Vice President Global Customer Success Innovation

SAP Belgium NV/SA; Vancouver; Hybrid; CAD 360,000 - 540,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading software company in Vancouver seeks an Executive to direct Customer Success strategy and innovation. This role is pivotal in shaping customer engagement and value realization across all segments globally. The ideal candidate will possess extensive leadership experience in enterprise software, strong strategic thinking abilities, and a proven track record in enhancing customer lifecycle management. The position offers a competitive compensation package and the opportunity to lead transformative initiatives in a collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• 12 years in senior leadership roles within global enterprise software organizations.
• Proven experience in shaping Customer Success strategy and operating models.
• Strong commercial acumen related to adoption and lifetime value drivers.

Responsibilities

• Define the multi-year strategic direction for Customer Success.
• Own the design and evolution of the global Customer Success model.
• Lead the innovation agenda for Customer Success.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Systems thinking

Digital engagement

Customer Success leadership

Data analysis

Job description

Overview

We help the world run better

At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in it for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

SAP innovations help more than 400,000 customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with 200 million users and more than 100,000 employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, we build breakthroughs, together.

Note: See our Corporate Fact Sheet at: https://www.sap.com/documents/2017/04/4666ecdd-b67c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.html

Context and Role

In line with SAP’s strategic imperatives for 2026, this leader will be responsible for driving SAP forward on its path of harnessing digital and AI enabled Success motions. This role defines the global strategy, design, and future evolution of SAP’s Customer Success model across all Lines of Business, regions, and Customer Success roles. It will set the stage for SAP to step out as a world-class exemplar of Business AI, as we demonstrate the art of the possible to our customers and SAP ecosystem.

This is an Executive Level Position, responsible for shaping how SAP translates its business priorities into a coherent, scalable, and outcome-driven Customer Success approach that accelerates adoption, strengthens renewal readiness, drives expansion, and maximizes lifetime value across a multi-billion-dollar global cloud and platform revenue base.

The role does not own corporate strategy, go-to-market strategy, or business operations. Its mandate is to shape the Customer Success architecture: the engagement models, value frameworks, standards, and capabilities that enable consistent, high-quality execution at scale across the enterprise.

Scope and Impact

• Enterprise remit across all Lines of Business (LoBs), customer segments, and Customer Success motions (high-touch, digital, pooled, partner-assisted, and value-led).
• Defines the strategic foundations that underpin adoption, retention, expansion, and customer value realization across SAP’s global install base.
• Shapes the future role of Customer Success in SAP’s cloud, platform, and AI-driven business models.
• Influences multi-year investment priorities in capabilities, skills, digital enablement, and engagement models.
• Partners closely with SAP leadership, Strategy & Operations, Sales, Product, CS&D, and Finance to ensure alignment, without duplicating their functional accountabilities.

Key Responsibilities

1. Global Customer Success Strategy

• Define the multi-year strategic direction for Customer Success, aligned to SAP’s business and portfolio priorities.
• Establish a clear, differentiated Customer Success value proposition across all segments and solutions.
• Articulate how Customer Success drives adoption, time-to-value, renewal readiness, expansion, and long-term customer value.

1. Customer Success Operating Architecture

• Own the design and evolution of the global Customer Success model, including:
• Segmentation and service tiering
• Engagement and coverage motions
• Role definitions and interaction models across all CS functions
• Set standards and design principles to ensure consistency, clarity of accountability, and scalability across regions and LoBs.

4. Value, Adoption, and Renewal Frameworks

• Define the global frameworks for:
• Customer outcomes and value realization
• Adoption and time-to-value acceleration
• Renewal readiness and churn risk management
• Expansion and consumption growth
• Ensure health, risk, and value signals translate into clear success plays, leadership visibility, and measurable impact.

