Strategic Customer Success & Adoption Lead

Cisco Systems, Inc; Houston (TX); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 181,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) with company match

Medical, dental and vision insurance

Paid parental leave

Paid time away

Job summary

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Customer Success & Risk Management lead to drive adoption and value realization of Cisco technologies, mitigate renewal risks, and identify expansion opportunities through deeper product utilization.

You will guide TAPs, coordinate with sales/renewals, and mentor teams on telemetry usage to optimize outcomes. You’ll engage with senior customer stakeholders, craft end-to-end adoption roadmaps, and stay current with AI/automation features to deliver scalable

Qualifications

• Minimum Qualifications: Bachelors + 8 years of related experience, or Masters + 6 years, or PhD + 3 years, or equivalent relevant experience.

Responsibilities

• Handles a portfolio with complex or strategic accounts, often with multiple team members (multi-product, multi-region, multi-stakeholder)
• May supervise sophisticated, multi-workstream adoption initiatives, utilizing AI-tools to predict adoption challenges and driving value realization cadence and implementing risk‑mitigation strategies throughout the lifecycle
• Impacts across teams (e.g., standardization, playbook build)
• Leverages deep technical knowledge across multiple products and solutions, acting as a technology evangelist to customers
• Leads health checks and adoption accelerators; codifies standards for scale
• Acts as a pilot user or early adopter of new AI / automation features to validate usefulness; proposes and drives small internal innovation experiments
• Champions the use of AI tools to synthesize feedback and adoption data for ongoing improvement
• Owns technical adoption strategy within their specialization and complete core adoption motions without reliance on CSSs
• Collaborates with peers and cross-functional teams to share field insights and support enablement efforts
• Uses CS’ feedback tools to log adoption barriers, recognizes trends around recurring customer challenges, and surfaces to CXM/others as appropriate
• Leads end‑to‑end orchestration of CS adoption initiatives across programs and partners, crafting sophisticated transformation roadmaps and driving adoption patterns that span multiple technologies and engage cross-functional teams
• Guides adoption efforts with minimal oversight and mentors others on TAP quality and telemetry usage
• Drives renewals interlock cadence and delivers de‑risk and adoption strategies at scale; proactively surfaces and qualifies expansion, renewal, and new‑business opportunities applying adoption insights, and routes to Sales/Renewals
• Systematically scales and streamlines through reuse, modular playbooks, automation of routine tasks
• Engages regularly, and through onsite meetings, with customers’ senior leaders as a dialog partner and to shape strategic adoption plan
• Lead alignment workshops; steers outcome roadmaps and executive updates; raises adoption risks with clear owners
• Partners with customers to co-create proactive and predictive, personalized adoption journeys
• Influences cross-functional internal teams (Product, Engineering, Sales) based on customer priorities
• Guides pooled CSS and partner resources; sets cadence and governance for adoption plans and value reviews
• Guides internal process improvements and pilots new ways of working
• Leads cross-functional working groups involving CS, product, operations
• Acts as a liaison across accounts, regions, or functional initiatives, ensuring a “one-team” customer experience
• Maintains awareness of overlapping service engagements and other CSM teams, coordinating only where directly tied to software adoption plans
• Provides field insights that influence pricing and packaging strategies
• Identifies growth opportunities from adoption signals and partners with Sales on qualification and forecasting inputs (not direct funnel ownership)
• Collaborates with Finance, Sales, and Operations to align software renewal targets and growth levers

Education

Bachelor's degree + 8 years related experience

Master's + 6 years related experience

PhD + 3 years related experience

Equivalent relevant work experience

Job description

Cisco Systems, Inc. is seeking a Customer Success & Risk Management lead to drive adoption and value realization of Cisco technologies, mitigate renewal risks, and identify expansion opportunities through deeper product utilization.

You will guide TAPs, coordinate with sales/renewals, and mentor teams on telemetry usage to optimize outcomes. You’ll engage with senior customer stakeholders, craft end-to-end adoption roadmaps, and stay current with AI/automation features to deliver scalable