Director of Professional Services & Partner Success

Position Summary

We are seeking an accomplished and visionary Director of Professional Services & Partner Success to lead our consulting delivery organization, drive customer satisfaction, and serve as a bridge between our company and key technology partners. This strategic leadership role combines operational excellence, people management, customer advocacy, and partner coordination to ensure our professional services business thrives across all dimensions.

The ideal candidate is both a people leader and a business driver — someone who can inspire consultants and project managers to deliver exceptional results, foster long-term customer relationships that translate into ongoing success, and cultivate productive partnerships with vendors to ensure smooth project execution and mutual growth.

This is a multi-faceted leadership position requiring a balance of strategic thinking, operational discipline, and hands-on engagement in customer and partner interactions.

Key Responsibilities

1. Professional Services Leadership

• Leadership & Management: Directly oversee all consultants, project managers, and delivery staff. Establish clear expectations, provide coaching and mentorship, and create a culture of accountability, collaboration, and professional growth.
• Project Delivery Oversight: Ensure that all customer engagements are delivered on time, within scope, and with the highest levels of quality and customer satisfaction. Oversee the full project lifecycle — from kickoff to handoff — ensuring adherence to company standards and methodologies.
• Delivery Methodology: Develop, implement, and continuously improve delivery frameworks, governance models, documentation standards, and performance metrics.
• Resource & Capacity Planning: Manage team capacity, resource forecasting, and project staffing to ensure efficient utilization of personnel and timely support for new projects.
• Performance Management: Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and skills assessments to identify development needs and growth opportunities for each team member.
• Financial Stewardship: Partner with company leadership on budgeting, forecasting, and margin management for professional services projects.
• Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of learning and innovation. Encourage the adoption of best practices, emerging tools, and process improvements to enhance delivery efficiency.
  
  

2. Customer Success Management

• Customer Engagement: Act as the senior point of contact for key accounts, ensuring ongoing satisfaction with project outcomes, deliverables, and communication.
• Relationship Building: Develop deep relationships with customer stakeholders at all levels — from technical leads to C-suite executives — to understand their strategic goals, challenges, and long-term vision.
• Success Planning: Partner with customers to define success criteria, track progress, and ensure that engagements deliver measurable business value.
• Risk Management: Identify early warning signs of customer dissatisfaction or project challenges and take proactive steps to resolve issues before they escalate.
• Retention & Growth: Lead customer retention strategies by identifying follow-on opportunities, cross-sell and up-sell potential, and by ensuring the customer’s continued trust and confidence in our services.
• Business Reviews: Conduct quarterly or semi-annual business reviews with customers to communicate value achieved, lessons learned, and upcoming opportunities for collaboration.
• Customer Feedback Loop: Capture insights and feedback from customers to help shape service offerings, delivery methodologies, and future engagement models.

3. Vendor Liaison & Partner Coordination

• Vendor Relationship Management: Serve as the primary liaison to key technology vendors and solution providers. Maintain productive working relationships and ensure alignment between our project needs and vendor capabilities.
• Operational Coordination: Facilitate communication between delivery teams and vendor partner teams for project logistics, technical enablement, and joint delivery planning.
• Training & Enablement: Coordinate vendor-provided training, certification programs, and technical updates to ensure internal teams maintain current expertise.
• Joint Delivery & Escalation: Work closely with vendor project leads to address escalations, coordinate joint initiatives, and ensure smooth execution of shared customer projects.
• Strategic Collaboration: Identify partnership opportunities that enhance our value proposition — including co-marketing, joint delivery models, and ecosystem expansion.
• Vendor Performance Reporting: Track and report on vendor engagement metrics, partnership benefits, and the success of co-delivered projects.
• Process Alignment: Ensure consistent communication and operational alignment across internal delivery teams, sales, and vendor stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Sales and Business Development teams to scope and price engagements, review proposals, and ensure the delivery organization can meet commitments.
• Collaborate with Finance and Operations to optimize delivery profitability, forecasting accuracy, and operational efficiency.
• Work closely with Human Resources to recruit, onboard, and retain high-performing consultants and project managers.
• Partner with Marketing and Partner Management teams to represent the professional services organization in vendor events, customer success stories, and industry forums.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field; Master’s degree or MBA preferred.
• Experience:
  • Minimum of 10 years of experience in professional services, technology consulting, or customer success roles.
  • At least 5 years in a leadership position managing delivery teams and customer-facing engagements.
  • Proven success managing enterprise customers and coordinating across multiple concurrent projects.
  • Experience in vendor/partner management or channel operations preferred.
• Skills & Competencies:
  • Strong leadership and team-building abilities.
  • Excellent interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills.
  • Strong business acumen with an understanding of consulting financials, utilization, and margins.
  • Ability to manage multiple priorities and adapt to changing business needs.
  • Exceptional problem-solving, negotiation, and conflict-resolution skills.
  • Experience in enterprise technology domains (IAM, cybersecurity, SaaS, or cloud-based solutions) is highly desirable.

Success Criteria

• High employee satisfaction and low turnover within the Professional Services organization.
• Consistent achievement of project delivery milestones, quality standards, and profitability targets.
• Positive customer satisfaction metrics and referenceability.
• Increased engagement and collaboration with vendor partners.
• Expansion of existing customer accounts through high-quality service delivery.
• Clear visibility into delivery performance through dashboards, metrics, and reporting.