5. Customer Success Performance Insight & Strategic Response

• Translate Strategy & Operations and Finance performance reporting into an integrated Customer Success perspective on trends, risks, opportunities, and structural root causes.
• Frame the strategic implications of performance data for the Customer Success model, including coverage, engagement motions, digital versus high-touch mix, and capability investment.
• Develop deep fluency in the underlying performance drivers across all Lines of Business, segments, and engagement models.
• Identify systemic issues and opportunities related to segmentation, capacity, engagement motions, role design, and capability gaps.
• Define and steer the strategic responses to these insights, including:
• Changes to the Customer Success operating model and success motions
• Targeted acceleration and intervention programs
• New success plays and value initiatives
• Capability, role, and skill evolution
• Prioritization and investment recommendations
• Provide forward-looking, fact-based guidance to the SVP Global Customer Success and executive leadership on where to intervene to improve adoption, renewal, expansion, and long-term customer value at scale.

6. Customer Success Systems & Business Ownership

• Act as the executive business owner for the Customer Success systems and data landscape, representing the voice of the Customer Success function in how platforms such as Gainsight and related capabilities are shaped and evolved.
• Define, from a Customer Success strategy and operating model perspective, what capabilities the systems must enable to support:
• Lifecycle management and engagement at scale
• Adoption, value realization, and renewal readiness
• Digital and AI-enabled success motions
• Executive visibility and performance insight
• Set the strategic direction and guardrails for how Customer Success processes, success motions, and performance frameworks are represented in the systems and data landscape.
• Partner with Strategy & Operations, IT, and Analytics, who own solution design and delivery, to ensure the systems roadmap and priorities are informed by and aligned with the future-state Customer Success model and business outcomes.
• Ensure that system evolution consistently supports standardization, scalability, and insight-to-action across all Lines of Business and Customer Success roles.

7. Innovation and Future-Ready Success Models

• Lead the innovation agenda for Customer Success, including:
• Digital and AI-enabled engagement models including continued enhancements to the Joule AI customer experience
• Data-driven insights and predictive success approaches leveraging the SAP Business Data Cloud
• Creation of bold, industry-specific AI solutions for our customers
• New motions for platform, consumption, and AI-led solutions
• Incubate and scale new capabilities, pilots, and approaches that improve effectiveness, productivity, and customer outcomes.

8. Insights, Measurement, and Governance

• Define global standards for Customer Success measurement, including outcome KPIs, health frameworks, and value tracking.
• Ensure consistent use of insights, analytics, and telemetry to guide prioritization, investment decisions, and executive action.
• Establish governance and design guardrails that enable global consistency while allowing for controlled regional and portfolio variation.

9. Executive Partnership and Thought Leadership

• Act as senior strategic advisor to the SVP, Global Customer Success, and the broader executive leadership on the evolution of the Customer Success model.
• Partner with LoBs, Strategy & Operations, Sales, Product, Services, and Finance to ensure Customer Success frameworks are aligned with business priorities and lifecycle design.
• Represent the Customer Success strategy, architecture, and innovation agenda in executive forums.
• Own the executive-level Customer Success performance narrative, integrating data, trends, and strategic implications into clear, forward-looking storylines that inform leadership decision-making and investment choices.
• Continuously benchmark SAP’s Customer Success model, value frameworks, and digital capabilities against industry leaders and emerging best practices, and translate relevant insights into the evolution of SAP’s global approach.

10. Organization and Capability Leadership

• Build and lead a high-performing global team covering Customer Success strategy, innovation, insights, value frameworks, and model design.
• Set the standard for strategic rigor, enterprise thinking, and outcome orientation across the Customer Success leadership community.

Leadership Profile

Experience

• 12 years in senior leadership roles in Customer Success, post-sales strategy, customer lifecycle, or large-scale transformation within global enterprise software or platform organizations.
• Proven experience shaping Customer Success strategy and operating models in multi-billion-dollar recurring revenue environments, with direct impact on renewal, churn, expansion, and lifetime value.
• Track record designing and evolving global engagement models, segmentation, digital and high-touch motions, and value realization frameworks across complex, matrixed environments.
• Proven business ownership and strategic architecture of Customer Success systems and data platforms (e.g., health, risk, predictive analytics, digital engagement), in partnership with Operations and Technology.
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise-scale transformation and change, driving adoption of new models, capabilities, and ways of working across regions and Lines of Business.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with deep understanding of adoption, retention, expansion, and lifetime value drivers.

