Principal Customer Success Manager

You're responsible for the gross retention of your book of business, ensuring customers renew with Expel because they recognize us as indispensable to their security program. You accomplish this by owning the strategic relationship with economic buyers and key decision-makers, orchestrating internal resources to deliver technical value, ensuring Expel demonstrably improves their security posture, and that customers can articulate that value to their internal stakeholders, including economic buyers.

You are the single point of accountability for customer health and commercial outcomes within your portfolio. You lead quarterly business reviews, accurately forecast renewals, and identify expansion opportunities for Account Executives to pursue. When technical depth is needed, you partner with Technical Account Managers (for strategic accounts) or pull in Security Solutions Engineers and Technical Support Engineers to ensure customers get the expertise they need, while you maintain focus on the business relationship and value realization.

Beyond your book of business, you drive structural improvements to how Customer Success operates. You identify systemic gaps in the customer journey, design solutions, and drive implementation across the organization. You set the standard for what great customer management looks like and help less experienced CSMs develop their skills through coaching and mentorship.

Your success is measured by At-Bat Renewal Rate (ABR) and Dollar-Based Gross Retention (DBGR) within your portfolio, and by your contribution to improving CS operational effectiveness. You manage primarily complex commercial and enterprise accounts, often those with the highest complexity or strategic importance.

What Expel can do for you

• Deepen your expertise in the security market and how organizations mitigate risk, implement strategy, and improve their security posture
• Extend your network of security leaders across a wide variety of industries
• Provide you a firm foundation based on excellent service delivery on which you can bolster your reputation in the industry
• Equip you with the time and opportunities to achieve some remarkable experiences for your next role at Expel or beyond
• Provide opportunities to expand your network into more technical, management, and executive audiences

What you can do for Expel

• Drive ABR towards 95%+ for your book of business; accurately forecast renewals and proactively address risks to customer health
• Build and maintain strategic relationships with CISOs, economic buyers, and key decision-makers within customer organizations
• Lead business reviews including onsite meetings for strategic accounts, focused on customer success criteria, demonstrating progress toward their desired outcomes, and relentlessly driving resolution when obstacles emerge
• Identify and qualify expansion opportunities (cross-sell, upsell, overages) and coordinate with Account Executives to close
• Orchestrate internal resources (TAM, SSE, TSE, Support, Product) to address customer needs; act as the quarterback ensuring nothing falls through the cracks
• Ensure customers can articulate the value of Expel to their leadership and stakeholders using both qualitative and quantitative evidence
• Manage executive communication during customer security incidents, coordinating with TAMs and SOC on technical response
• Identify systemic gaps in the customer journey and drive structural improvements into CS operations
• Set the quality standard for customer deliverables and engagement rhythms; serve as an exemplar for the team
• Provide coaching and mentorship to less experienced team members; build cross-organizational relationships to improve workflows

What you should bring with you

• 8+ years of customer success or account management experience, a significant portion of which carrying renewal quota
• At least 4 years in the security industry (operations, products, consulting, GRC, or incident response)
• Experience managing complex B2B customer relationships with multiple stakeholders, including C-level
• Track record of driving retention, identifying growth opportunities, and improving team/organizational performance
• Thorough understanding of the cybersecurity market including MDR, major product categories (EDR, SIEM, NDR, Cloud), and competitive dynamics
• Sufficient technical fluency to field most customer questions, escalating only deep technical issues

Additional notes

The base salary for this role is $134,700 - $195,300 + bonus and equity.

At Expel, our employee benefits reflect our commitment to our crew. Unlimited PTO, equity for everyone, work location flexibility, up to 24 weeks of parental leave, and excellent health benefits are some of the ways we care for our Expletives.

We’re only hiring those authorized to work in the United States. We do not currently sponsor immigration visas.

We're an Equal Opportunity Employer: You'll receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or on the basis of disability.

We’ll ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please let us know if you need accommodation of any kind.

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