VP of Customer Success & Adoption

Forward; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 360,000 - 380,000; Full time

Job summary

Forward is seeking a VP of Customer Success to architect and lead the post-sale journey across onboarding, adoption, retention, and expansion. You will own NRR and GRR, and shape the customer success function across segments, partnering with Sales, Product, and Marketing to scale impact.

You’ll work with senior executives and key accounts to translate business outcomes into product value, develop a world-class CS team, and drive proactive renewals and expansions in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in customer success, with 6+ years in leadership roles
• Experience with Networking or Security tools
• Proven experience building or scaling a CS function
• Track record of driving adoption and expansion
• Strong commercial instincts
• Coaching mentality and team development
• Data fluency and use of usage signals to prioritize actions
• Comfort with ambiguity and a builder's bias
• Excellent communication with executives and day-to-day users

Responsibilities

• Own adoption and time-to-value, design onboarding and change-management frameworks
• Drive net revenue retention and identify expansion opportunities
• Build CS playbooks including journeys, health scoring and QBR cadence
• Stand up tooling and signals to support CS function
• Engage with key accounts as trusted advisor and tie business outcomes to product value
• Reduce churn and de-risk renewals with early-warning systems
• Close the product feedback loop with Product and Engineering
• Partner cross-functionally with Sales, Product, and Marketing
• Build and scale the CS team as the motion grows

Skills

Customer success

Leadership

Networking tools

Security tools

Data fluency

Commercial sense

Communication

Tools

Gainsight

Catalyst

Vitally

ChurnZero

Job description

Forward was founded in 2013 by four Stanford Ph.D.s, building the industry's first network digital twin: a mathematically accurate model of the production network. It's the foundation for autonomous networking, giving engineers and AI agents the ability to know the impact of every change before it touches production. That founding instinct still defines how we work. We're accurate and evidence-driven, relentless about clarity, and we'd rather be certain than comfortable, building a groundbreaking platform that transforms how teams run and secure networks across every major cloud and vendor environment.

Global leaders like Goldman Sachs, PayPal, S&P Global, IBM, and Dell trust Forward, alongside fast-growing enterprises and government agencies, realizing an average of $14.2 million in annual benefits, according to IDC. Backed by top-tier investors, including A. Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, MSD Partners, Omega Venture Partners, Section 32, and Threshold Ventures, and headquartered in Santa Clara, we're most proud of our team: curious people who'd rather build what doesn't exist than accept how things have always been done.

The Role

We're looking for an experienced VP of Customer Success to architect Forward's customer success function with a clear mandate: drive adoption and grow revenue inside our existing accounts. You'll own the post-sale customer journey end to end — onboarding, adoption, retention, and expansion — and the metrics that come with it (net revenue retention, gross retention, product adoption, and expansion pipeline).

You’ll personally be involved with our most important accounts helping to understand challenges they are facing and how our products and services can help drive value inside their organizations. You’ll work collaboratively with your other peer leaders in the revenue and GTM organizations to architect the function across various customer segments and define roles & responsibilities to scale the function.

What You'll Do

• Own adoption and time-to-value. Build the onboarding and adoption motion that gets customers to value fast and keeps them using Forward as part of how they work. Design change management frameworks for our customers to transform how they manage their networks.
• Drive net revenue retention. Own NRR and GRR as your headline numbers. Identify expansion opportunities, run renewals proactively, and turn healthy usage into growth.
• Build CS playbooks. Define the customer journey, segmentation, health scoring, success plans, QBR cadence, and the lifecycle motions for each stage.
• Stand up the tooling and signals. Evaluate our current CS tools, platforms and analytics; and evolve them to support the future vision of the function.
• Engage with the most important accounts. Be the trusted advisor to Forward’s key customers, tying their business outcomes to product value.
• Reduce churn and de-risk renewals. Build an early-warning system for at-risk accounts and a clear play to recover them.
• Close the product feedback loop. Be the voice of the customer to Product and Engineering in partnership with Pre-Sales engineering, turning usage patterns and customer needs into roadmap influence.
• Partner cross-functionally. Work with Sales on smooth handoffs and expansion, with Product on adoption blockers, and with Marketing on advocacy, references, and case studies.
• Build the team. As the motion scales, hire, onboard, and lead a customer success team.

What We're Looking For

• 12+ years in customer success, with at least 6+ years in leadership, including hands‑on account ownership, not just program management.
• Experience in Networking or Security tools.
• Proven experience building the CS function — you’ve built or substantially scaled a CS function, ideally at a startup or small team where you didn’t have existing playbooks or tooling to lean on.
• A track record of driving adoption and expansion — measurable NRR/GRR improvement, reduced churn, and revenue grown inside the existing base.
• Strong commercial instincts — you’re comfortable owning a number and spotting and closing expansion, not just keeping customers happy.
• Coaching mentality — you’ve demonstrated that you know how to develop and grow your people.
• Data fluency — you use usage data and health signals to prioritize and act, not just react.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a builder's bias — you create a process where none exists and move fast.
• Excellent communication — credible with a customer's executive sponsor and their day‑to‑day users alike.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with CS platforms and tooling (e.g., Gainsight, Catalyst, Vitally, ChurnZero) and product analytics.
• A background that blends customer success with account management, renewals or sales, given the expansion focus. The expected On‑Target Cash Earnings for this role is between $360,000-$380,000 per year. Within this range, individual pay is determined by several factors including but not limited to, job‑related skills, work experience, and relevant education/training

As set forth in Forward ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.