Leader, Account Manager

Benchling, Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 157,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Benchling, Inc. is seeking an Account Management Leader with Life Sciences expertise to drive renewals, expansion, and customer value in a high-growth enterprise SaaS environment.

You will lead a team of AMs, forge strategic renewal plans, manage risk, and collaborate with CS, Sales, and Finance to align pricing, deals, and outcomes. Expect hybrid in-office collaboration with on-site presence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences, Business, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in Account Management, Renewals, Sales, or a related commercial function within SaaS.
• 3+ years in a management role.
• Strong understanding of Life Sciences R&D, process development, or related scientific domains.
• Excellent negotiation and communication skills, with the ability to build relationships across technical, commercial, and executive stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the AM team, including hiring as needed.
• Drive renewal, retention, and net revenue retention targets through strategic guidance.
• Adapt and optimize renewal processes and standardize risk mitigation.
• Support customer advocacy and drive renewal/expansion conversations with stakeholders.

Skills

Leadership

Negotiation

Strategic thinking

Communication

Relationship building

Education

Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences

Tools

Salesforce

Gainsight

Mode

Sigma

Claude

Job description

We are rebuilding biotech for the AI era.

When a breakthrough is delayed, the world waits. Getting a molecule from discovery to patients, or a crop from lab to field, involves thousands of slow, manual, disconnected steps. AI has the potential to change this, compressing decades of R&D work into years. But that only happens when clean, structured scientific data and AI are built into how science gets done.

Benchling is the AI platform for biotech R&D. Scientists use Benchling to design experiments, capture structured data, and run AI agents and models directly in their workflows. Over 200,000 scientists around the world trust Benchling to power their most important work, from academic labs to Sanofi, Moderna, and more than half of the world's top 50 biopharma.

We’re building an AI scientist for our customers. We can’t do that if we haven’t built the muscle ourselves. AI fluency is the foundation we build on; it's core to how we work, and we're committed to helping every new hire integrate it into their day-to-day. As part of our interview process, you'll complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion so we can understand how you think about and use AI to drive impact in your role. Feel free to reference any tools, platforms, or workflows you use today.

Role Overview

Benchling is seeking an Account Management Leader with a background in Life Sciences and enterprise SaaS. This role is an exciting blend of team management and strategic leadership.

• You're a hands-on leader who enjoys working closely with your team and with customers to drive world-class renewal rates and expansion outcomes. You must be able to think and act strategically as well as get into the details with our seasoned Account Managers with experience in Life Sciences, who can help grow the organization, develop our processes, and drive execution.
• You will develop a deep understanding of Benchling's solutions and demonstrate your experience to guide our teams in building strategic renewal plans, proactively identifying and mitigating risk, and uncovering upsell and expansion opportunities across the portfolio.
• To be successful in this role, you are comfortable with R&D processes and scientific concepts, and able to speak confidently and build relationships with Scientific, IT, and procurement leaders at leading Pharma and Biotech organizations. You have experience leading customer-facing, commercially-oriented teams in a high growth enterprise SaaS environment. And you are a proven leader who can drive a renewals business from hiring and staffing, to managing and mentoring your team, to leading through change.

Responsibilities

Lead and Develop the AM Team

• Manage, mentor, and grow a team of AMs, including hiring as needed.
• Foster a collaborative, commercially-minded culture that drives measurable renewal and retention outcomes for the business.
• Ensure the team is highly enabled on Benchling's renewal playbook and can execute consistently across the portfolio.
• Coach AMs on building strategic renewal plans and delivering renewal-focused business reviews that reinforce value, address risk, and secure executive buy-in ahead of contract end dates.

Drive Key Metrics and Program Success

• Lead the team in achieving renewal, retention, and net revenue retention targets through strategic guidance and operational excellence. Particular focus on identifying contraction and churn risk early, and on surfacing expansion and upsell opportunities within the existing book.
• Use data to identify at-risk accounts, renewal timing, and expansion signals across the customer portfolio, and develop account-specific plans to address them alongside the sales organization.
• Provide the business with a predictable renewal forecast backed by leading indicators, ensuring risk and expansion signals are surfaced early enough to inform accurate, defensible projections rather than late-stage surprises.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (CS, Sales, finance, Legal, Deal Desk) to ensure alignment on renewal strategy, pricing, and deal structure.

Adapt and Optimize Processes

• Implement best practices for tracking renewal pipeline, standardizing risk and mitigation processes, and ensuring consistent, proactive coverage across the book.
• Partner with CX Operations to identify and eliminate sources of AM toil, leveraging AI tools, automation, and improved workflows so AMs can focus on high-value renewal and expansion conversations.

Customer Advocacy and Support

• Serves as a senior point of contact for complex or high-stakes renewal negotiations, supporting AMs in navigating contraction requests, pricing pushback, and competitive threats.
• Champions the voice of the customer within Benchling, providing feedback to internal teams to inform pricing, packaging, and product decisions that affect renewal outcomes.
• Guides AMs in navigating complex customer organizations to build multi-threaded relationships, identify economic buyers, and drive consensus around renewal and expansion decisions.

Qualifications

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Life Sciences, Business, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in Account Management, Renewals, Sales, or a related commercial function within SaaS.
• 3+ years in a management role.
• Strong understanding of Life Sciences R&D, process development, or related scientific domains.
• Proven ability to lead and develop a high-performing commercial team.
• Excellent negotiation and communication skills, able to build relationships across technical, commercial, and executive stakeholders.
• Self-motivated, adaptable, and thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Experience leveraging a modern CS/Sales tech stack, including CRM (e.g., Salesforce), customer success platforms (e.g., Gainsight), data/analytics tools (e.g., Mode, Sigma), and AI-assisted productivity tools (e.g., Claude).
• Ability to travel up to 20% based on team and customer needs.

Preferred

• Experience working with or supporting the Benchling platform.
• Demonstrated ability to lead teams through complex renewal negotiations, contraction mitigation, and expansion/upsell motions.

How We Work

We offer a flexible hybrid work arrangement that prioritizes in-office collaboration. Employees are expected to be on‑site 3 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday).

Benchling welcomes everyone.

We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences.

We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Compensation Range: $157K - $220K