VP of Customer Success

Hi! We're Forerunner.

We believe that climate adaptation is a necessity, not a luxury, and communities deserve access to powerful software that helps them plan for the future. The challenge of climate change is complex – it implicates how municipalities plan, manage capital, and communicate to both residents and higher levels of government. Forerunner helps local communities do these things better by empowering them to access, understand, and mobilize local-level data at scale.

About the Position

We are seeking a Vice President of Customer Success to lead and evolve our post-sales organization at a pivotal stage of growth.

Reporting to the COO, this leader will own the strategy, performance, and long-term vision of Customer Success. You will shape how Forerunner delivers value to customers, ensuring durable retention, measurable outcomes, and deep institutional partnerships with the communities we serve.

This role sits at the intersection of revenue, product, and customer impact. You will bring executive-level leadership to a high-performing team, elevate operational rigor, and drive alignment across Sales, Product, and Engineering.

As we scale, Customer Success must evolve from a strong foundation into a durable, predictable engine. You will lead that transformation.

What You’ll Do

Customer Value & Retention Strategy

• Define and execute the long-term Customer Success strategy
• Own gross and net revenue retention, churn, and customer health
• Ensure customers achieve sustained, measurable value from Forerunner
• Build the systems and frameworks that create predictability at scale

Organizational Leadership

• Lead and develop a growing Customer Success organization
• Establish clear performance standards, segmentation strategies, and operating rhythms
• Create an environment of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Scale leadership capacity within the team

Executive Cross-Functional Alignment

• Serve as the executive voice of the customer across the company
• Partner with Sales to align on renewals, expansion strategy, and long-term account planning
• Influence Product and Engineering through clear articulation of customer needs and outcomes
• Navigate cross-functional priorities with diplomacy and strategic clarity

Strategic Customer Partnership

• Maintain executive relationships with key customers
• Guide complex escalations and high-stakes conversations
• Reinforce Forerunner’s position as a long-term, trusted partner to public-sector institutions

About You

You are an experienced Customer Success leader who has scaled organizations in high-growth SaaS environments.

You bring both strategic perspective and operational credibility. You can design systems that drive predictability while remaining close enough to customers and teams to understand nuance.

You likely bring:

• Significant experience leading Customer Success in a SaaS environment
• A track record of scaling teams and building retention-focused operating models
• Experience serving complex, regulated, or public-sector customers (GovTech strongly preferred; adjacent sectors such as EdTech or civic technology relevant)
• Strong executive presence and cross-functional influence
• Comfort operating in dynamic, high-growth environments
• A leadership style that balances accountability with warmth and partnership
• You understand that in public-sector software, long-term trust and steady execution matter as much as growth.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first year, you will have:

• Elevated Customer Success into a predictable, performance-driven function
• Strengthened retention and customer health across the portfolio
• Established scalable segmentation and engagement models
• Reduced friction across post-sales workflows
• Reinforced Forerunner’s reputation as a trusted, mission-aligned partner

Our Team Has a Lot to Offer

Forerunner is an early-stage company with an interdisciplinary team. We are motivated by seemingly intractable problems and work hard to support one another.

• We're mission-driven. Our mission orients our business strategy and pushes us to work with a sense of urgency. We’re in the weeds - our entire team spends time engaging with our partners in the field to better understand the real-world problems they face.
• We're a small team. As a member of our growing team, you will quickly become an invaluable part of our organization and have a meaningful impact on our business and technical direction. We welcome unique perspectives and backgrounds. Your opinion matters and we hope you'll share it.
• We build each other up. A team works best when its members are adequately equipped with the tools to tackle the problems they are facing. Forerunner strives to provide adequate feedback and appropriate learning opportunities to help all its team members expand their skills.
• We want you to be happy and healthy. Forerunner offers competitive compensation, health/vision/dental coverage, a 401k plan, and one expensed lunch per week. We also have a quarterly wellness reimbursement so that you can have flexibility in defining what “health” means to you.

The salary range for this position is $190,000- $230,000 with an OTE of $235,000-$290,000.  This posting may span more than one career level. Compensation is determined based on a variety of factors, including an individual’s skills, experience, and qualifications.