Director of Customer Success

Just Right Reader is a forward-thinking curriculum provider committed to advancing literacy for students from Birth through 12th Grade. Our comprehensive resources are designed to support all learners, including upper-grade students requiring additional intervention to develop foundational skills. Grounded in the Science of Reading, our high-quality materials and tools equip educators with the support they need to accelerate achievement and foster lifelong readers.

Position Overview:

We are looking for an experienced Director of Customer Success to build and lead a strong Customer Success function at Just Right Reader. This is a foundational leadership role for someone who understands what great Customer Success looks like and can translate that experience into a practical, scalable operating model for our company.

Most of our Customer Success team members come from education backgrounds - they are former teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders who bring deep credibility and authentic relationships in the districts we serve. They understand our mission and our customers deeply, but many are still developing their customer success instincts, pipeline discipline, and closing skills.The Director of Customer Success will take a talented, mission-aligned team and systematically develop them into confident, capable, and increasingly independent team members - without losing what makes them exceptional with educators.

The Director will own the customer journey from onboarding and implementation through adoption, impact, and renewal, while establishing the systems needed to deliver a consistently excellent customer experience. They will build and lead the Customer Success team, recruit and develop talent, and establish the metrics and operating rhythms needed to identify customer risk and opportunity early. The Director will work closely with Sales, Product, Professional Development, Operations, and company leadership to ensure the organization is aligned around customer needs, outcomes, and retention. The ideal candidate brings significant Customer Success leadership experience, strong people-management skills, and the judgment and gravitas to build a function in an environment where many of the processes and practices are still being defined.

Key Responsibilities

Customer Success Strategy & Operational Model

• Own the Customer Success strategy and operating model with a singular focus on retention. Renewals are the lifeblood of our business, and every aspect of how we onboard, implement, support, and engage customers should be designed to earn the next year's commitment.
• Establish a clear, end-to-end approach to the customer lifecycle - onboarding, implementation, adoption, impact, renewal, and expansion - where each stage is explicitly designed to build the trust, outcomes, and relationships that make renewal a natural conclusion rather than a last-minute conversation.
• Define and implement Customer Success best practices, standards, processes, and operating rhythms that keep renewal health visible and actionable at every stage of the customer journey - not just at contract time.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, and handoffs across the customer lifecycle so no customer falls through the cracks between teams and renewal risk is identified and addressed early.
• Build a scalable model that balances high-quality customer relationships with efficient operations as the customer base grows without sacrificing the depth of partnership that drives long-term retention.

Customer Journey & Retention

• Establish standards for implementation quality, customer engagement, adoption, impact measurement, and renewal readiness.
• Create clear frameworks for account segmentation, customer health, risk identification, and escalation.
• Own the approach to retention and renewal forecasting, with processes that identify risks well before renewal dates.
• Partner with Sales to create strong transitions from new business through implementation and position successful customers for renewal and expansion.
• Stay close to important customers and customer patterns to understand needs and continuously improve the customer experience.

People Leadership & Team Building

• Build, recruit, and lead a high-performing Customer Success team, establishing the structure and capabilities needed as the customer base grows.
• Hire, onboard, coach, and develop team members, setting clear expectations for performance and professional growth.
• Establish team goals, performance standards, and operating rhythms for coaching, accountability, and development.
• Identify capability gaps and build the training, resources, and development plans needed to strengthen the team.
• Build a culture of ownership, accountability, customer empathy, and continuous improvement.

Data, Systems, & Performance

• Establish the metrics and reporting needed to understand customer health, adoption, implementation progress, retention, renewal, and expansion.
• Build reliable dashboards and forecasting processes that give the team and leadership clear visibility into customer and business performance.
• Use customer and business data to identify trends, risks, and leading indicators.
• Ensure Customer Success information is accurately maintained in HubSpot and other relevant systems and consistently used to manage the business.
• Translate customer and performance data into clear insights and actions.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Partner closely with Sales to improve customer handoffs, implementation readiness, renewal planning, and expansion opportunities.
• Collaborate with Product and Professional Development to bring customer needs and outcomes into company priorities and decision-making.
• Work with Operations and other teams to establish clear processes for customer-related workflows and escalations.
• Represent the voice of the customer in cross-functional and leadership discussions while balancing customer needs with company strategy and business realities.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive experience in Customer Success, account management, partnerships, client services, or a related field, including significant experience leading customer-facing teams.
• Demonstrated experience building or significantly improving a Customer Success function, including processes, standards, metrics, operating rhythms, and team structures.
• Proven experience hiring, coaching, and developing customer-facing professionals.
• Strong understanding of Customer Success best practices, including customer health, adoption, implementation, retention, renewal forecasting, and expansion.
• Strong commercial and analytical acumen, with the ability to use data to identify trends, predict risk, make decisions, and communicate a clear story.
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted relationships with senior leaders and navigate complex stakeholder environments.
• Strong organizational and problem-solving skills, with the ability to establish structure and drive execution in an evolving environment.
• Excellent communication, judgment, and executive presence, with the ability to influence leaders, customers, and cross-functional teams.

Preferred

• Experience in K-12 education (educator, instructional coach, admin role, or district facing role), edtech, educational publishing, or another education-focused org.
• Experience with recurring-revenue business models and SaaS products.
• Experience building a Customer Success org amid significant company growth.
• Experience with HubSpot or another CRM and Customer Success technology stack.

What Success Looks Like

• Just Right Reader has a clear Customer Success model, with defined customer lifecycle stages, roles, processes, and standards.
• Customer Success has reliable visibility into account health, implementation, adoption, renewal risk, and expansion opportunities and can act proactively.
• Customers experience a high-quality journey from onboarding through renewal.
• The Customer Success team is appropriately staffed, well-managed, and increasingly capable of delivering strong customer outcomes independently
• Customer retention, renewal forecasting, adoption, and customer health become increasingly predictable and measurable.
• Customer Success becomes a trusted source of customer insight and a strong cross-functional partner to the business.
• The Director establishes a durable Customer Success function that can scale with the company and customer base.

Why Join Us:

At Just Right Reader, we're transforming how children learn to read. You'll be part of a passionate, growing team committed to educational equity, literacy innovation, and joyful learning.

• Mission-driven company focused on improving literacy and education outcomes.
• Collaborative and innovative work environment with opportunities for growth and development.
• Competitive salary and benefits package.