What you'll do here:

The Customer Engagement Director is a leadership role responsible for accelerating enterprise growth, and executive market engagement across North America Higher Education (NA HED). Operating at the intersection of strategic sales, executive relationship management, and market expansion, this role drives high-value institutional engagement strategies that strengthen competitive positioning, increase pipeline velocity, and accelerate revenue growth across priority accounts.

This role serves as a strategic growth partner to the SVP, NA Higher Education Sales, helping expand executive level access, deepen institutional relationships, and translate enterprise engagement into measurable commercial outcomes. The Customer Engagement Director partners closely with Sales, Marketing, Product, Customer Success, Revenue Operations, and executive leadership to influence enterprise account strategy, accelerate market penetration, and improve organizational alignment around strategic growth priorities.

Success in this role is measured by the speed and scale of institutional relationship development, enterprise pipeline acceleration, executive engagement effectiveness, and contribution to revenue growth across the NA HED portfolio.

1. Enterprise Market Development & Institutional Partnerships

Driving strategic market expansion and executive relationship growth across NA HED
• Lead executive level institutional partnership strategies across priority colleges, universities, systems, and enterprise education organizations.
• Identify, prioritize, and cultivate relationships with presidents, provosts, CIOs, academic leaders, procurement collaborators, and system level decision makers whose influence directly impacts enterprise growth opportunities.
• Develop and complete strategic engagement plans that expand market presence, strengthen institutional credibility, and accelerate pipeline creation across target accounts.
• Partner with sales leadership to identify whitespace opportunities, expansion pathways, and multi-threaded relationship strategies that increase long term customer value.
• Translate executive engagement into measurable commercial outcomes by ensuring all strategic interactions, advance account objectives, engagement development, or revenue opportunities.
• Build and maintain executive relationship maps across strategic accounts, identifying influence networks, engagement gaps, and competitive risks.
• Partner with Marketing and executive leadership to elevate market visibility through industry forums, executive events, advisory boards, and thought leadership initiatives that strengthen enterprise positioning within the Higher Education sector.
• Monitor and synthesize market, competitive, customer, and sector intelligence to inform executive engagement strategy, account prioritization, and growth planning.

2. Executive Engagement & Strategic Account Acceleration

Mobilizing enterprise leadership engagement to accelerate complex institutional opportunities
• Develop executive engagement strategies for high priority institutional accounts and strategic growth opportunities.
• Orchestrate coordinated executive level relationship coverage across complex accounts, aligning internal leaders to institutional priorities and strategic customer initiatives.
• Prepare senior leaders for high-stake customer engagements through executive briefings, institutional intelligence, collaborator analysis, and strategic meeting objectives.
• Drive post-engagement accountability by ensuring strategic follow-through, decision tracking, and alignment to commercial next steps.
• Design and lead a formal executive sponsorship framework that strengthens enterprise customer relationships and deepens institutional engagement across priority accounts.
• Partner with account teams to accelerate enterprise deal progression, eliminate obstacles to advancement, and improve strategic opportunity conversion rates.
• Identify relationship risks, driven threats, and engagement gaps that may impact revenue attainment or long-term institutional retention.

3. Commercial Strategy & Revenue Acceleration

Connecting enterprise engagement strategy to measurable business growth
• Partner with Sales and Revenue Operations leadership to improve access to enterprise pipeline health, strategic account progression, and revenue risk across the NA HED organization.
• Influence quarterly and annual revenue attainment through strategic account acceleration, executive engagement strategy, and engagement development.
• Identify patterns in win/loss trends, driven displacement, institutional buying behavior, and deal progression to improve enterprise sales effectiveness and close rates.
• Translate strategic priorities into actionable field initiatives with clear accountability, measurable outcomes, and defined timelines.
• Lead strategic account planning processes focused on enterprise growth, institutional expansion, and long-term engagement development.
• Drive business reviews and operating cadences that prioritize strategic decisions, accelerate execution, and remove barriers to revenue growth.

4. Cross-Functional Strategic Leadership

Aligning enterprise functions to support growth, customer expansion, and market impact
• Serve as the commercial voice of the NA HED organization across Product, Marketing, Customer Success, Finance, and Strategy discussions.
• Influence cross-functional priorities to ensure enterprise programs, launches, customer initiatives, and strategic investments align to measurable commercial outcomes.
• Partner with executive leadership on go-to-market strategies, institutional engagement initiatives, and enterprise growth programs that strengthen competitive positioning and market expansion.
• Identify structural barriers impacting growth, customer engagement, or field effectiveness and lead initiatives that improve organizational scalability and commercial execution.
• Support strategic transformation initiatives related to organizational design, market strategy, sales modernization, and customer engagement effectiveness.

5. Executive Leadership Partnership & Essential Communication

Optimizing enterprise leadership impact and organizational alignment
• Partner closely with the SVP, NA Higher Education Sales, to align enterprise growth priorities, executive engagement strategies, and organizational initiatives to long-term commercial objectives.
• Ensure leadership focus remains concentrated on enterprise growth opportunities, strategic institutional engagement, and revenue acceleration initiatives by proactively orchestrating cross-functional execution and removing barriers to progress.
• Develop executive-level communications, strategic narratives, board-ready presentations, and organizational updates that strengthen alignment around NA HED growth priorities.
• Act as a strategic thought partner on market positioning, institutional engagement strategy, organizational effectiveness, and enterprise growth opportunities.

Skills you will need here:

• 10+ years of experience in enterprise sales strategy, strategic partnerships, business development, go-to-market leadership, consulting, or related commercial leadership roles within sophisticated B2B environments
• Experience influencing executive-level enterprise buying decisions and developing strategic institutional engagements
• Shown success operating across matrixed organizations to drive enterprise growth initiatives and commercial alignment
• Strong executive presence with the ability to engage credibly with C-suite leaders, institutional collaborators, and senior internal executives
• Proven track record to connect central initiatives to measurable business and revenue outcomes
• Strong analytical and commercial competence with experience using data, market intelligence, and customer insights to influence strategy
• Experience in Higher Education, EdTech, SaaS, enterprise technology, or complex consultative sales environments strongly preferred
• Proficiency with Salesforce, Power BI/Tableau, Excel, and enterprise sales intelligence tools
• Exceptional communication, relationship management, and cross-functional leadership capabilities

Compensation

At Cengage Group, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees. Click here to learn more about our Total Rewards Philosophy.

The full base pay range has been provided for this position. Individual base pay will vary based on work schedule, qualifications, experience, internal equity, and geographic location. Sales roles often incorporate a significant incentive compensation program beyond this base pay range.

$117,000.00 - $160,000.00 USD