Position OverviewAlethea is hiring a VP of Customer Success to take our client/account management function out of its 0-1 build phase and into a scaled, senior-led discipline, with a specific mandate to deepen our credibility and win rate with the communications, corporate affairs, and public affairs buyer. You'll inherit a working operating CS model built over the last year, and your job is to professionalize it, train and enable the CSMs on it, and personally own the C-suite relationships that make or break our renewals and expansion.
This is a builder's role. You should have scaled a customer success function in an emerging market or category-creating company. You thrive in the early stages of standing something up - creating structure where there's ambiguity, and shaping a function as it grows rather than inheriting one that's already fully built. You're passionate about our customers and energized by driving this function forward, out in front of them as much as behind a dashboard
Key Responsibilities:Scale the Function - Upskill and train the team: This is a building role, but not a blank slate. Take Alethea's existing Customer Success Playbook and supporting documentation from "exists on paper" to consistently executed across the entire book of business
- Recruit and promote the right talent: Train, coach, and lead the customer success team as the client base grows - enabling them with the playbook, materials, and knowledge they need to run their accounts with confidence, and building clear growth paths beneath you.
- Enable the organization to act: Retention is always top priority, communicate it and advocate for our customers. Own the comms business KPIs, workflows, and success metrics - health scores, net revenue retention, renewal rate, expansion - and report on them to executive leadership.
- Leverage technology: Alethea is an agentic first company. An understanding and fluency in how technology can be used to create leverage and drive efficiency is key.
Own the Comms / Corporate Affairs Buyer Relationship- Serve as primary senior point of contact for comms-led accounts: CCOs, Chief Public Affairs Officers, and VP/Director-level leaders in Issues & Crisis Management, Corporate Reputation, or Strategic PR. Know when to pull in executives, advisors, and other colleagues to bring together the best teams the company has to offer.
- Educate and counsel: Educate and counsel on product adoption, operationalization, and leveraging the Alethea solution (written analysis, technology, MCP). Translate narrative risk, actor attribution, and coordinated-behavior detection into language that lands with comms and public affairs leaders
- Own key customer relationships: Lead EBRs and high-stakes executive conversations on strategic comms accounts
Coach & Mentor the Team- Coach and develop junior and mid-level CSMs: spot-check books, review QBR/EBR decks before they reach a client, and model what "customer first, act like an owner" looks like in practice.
- Build training and enablement: lead the creation and implementation of the training the comms/public affairs motion needs - including a "Comms Buyer" playbook and reference materials - so the team can operate credibly with comms and public affairs stakeholders.
Retention, Expansion & Risk Management- Renewals: Own the renewal motion and expansion pipeline across the book; personally engage on strategic and at-risk accounts, and partner with Sales on cross-sell opportunities to land enterprise solutions across Communications and the broader Security stakeholder set.
- Run the early-warning system: Customer health scoring, churn-risk indicators, red-account recovery plans, and the escalation path - flagging risk the moment it's suspected, not after it's a problem.
Cross-Functional Leadership- Close the loop between customer feedback and Product/Engineering: be the voice of the comms and public affairs customer in roadmap conversations.
- Partner with sales and marketing: Provide ongoing insights to sales and marketing on customer wins and trends to support iteration of top of funnel activities
Must Have: - Have 10+ years in customer-facing leadership roles (customer success, account management, or client services), including building / scaling a category defining company beyond just implementing a playbook at a mature company in a well defined market.
- Experience and comfort as a player / coach. You'll own key accounts, but you'll also get the opportunity to train, mentor, and teach others to lead.
- Have deep, credible experience with the communications, corporate affairs, or public affairs buyer - ideally from working inside, or selling into, comms/PR, issues management, crisis communications, or corporate reputation functions. Can walk into a room with a CCO, Chief Public Affairs Officer, or Head of Issues & Crisis Management and hold your own. Demonstrated experience managing C-level relationships and high-stakes, high-visibility accounts.
Nice to Have:- Have spent time in strategic communications consulting, a PR agency, or a broader consulting/advisory environment - backgrounds that build the client-facing instincts, executive presence, and advisory mindset this role demands.
- Experience in narrative intelligence, threat intelligence, social listening, or a related security/comms-adjacent SaaS or managed-service category.
- Familiarity with the comms/PR industry ecosystem and its practitioner networks (e.g., IPR, the Arthur W. Page Society, PRovoke, PRWeek).
- Experience managing a book that spans both SaaS/technology accounts and managed-service/advisory accounts side by side.
The Recipe for a Great Alethean:- Curiosity - we're building a market. We'll make the offer to join our team because we think you'll be one of our missing puzzle pieces. And we need you to have the humility to ask questions of everyone to learn the context you've never had to think about before.
- Have fire in the belly - you want to be out meeting customers, not just managing dashboards from behind a desk, and you're energized by building a function from scratch rather than maintaining one that already runs itself.
- A run toward the fire attitude - we need people comfortable in running toward the problem, figuring out how to build and scale a company. If you like finding and organizing the chaos, leaning into ambiguity to define the goals for your team and lead the organization through execution, this role is a great fit.
- Are a strong communicator with high EQ - someone who builds trust, navigates ambiguity and complexity, and handles high-stakes situations with calm and clarity.
- Willing to raise your hand, speak up, and spot / solve problems proactively - a skilled operator who keeps trains running on time, sees around corners, and ensures flawless execution across a growing team, not just a single book of business.
Compensation and Benefits:- Salary and stock options are negotiated based on experience. The total compensation range for this position is $150,000 to $360,000 (base+commission) per year, depending on the candidate's skills, experience, and qualifications. In addition to cash compensation, this role is eligible for a stock option grant.
- Healthcare at the gold-tier level, dental, and vision is fully funded by the employer. 50% of dependent coverage is provided by the employer. Additional benefits include employer provided life and AD&D insurance and an Employee Assistance Program with a variety of services, including generous Mental Wellbeing support.
- Flexible vacation, sick leave, including office closure between Christmas and New Year's.
- Employees may also participate in an Employer sponsored 401k, after their 6-month anniversary, with a 3% match. Health Savings (HSAs) and flexible spending accounts (FSAs) are also offered.
- Hybrid work environment, with 3 days per week required in office in Washington, D.C or New York for employees in those cities.
