Senior Client Retention & Operations Lead

Hirefarout; South Africa; Remote; ZAR 960,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Hirefarout is seeking a Senior Client Retention & Operations Lead to improve customer retention, strengthen operations, and grow recurring revenue. You will own the client journey, identify churn causes, and build a proactive account management function reporting to the Managing Director.

You will lead a small team, collaborate across departments, and drive measurable improvements in customer experience and revenue retention, over a 6–12 month horizon.

Qualifications

• Tertiary degree with 5+ years of senior leadership in customer retention or related fields.
• Proven track record reducing churn and increasing revenue retention.
• Experience managing high-volume SME or B2B customer portfolios.
• Experience leading operational transformation and cross-functional improvements.
• Experience establishing or leading customer success or account teams.
• Strong commercial and analytical skills including churn metrics.

Responsibilities

• Analyse churn and implement strategies to protect recurring revenue.
• Recruit and lead an account management team of ~4–6 people.
• Redesign onboarding, service delivery, complaints and cancellations.
• Collaborate across Sales, Onboarding, Operations, Finance to improve processes.
• Develop retention KPIs and reporting frameworks.
• Develop managers and scalable processes for long-term performance.
• Reduce churn and demonstrate retained revenue in 6–12 months.

Skills

Senior leadership

Customer retention

Account management

Operational transformation

Data analysis

Churn reduction

Cross-functional leadership

Job description

South Africa (Remote working UK hours)

R960,000 – R1,200,000 CTC per year

Transform client retention for a growing UK services firm.

Shape the strategy, build your own team and make a measurable impact, reporting directly to the Managing Director.

Role Overview

Our client, a growing UK-based professional services business is looking for a Senior Client Retention & Operations Lead to improve customer retention, strengthen operational performance and make a measurable impact on recurring revenue. This is a senior leadership opportunity with the scope to build a dedicated function and influence meaningful change across the business.

Reporting directly to the Managing Director, you will take ownership of customer retention, identify the underlying causes of churn and implement improvements across the entire client journey. You will establish and lead a proactive account management team, strengthen collaboration across departments and deliver measurable improvements in customer experience and retained revenue.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive customer retention: Analyse customer churn, identify the reasons clients leave and implement strategies to improve retention and protect recurring revenue.
• Build and lead a team: Recruit, structure and manage a proactive account management team of approximately 4–6 people, establishing clear performance standards and accountability.
• Transform the customer journey: Redesign processes across client onboarding, ongoing service delivery, complaints management and cancellations to improve the overall customer experience.
• Lead operational improvements: Work across Sales, Onboarding, Operations, Service Delivery and Finance to resolve inefficiencies and improve the client experience.
• Introduce performance reporting: Develop retention KPIs, customer risk indicators and reporting frameworks to track churn, customer outcomes and revenue retained.
• Strengthen leadership and accountability: Develop managers, improve team structures and implement sustainable processes that support long-term operational performance.
• Deliver measurable commercial results: Reduce preventable customer churn and demonstrate improvements in retained recurring revenue within the first 6–12 months.

Qualifications & Experience

• Tertiary Degree with 5+ years of proven senior leadership experience in customer retention, customer success, client operations or account management within a recurring-revenue business.
• Demonstrable success reducing customer churn and improving revenue retention, supported by measurable results and financial impact.
• Experience managing high-volume SME or B2B customer portfolios, with a strong understanding of recurring-revenue business models.
• Proven experience leading operational transformation, redesigning customer journeys and implementing cross-functional improvements.
• Experience establishing, restructuring or leading customer success, retention or account management teams.
• Strong commercial and analytical expertise, including customer retention metrics, cohort analysis, churn reporting and performance management.
• Experience in B2B SaaS, subscription services, outsourced professional services, fintech, insurance or telecommunications would be advantageous.