Head of Account Management

What You Will Do

01  Protect the base — renewals and churn · 25% of role

Good looks like: renewals are forecast 90 days out, churn is explained before it happens and no major account is lost by surprise.

• Own renewals and churn across the installed base: ≥97% retention, 100% of renewals started on time and no lapses.

• Build the renewal engine — forecast, early-warning risk flags, recovery plays and a named owner for every renewal.

• Retain 100% of Zeraki's top accounts, and examine every churned school for its root cause.

02  Grow the base — cross-sell, upsell and NRR · 20% of role

Good looks like: expansion is planned, not hoped for — and schools adopt more of the platform every year.

• Own expansion revenue and net revenue retention: ≥110% across the base, with every region above 100%.

• Deliver the department's cross-sell and 3X upsell targets — around 30 product additions per Account Manager a year — and raise multi-product adoption.

• With Marketing and Sales, design installed-base programmes that move single-product schools to full platform customers.

• Grow the share of company revenue that comes from existing customers.

03  Know every account — segmentation and health · 10% of role

Good looks like: every account has an owner, a health score and a plan.

• Define customer segmentation and tiering across 8,500+ schools, so attention matches value and complexity.

• Build one account-health model — usage, adoption, satisfaction and payment behaviour — used by every team.

• Keep Zeraki coherent across markets: consistent where it must be, local where it should be.

04  Collect and forecast · 10% of role

Good looks like: renewal revenue is predictable and paid.

• Hold renewal and upsell collections at or above 95% without damaging relationships.

• With Finance and Data, build a forecast tied to renewals, expansion, collections and NRR — accurate within ±5%.

• Govern Cost of Retention and the efficiency of the department, including accounts per Account Manager.

05  Lead the leaders · 15% of role

Good looks like: every region has a strong leader and a ready successor, and Account Management is a career people choose.

• Lead, coach and review Senior Regional Account Managers, Regional Account Managers and Account Management Leads through regular one-on-ones, field visits and documented feedback.

• Run fair, evidence-based quarterly reviews and calibration; keep at least two ready successors and a visible path for Specialist Track experts.

• Own hiring, onboarding and training, and build a customer-first culture of empathy, proactivity and results.

06  Own the most important relationships · 10% of role

Good looks like: Zeraki's biggest customers stay, grow and speak for us.

• Act as the final escalation point for critical customer situations — assembling the cross-functional response and engaging school owners, boards and officials directly. 

• Act as executive sponsor for Zeraki's largest school networks and institutional accounts.

• Turn customer outcomes into references, case studies and referral programmes that help Sales win.

07  Bring the customer into every decision · 10% of role

Good looks like: when Zeraki decides, someone has asked “how will this affect the schools we already serve?” — and answered it with evidence.

• Bring the voice of the customer into product, pricing and go-to-market decisions, with facts, not alarms.

• Partner with Sales on handover, Support on service quality, Product on roadmap and launches, and Finance on billing.

• Run the department's operating system — CRM compliance at 100%, SLA compliance at or above 95%, QBRs as a discipline — and an AI-enabled model with firm controls on data quality and privacy.

What Success Looks Like

First 90 days

• Time in schools with principals and bursars, and with Sales, Support, Finance and country teams

• An audit of the whole base: account health, renewals, collections and at-risk revenue

• Customer segments mapped and tiering agreed

• Renewal, forecast and QBR rhythm agreed and running

• The first department operating plan, and a clear list of what to stop, build and automate

First six months

• One account-health model used by every team

• Renewals forecast 90 days ahead, within ±5% accuracy

• Every at-risk account with a documented recovery plan

• One shared handover standard live with Sales

• Every leader coached, with quarterly objectives in place

First 12 months

• Churn at or below 3% and net revenue retention at or above 110%

• A repeatable renewal and cross-sell playbook across school segments

• Collections at or above 95% without damaging relationships

• A strong bench: at least two ready leaders

• Account Management trusted as a strategic department, not a service desk

What You Bring

Experience

• 8+ years in account management, customer success, sales, relationship management or commercial operations, including at least 4 years leading managers or multiple customer-facing teams.

• A track record of building — or materially improving — an account management or customer success department, and owning retention, expansion and revenue-forecast outcomes.

• Proven experience managing enterprise or strategic customer portfolios, and a demonstrable contribution to net revenue retention.

• Experience designing operating rhythms, segmentation, account-health models and CRM discipline across multiple teams or regions.

• Comfort with cohorts, forecasting and the economics of retention and expansion, and with presenting them to a CEO and Board.

• A bachelor's degree in Business, Commerce, Marketing, Education, Economics, Information Systems or a related field; an MBA or senior customer-success certification is an advantage.

What we are looking for

• A builder of customer departments — you have turned retention and expansion into disciplined, forecastable routines.

• A customer success strategist — you can tell an account problem apart from its symptom.

• Commercially accountable — you never hide behind relationship goodwill where revenue evidence is needed.

• A leader of leaders — you coach managers to build strong teams of their own.

• Field-rooted — you go to schools; customers cannot be understood through dashboards alone.

• An exceptional communicator — equally credible in a principal's office, a finance review and a board room.

• AI-fluent and values-led — you use AI for real leverage, and integrity and empathy show up in every relationship.

Where you might be coming from

You may be a Head of Customer Success, Head of Account Management, Key Accounts Director or Regional Account Management leader who has built and scaled a team in SaaS, EdTech, fintech, banking or telecoms. Your title matters less than whether you can connect account health, renewals, expansion, collections and commercial outcomes — through other leaders.

What This Role Is Not

• Not a support desk — It exists to make customers successful, not to answer tickets.

• Not only relationship management — Goodwill must connect to retention, adoption and revenue.

• Not only renewals — Retention without growth, or growth without health, is not success.

• Not the Head of Sales — Sales wins new schools and owns them to first renewal. You keep and grow them from there.

• Not the Product Manager — Product owns scope and priorities. You bring the customer's voice to them.

• Not a firefighter — You lead the hardest escalations, but you build the system that prevents them.