Vice President, Client Relationships

The exciting world of scientific research is fueled by people with a passion for solving complex problems. At Cayuse, we are committed to our customers’ success by empowering organizations to conduct globally connected research that advances their impact on science, discovery, and society.

Cayuse is seeking a Vice President, Client Relationships to lead our strategic account organization and own the renewals, account planning, and revenue retention and growth from our existing customer base. This high-impact leadership role leads a team made up of Customer Success Managers and Strategic Account Managers, carries an expansion quota, and is accountable for Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) and Net Revenue Retention (NRR). The VP is the customer’s ultimate advocate and strategic advisor, guiding clients through platform optimization, expansion, and multi-year adoption lifecycles.

The ideal candidate is an executive-level relationship builder who can influence C-suite stakeholders, orchestrate a broad internal matrix, and lead and develop a team to deliver measurable client outcomes. This role requires equal parts strategic thinking, commercial discipline, and hands-on leadership.

Responsibilities

Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Customer Success Managers and Strategic Account Managers, setting clear portfolio, coverage, and performance expectations.
• Build the hiring, onboarding, and career-development plan for the team and retain top talent.
• Establish a consistent operating rhythm for account planning, forecast reviews, customer health reviews, and business at risk reviews.
• Oversee tool and process development to optimize team reach and performance.

Strategic Account & Relationship Governance

• Serve as executive sponsor for our largest enterprise accounts, building trusted relationships with executive sponsors in Enterprise Research Administration.
• Lead high-profile Customer Business Reviews (CBRs), Steering Committees, and multi-year technology roadmap sessions focused on business outcomes and ROI.
• Guide enterprise customers through platform and landscape updates, ensuring their corporate strategy maps to Cayuse’s product roadmap.

Commercial Growth, Renewals & Risk Mitigation

• Own GRR and NRR for the strategic account portfolio, and carry an expansion quota covering cross-sell, upsell, and renewal growth.
• Own contract renewals, including renewal forecasting, timing, pricing, and terms and negotiation, working with Finance and Legal.
• Build and manage the expansion pipeline with Revenue Operations, including accurate forecasting to leadership and CRM hygiene.
• Lead escalations and recovery plans for Business-at-Risk (BAR) accounts.

Account Planning & Customer Health Management

• Own account planning: ensure every strategic account has a documented plan covering goals, stakeholders, adoption, risks, and expansion opportunities and review plans with the team on a regular basis.
• Own customer health management across the portfolio: define health scoring and early-warning signals (adoption, engagement, support trends, sentiment) and make sure the team acts on them with clear playbooks for at-risk and expanding accounts.
• Use account health reviews to drive renewal, risk, and expansion plans.

Value Realization & Platform Adoption

• Partner with client business units post-implementation to maximize feature adoption and subscription value.
• Advise clients on operational readiness, change management, and governance best practices to sustain high user engagement.
• Establish, track, and interpret adoption and engagement metrics to address customer friction points proactively.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Mobilize and orchestrate teams across Product Management, Delivery Consultants, and Elite Support to resolve escalations.
• Capture client feedback, telemetry, and capability gaps and surface them to Product and Engineering to influence the roadmap.
• Contribute to company go-to-market planning, including retention and expansion targets, coverage models, and pricing and packaging input.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in enterprise software sales, customer success, strategic client delivery, or key account management.
• 5+ years leading managers or multi-level, highly matrixed enterprise account teams, including hiring, coaching, and developing Customer Success Managers and Strategic or Key Account Managers.
• Proven experience steering Tier 1 SaaS/cloud deployments (e.g., enterprise research administration, ERP, HCM, SCM, or financial suites).
• Demonstrated track record of meeting or exceeding retention (GRR/NRR) and expansion quota targets, and of building customer health management programs.
• Advanced executive presence, with masterful negotiation, critical thinking, and communication skills and a record of influencing C-suite decisions under pressure.
• Understanding of global IT ecosystems, implementation lifecycles, global system integrators (SIs), and enterprise governance models.
• Financial data literacy: comfort with SaaS financial metrics, forecasting, data analytics, and performance KPIs.
• Experience selling into higher education, healthcare, research organizations, or similarly complex enterprise environments strongly preferred.
• Willingness to travel 30–50% for customer on-sites and executive reviews.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment where priorities, opportunities, and resource needs can shift.
• Proficiency with CRM platforms (Salesforce preferred) and familiarity with modern sales methodologies (e.g., MEDDPICC, Challenger, GAP Selling).
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline; MBA or equivalent advanced degree highly preferred.
• Certifications such as MEDDPICC, Challenger, GAP Selling, PMP, or Workday Deployment Methodologies are a major asset.

How You’ll Be Measured

• Gross and net revenue retention: GRR and NRR across the strategic account portfolio, against quarterly and annual targets.
• Expansion: attainment of the team’s expansion quota, and the size, quality, and velocity of the cross-sell and upsell pipeline, including forecast accuracy.
• Renewals: on-time renewal rate and renewal forecast accuracy.
• Customer health and risk management: health coverage and outcomes, and early identification and resolution of Business-at-Risk accounts.
• Account planning: coverage and quality of account plans across strategic accounts.
• Value realization: adoption and engagement KPIs, plus client satisfaction (NPS and CSAT).
• Executive engagement: depth of C-suite relationship coverage and quality of CBRs and Steering Committees.
• Team leadership: performance, development, engagement, and retention of the Customer Success Managers and Strategic Account Managers.
• Cross-functional impact: effectiveness in resolving escalations and the quality of client feedback surfaced to Product.

Benefits

• Competitive Medical Benefits (PPO + HSA available)
• Vision, Dental, Short-Term Disability fully covered by Cayuse
• Unlimited PTO + Holidays + Flexible Work Schedule
• Remote Work Stipend
• Equal Paid Parental Leave
• 401k with Employer Matching
• Quarterly Wellness Reimbursement
• Remote Work Environment, supporting the Ultimate Employee Experience