Leadership Search
VP Customer Success recruitment
Search for the leader who makes retention and expansion predictable, and turns post-sales from a cost line into a revenue function.
300+
GTM placements over five years
40 / 60
Split of placements across the US and EMEA
25%
Of placements at executive-search level
10 days
Average to identify the ideal candidate after intake
Net revenue retention is the number investors examine hardest after growth. The VP Customer Success is the person who owns it, and at Series A to C that ownership usually has to be created rather than inherited.
Tipped runs CS leadership search for venture-backed SaaS and AI companies, including first leadership hires over a small existing CSM team.
The mandate to define first
Companies use this title for at least three different jobs: building the operating model, fixing churn, or driving expansion revenue commercially. Each implies a different hire.
We settle at intake who owns the renewal number, who owns expansion, whether the leader also owns support or onboarding, and what the board expects to see improve within four quarters.
What we assess
- Retention record
- Gross and net retention movement they can substantiate, with the actions that caused it.
- Operating model
- Segmentation, health scoring, onboarding and coverage ratios designed from scratch.
- Commercial credibility
- Comfortable carrying renewal and expansion targets and forecasting them.
- Cross-functional weight
- Influences product and sales rather than absorbing the consequences of both.
- Team building
- Hired, levelled and developed CSMs and account managers themselves.
- Technical fluency
- For AI products, understands evaluation, data dependency and workflow change.
Stage matters
At Series A this leader is often player-coach: two or three CSMs, the largest accounts held personally, and every process still to be written. At Series C the role is genuinely managerial, with regional structure, forecasting rigour and a defined relationship to sales.
AI companies add a particular complexity: value depends on customers changing how work is done, so post-sales carries adoption risk that traditional SaaS leaders may not have managed before.
How the search runs
Retained or exclusive, with a mapped market, a longlist reviewed with you and a shortlist of three to five appointable candidates, each with a written rationale and reference themes. Interview processes for this appointment typically include a written ninety-day retention plan, which we brief candidates to prepare.
Proof
Unitary AI
Five placements in five months for Unitary AI while its commercial functions were being established.
Read the case study- 5
- Placements
- 5 months
- Elapsed across the programme
Selected clients
- Cursor
- Planhat
- Branch
- Unitary AI
- Sweep
- Anima Health
- FullStory
- Acoustic
- Optimizely
- VertoFX
Common questions
- Should the VP Customer Success report to the CRO or the CEO?
- Both work. Reporting to a CRO aligns post-sales tightly with revenue and is common once a CRO is in place; reporting to the CEO gives the function independent voice on product and churn, which matters where retention is the primary problem.
- When is it too early for a CS leader?
- Below roughly two or three CSMs the function usually does not need a dedicated leader, and a senior individual contributor who can build process is the better and faster hire.
Ready to talk about the hire?
Tell us the roles, the markets and the stage. You will get a straight answer on whether we are the right partner, and a market view either way.