Director, Customer Advocacy

Gitlab; Remote; ZAR 400 000 - 500 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading software company in Gauteng is seeking a Director, Customer Advocacy to spearhead initiatives that turn successful customers into influential advocates. This role involves developing and executing customer advocacy programs, collaborating with sales and marketing teams, and enhancing the voice of the customer in GitLab’s narrative. The ideal candidate should have extensive experience in customer advocacy, strong leadership capabilities, and effective communication skills. This is a fully remote position offering comprehensive benefits.

Benefits

Flexible Paid Time Off

Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Growth and Development Fund

Home office support

Team Member Resource Groups

Qualifications

• Deep experience building customer advocacy programs in enterprise technology or SaaS.
• Proven leadership skills suitable for a director-level role.
• Effective communication skills to build trusted relationships.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of customer advocacy programs.
• Collaborate with sales and marketing to align advocacy initiatives.
• Manage relationships with key customers for advocacy.

Skills

Customer advocacy

Leadership

Relationship building

Communication

Project management

Job description

An Overview Of The Role

As the Director, Customer Advocacy for EMEA, you will play a critical role in turning GitLab's most successful customers into visible, influential champions for our intelligent DevSecOps platform.

You will lead efforts to build and execute scalable advocacy programs that showcase powerful customer stories, drive pipeline and revenue impact, and deepen trust in GitLab across the region.

Reporting into the corporate marketing and global communications organization, you will own the strategy and execution of customer advocacy initiatives that align with EMEA sales priorities while maintaining strong relationships with key customers and internal stakeholders.

In your first year, you will define clear, measurable advocacy metrics, strengthen collaboration models with regional sales and marketing teams, and elevate the voice of the customer across go-to-market motions.

This is a unique opportunity to illustrate GitLab's impact on business outcomes through the voice of the customer.

Some Examples Of Our Projects

• Building and scaling regional customer reference and advocacy programs tied to pipeline and revenue goals
• Partnering with sales, pre-sales, and marketing to turn complex customer solutions into compelling narratives for campaigns, events, and executive engagements

What You'll Do

Lead the development and execution of customer advocacy programs that turn our most successful EMEA customers into strategic storytellers, references, and champions for GitLab.

Collaborate closely with regional and global sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams to align advocacy initiatives with pipeline, expansion, and retention goals.

Drive measurable outcomes by defining and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) related to advocacy-driven pipeline influence, deal acceleration, and brand visibility across the region.

Build and nurture strong executive-level relationships with key customers across EMEA, identifying and cultivating advocates who can support references, case studies, events, and thought leadership.

Own the customer advocacy lifecycle, from identifying and recruiting advocates to onboarding, engagement, and ongoing relationship management, ensuring customers see clear mutual value.

Influence cross-functional teams to integrate the voice of the customer into GitLab's narratives, campaigns, and go-to-market strategies, elevating customer stories in both internal and external channels.

Partner with regional stakeholders to prioritize and manage advocacy opportunities that support critical deals and strategic initiatives, ensuring clear processes for request intake, fulfillment, and reporting.

Foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within customer advocacy, evolving programs, content formats, and engagement models based on feedback, data, and changing market dynamics.

What You'll Bring

Deep experience building and scaling customer advocacy, customer marketing, and / or reference programs in enterprise technology or SaaS, ideally across multiple EMEA markets.

Ability to navigate and influence complex organizations, balancing the needs of sales, marketing, product, and executive stakeholders while adapting to a rapidly changing environment.

Proven leadership skills suitable for a director-level role, with experience managing, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams within customer advocacy, marketing, or related functions.

Strong understanding of how customer stories, references, and testimonials influence the buyer journey, pipeline acceleration, and regional go-to-market motions.

Effective communication and interpersonal skills to build trusted relationships with senior customers and internal leaders, including comfort engaging at the executive level on both business and technical topics.

Capacity to work autonomously and asynchronously in a fully remote environment while staying aligned to shared goals, processes, and priorities across the broader GitLab team.

Familiarity with measuring the commercial impact of advocacy programs, including pipeline influence, deal acceleration, and other performance metrics tied to regional objectives.

About The Team

The Customer Advocacy team at GitLab is dedicated to turning our most successful customers into visible, influential champions who help drive awareness, trust, and revenue.

This team builds and manages strategic relationships with customers to surface their stories, amplify their impact, and bring the voice of the customer into everything we do.

Composed of experienced advocacy, marketing, and communications professionals distributed across multiple regions, the team operates asynchronously to capture and share customer success across markets.

They focus on developing impactful customer narratives, fostering open communication with internal stakeholders, and adapting programs to the evolving needs of a rapidly maturing organization.

How GitLab Will Support You

Benefits to support your health, finances, and well-being

• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Team Member Resource Groups
• Equity Compensation & Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Growth and Development Fund
• Parental leave
• Home office support

Equal Employment Opportunity

GitLab is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. GitLab's policies and practices relating to recruitment, employment, career development and advancement, promotion, and retirement are based solely on merit, regardless of race, color, religion, ancestry, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression), national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, mental or physical disability, genetic information (including family medical history), discharge status from the military, protected veteran status (which includes disabled veterans, recently separated veterans, active duty wartime or campaign badge veterans, and Armed Forces service medal veterans), or any other basis protected by law.

GitLab will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.

See also GitLab's EEO Policy and EEO is the Law.

If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know during the recruiting process.

Country Hiring Guidelines

GitLab hires new team members in countries around the world.

All of our roles are remote, however some roles may carry specific location-based eligibility requirements.

Our Talent Acquisition team can help answer any questions about location after starting the recruiting process.

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Seniority level

Director

Employment type

Full-time

Job function

Other

IT Services and IT Consulting and Software Development