Capabilities

• Enterprise-level strategic and systems thinking, with the ability to design end-to-end Customer Success architectures spanning segmentation, engagement models, digital and AI-enabled motions, and value realization.
• Exceptional ability to translate complex data, predictive insights, and performance signals into clear executive-level recommendations and strategic choices.
• Proven operating model design and transformation leadership, with the ability to move from future-state vision to scalable, adopted ways of working across global, matrixed organizations.
• Strong commercial acumen, connecting Customer Success strategy and performance to renewal, expansion, lifetime value, and investment decisions.
• Credibility and influence with senior executives across Sales, Product, Finance, Strategy & Operations, and Technology.
• Deep understanding of Customer Success systems, analytics platforms, and digital engagement capabilities, and how to leverage them to enable insight-to-action at scale.
• Ability to operate as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, synthesizing strategy, performance, and customer insight into clear points of view and recommendations that shape executive decisions.
• Ability to lead and develop high-performing, multidisciplinary global teams across strategy, analytics, technology, and change.

Bring out your best

SAP innovations help more than four hundred thousand customers worldwide work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively. Originally known for leadership in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, SAP has evolved to become a market leader in end-to-end business application software and related services for database, analytics, intelligent technologies, and experience management. As a cloud company with 200 million users and more than 100,000 employees worldwide, we are purpose-driven and future-focused, with a highly collaborative team ethic and commitment to personal development. Whether connecting global industries, people, or platforms, we help ensure every challenge gets the solution it deserves. At SAP, you can bring out your best.

We win with inclusion

SAP’s culture of inclusion, focus on health and well-being, and flexible working models help ensure that everyone – regardless of background – feels included and can run at their best. At SAP, we believe we are made stronger by the unique capabilities and qualities that each person brings to our company, and we invest in our employees to inspire confidence and help everyone realize their full potential. We ultimately believe in unleashing all talent and creating a better world.

SAP is committed to the values of Equal Employment Opportunity and provides accessibility accommodations to applicants with physical and/or mental disabilities. If you are interested in applying for employment with SAP and are in need of accommodation or special assistance to navigate our website or to complete your application, please send an e-mail with your request to Recruiting Operations Team: [e-mail].

For SAP employees: Only permanent roles are eligible for the SAP Employee Referral Program, according to the eligibility rules set in the SAP Referral Policy. Specific conditions may apply for roles in Vocational Training.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their age, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, et al), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, or disability, in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local legal requirements.

Compensation Range Transparency SAP believes the value of pay transparency contributes towards an honest and supportive culture and is a significant step toward demonstrating SAP’s commitment to pay equity. SAP provides the annualized compensation range inclusive of base salary and variable incentive target for the career level applicable to the posted role. The targeted combined range for this position is 360000 - 540000 (CAD) USD. The actual amount to be offered to the successful candidate will be within that range, dependent upon the key aspects of each case which may include education, skills, experience, scope of the role, location, etc. as determined through the selection process. Any SAP variable incentive includes a targeted dollar amount and any actual payout amount is dependent on company and personal performance. Please reference this link for a summary of SAP benefits and eligibility requirements: SAP North America Benefits.

We are ethical and compliant

Our leadership credo: Do what’s right. Make SAP better for generations to come. We believe that great leadership extends far beyond the mere pursuit of business goals. We value and foster leadership that is driven with purpose and integrity. Our leaders are role models who uphold SAP’s values and shape SAP’s culture of integrity, by demonstrating and championing ethical and compliant behavior towards all stakeholders.

AI Usage in the Recruitment Process

For information on the responsible use of AI in our recruitment process, please refer to our Guidelines for Ethical Usage of AI in the Recruiting Process. Please note that any violation of these guidelines may result in disqualification from the hiring process.

Requisition ID: 445735 | Work Area: Sales | Expected Travel: 0 - 10% | Career Status: Executive | Employment Type: Regular Full Time | Additional Locations: #LI-Hybrid