Senior Manager, Customer Success (R5273)

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai https://shield.ai/. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/shield-ai, X https://x.com/shieldaitech, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shield_ai, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Shield_AI. JOB DESCRIPTION: Shield AI is seeking a Senior Manager, Customer Success to establish, lead, and scale the Aircraft Division Customer Success function supporting V-BAT and X-BAT customers. This leader will manage a team of Customer Success Managers and ensure customers achieve sustained mission value, operational readiness, product adoption The Senior Manager will define the Customer Success strategy, operating model, organizational structure, performance expectations, and engagement standards for U.S. government, allied defense, and strategic commercial customers. This role requires a leader who can build a high-performing customer-facing team while remaining directly engaged with complex, high-priority, and strategically sensitive accounts. This position will also lead the Aircraft Division Critical Accounts Program, establishing the governance and operating discipline required to identify customer risk early, coordinate cross-functional recovery, maintain executive visibility, and drive issues to measurable closure. The Senior Manager will serve as a senior customer advocate and ensure customer challenges result in lasting improvements across product, operations, training, sustainment, and support. What you'll do: - LEAD AND SCALE THE CUSTOMER SUCCESS FUNCTION - Establish and lead the Aircraft Division Customer Success function supporting V-BAT and X-BAT customers across U.S. government, allied defense, and strategic commercial accounts. - Manage, coach, and develop a team of Customer Success Managers responsible for customer adoption, operational readiness, mission value, and long-term account success. - Define team structure, roles, responsibilities, account assignments, performance expectations, and career development plans. - Recruit and onboard Customer Success talent as the customer base and Aircraft Division continue to grow. - Set team priorities and allocate resources based on customer risk, strategic importance, operational activity, and business needs. - Establish measurable team and individual goals and conduct regular performance evaluations, coaching, and development discussions. - Build a culture of urgency, accountability, professionalism, transparency, operational excellence, and customer advocacy. BUILD THE CUSTOMER SUCCESS OPERATING MODEL - Develop and operate a scalable Customer Success model that includes account segmentation, customer health scoring, success plans, engagement cadence, executive business reviews, and lifecycle governance. - Ensure priority customers have documented success plans tied to mission outcomes, readiness objectives, adoption milestones, training requirements, sustainment needs, and executive stakeholder alignment. - Establish standards for customer onboarding, operational transition, training coordination, sustainment handoffs, adoption management, and recurring mission-value reviews. - Create repeatable processes, templates, playbooks, and governance mechanisms that allow the Customer Success organization to scale. - Define clear ownership and operating rhythms across Customer Success, Deployment Operations, Flight Operations, Training, Sustainment, Program Management, Sales, Product, Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, and Mission Operations. - Partner with Aircraft Operations leadership to establish organizational priorities, resource requirements, operating plans, and functional performance goals. LEAD THE CRITICAL ACCOUNTS PROGRAM - Own and operate the Aircraft Division Critical Accounts Program for escalated, at-risk, high-priority, or strategically sensitive customers. - Define Critical Accounts Program entry criteria, severity levels, account-health triggers, escalation paths, executive engagement requirements, and exit criteria. - Lead cross-functional critical-account reviews with clear owners, recovery plans, decision logs, customer communication strategies, risk-reduction actions, and measurable closure criteria. - Assign and hold internal owners accountable for recovery actions, commitments, and due dates. - Ensure the appropriate technical, operational, sustainment, supply, quality, program, and executive resources are engaged based on the severity and mission impact of each account. - Provide senior leadership with concise, action-oriented visibility into customer risk, mission impact, customer sentiment, commercial exposure, and recovery status. - Personally support customer engagements involving significant operational risk, executive attention, or strategic importance. - Conduct post-recovery reviews to ensure root causes are addressed and lessons learned are incorporated into products, processes, training, sustainment, and support. ADVOCATE FOR CUSTOMER MISSION SUCCESS - Serve as a senior customer advocate for V-BAT and X-BAT customers and ensure Shield AI understands their missions, operating environments, readiness expectations, adoption barriers, and long-term objectives. - Build trusted relationships with senior military, government, operational, and enterprise stakeholders. - Translate customer feedback into clear product, support, training, documentation, sustainment, and operational requirements. - Partner with Product, Engineering, Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, Training, Sustainment, and Business Development t