1k
OTE
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To empower eCommerce brands to grow through AI-powered customer experience.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years in SaaS Customer Success, with 5+ years leading multi-layered CS orgs: managing managers, not just individual contributors
- Proven AI-driven CS leadership: you've built or scaled a CS model where technology, not just headcount, drove outcomes
- AI-native mindset: you default to automation first and treat AI as the primary delivery engine, not a bolt-on
- Full-book commercial ownership: track record owning NRR/GRR across a large, segmented merchant base; you understand Commercial and Enterprise as genuinely different motions
- Org builder: experience building a CS org from the ground up or fundamentally redesigning an existing one; you're comfortable with ambiguity and greenfield scope
- Leadership presence: comfortable operating with direct COO and board-level visibility, and owning a budget with real tradeoffs
- Leader of leaders: you've coached managers, not just ICs, and know how to scale a leadership bench
- Technical enough: you have a real point of view on AI agent capabilities, limitations, and roadmap, and can hold your own in product conversations
- Systems thinker: you build repeatable process and infrastructure rather than relying on heroics
- High-bar leader: comfortable making difficult organizational and performance decisions as you (re)build the function
- Based in Toronto, New York City, San Francisco (each are hybrid)
What the job involves
- Customer Success at Gorgias covers our Commercial and Enterprise merchants and sits at the center of a fundamental redesign of what CS means in an AI-native company
- We're rebuilding the org from the ground up around a simple premise: AI agents handle high-volume execution, and humans own outcomes, judgment, and commercial depth
- This isn't an incremental evolution of a support function: it's the construction of a new operating model where AI is the primary delivery engine
- We've already proven pieces of this model in our Enterprise segment
- Now we need a leader to take that vision across the function: architecting a CS organization where AI does the heavy lifting and humans focus on the relationships, judgment calls, and commercial outcomes that AI can't own
- As Head of CSM, you are responsible for delivering value at scale in the age of AI: pushing the boundaries to automate as much as possible to deliver the best experience for our merchants
- As Director, Customer Success, you'll own the full post-sale journey for Gorgias's Commercial and Enterprise merchants, with direct accountability for Net Revenue Retention (NRR) across that book
- SMB is mainly product-led growth and only needs light oversight from this role
- You'll lead the CS organization end-to-end: 2 CS Managers report directly to you, one leading Commercial and one leading Enterprise, and the CSMs covering our few named accounts also report directly to you
- This is an architect role as much as a leadership role
- You're not inheriting a finished org chart: you're building the next generation of Customer Success at Gorgias, where AI agents handle high-volume execution and your managers and CSMs bring strategic depth, commercial judgment, and the human relationships AI can't replace
- You'll report directly to the COO, with the scope and budget to (re)build the CS org from the ground up
- Own the CS org chart across Commercial and Enterprise: 2 CS Managers plus the named-account CSMs, setting structure, span of control, and hiring plans as the org scales with AI-driven leverage
- Directly coach and develop your CS Managers, holding them accountable for the performance, growth, and output of their teams
- Set org-wide OKRs across Commercial and Enterprise, translating company strategy into segment-specific execution plans
- Own the CS budget end-to-end (headcount, tooling, and program spend), making the tradeoffs between human capacity and AI investment
- Build the performance management and career framework for CSMs and managers across both segments
- Create a culture of genuine accountability and high standards across the org, including making difficult performance decisions when needed
- Own NRR across Commercial and Enterprise, with segment-specific strategies rather than a one-size-fits-all playbook
- Ensure your managers and their CSMs are consistently driving account health, AI adoption, and expansion across both segments
- Personally engage with the most strategic accounts and escalations, bringing senior judgment to the relationships that matter most
- Build the reporting and forecasting infrastructure to track renewals, expansion pipeline, and churn risk across the full book, with clear visibility for the COO and leadership team
- Guide your managers in running high-impact executive business reviews that demonstrate ROI and AI utilization across both segments
- Own the vision and execution for redesigning Customer Success as an AI-first function, where AI agents handle execution at scale and humans own outcomes
- Partner directly with Product and Engineering leadership to shape the AI agent roadmap, bringing frontline signal from Commercial and Enterprise merchants
- Deliver value at scale in the age of AI: push the boundaries to automate as much as possible to deliver the best experience for our merchants
- Build AI literacy from the ground up across the org: every CSM and manager should be fluent in configuring, evaluating, and improving AI-driven outcomes
- Represent Customer Success in cross-functional AI strategy conversations at the leadership level, with direct influence over the AI product roadmap
- Report directly to the COO, with regular visibility into company leadership and board-level conversations about CS performance and strategy
- Partner with Sales, Implementation, and Product leadership to build a cohesive post-sale experience across the entire customer lifecycle
- Represent the voice of the customer at the leadership level, shaping company strategy and the product roadmap
- Own reporting to company leadership on CS health, AI adoption, and organizational progress
Our take
With the surge in online shopping, eCommerce merchants are increasingly prioritizing customer communications to enhance the overall shopping experience. This heightened emphasis puts greater pressure on support teams to promptly and accurately address customer inquiries.
Gorgias offers an all-encompassing customer support helpdesk equipped with artificial intelligence tools tailored for customer service teams. The platform allows eCommerce businesses to streamline responses to frequently asked questions through a single application. By automating these responses, support agents can allocate more time to engaging in meaningful and profitable interactions with customers, thereby potentially driving sales.
Catering to over 15,000 brands, including prominent brands like Princess Polly, Steve Madden, and Marine Layer, Gorgias faces competition from established players like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and HelpScout. Despite this, the company has experienced notable growth, expanding its presence across the US, Europe, and Australia. Along with funding that will fuel the development of its Automation Add-on feature, aimed at providing customers with instant answers to alleviate support workload.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
19% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
May 2024
$29m
SERIES C
Aug 2022
$30m
SERIES C
Total funding: $101.4m
Company HQ
Yerba Buena, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Alex Plugaru
(Co-Founder & CTO)Former Web Developer at Gymglish, Eau de Web, Innobyte and Liquid Studios.
Romain Lapeyre
(Co-Founder & CEO)Former Product Manager at Work4 and Business Developer at Scalr. MA in Management from HEC Paris.
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