Head of Customer Success | CLEVVA SA Jan 2021 – May 2026
A South African tech company that builds, deploys, and manages conversational Virtual Agents for regulated industries.
Role Overview & Scope:
Formed part of a 7-member executive management team reporting directly to the Co-CEO. Maintained full strategic and commercial accountability for a premier enterprise client portfolio representing R21m in ARR. Collaborated directly with Co-CEOs on strategic pipeline reviews, commercial risk mitigation, and monthly performance tracking.
Key Responsibilities
- Advisory & Executive Engagement: Directed end-to-end enterprise customer lifecycles, navigating complex procurement, legal, and invoicing processes to ensure 100% predictable renewals and account stability.
- Enterprise Governance & Cross-Functional Leadership: Served as the primary link across Delivery, Product, DevOps, Sales, and Finance; chaired QBRs and steering committees to align resource utilisation and prevent project scope creep.
- Business Strategy & Technology Advisory: Translated customer health metrics, market trends, and product friction into actionable insights to inform the corporate product roadmap.
- CS Function Build-Out: Defined the function from scratch; authored the company’s foundational Customer Success Playbook utilising a custom OREA framework (Onboard, Retain, Expand, Advocate).
- Data, Contract & Risk Governance: Engineered automated metric calculators and dashboards for real-time revenue visibility; took ownership of drafting customer-facing commercial agreements, including proposals and Master Services Agreements (MSAs).
- Relationship & Feedback Frameworks: Introduced structured 1-to-1 and many-to-many relationship models alongside a formal Voice-of-the-Customer (VoC) roundtable programme to build account resilience.
- Corporate Relationship Profiling: Partnered with a Tier 1 client to introduce Insights Discovery profiling to optimise cross-organisation communication, which was subsequently scaled company-wide by the CEOs.
- Cross-Functional Workflows: Established formal Pre-Sales to Customer Success handover workflows and designed a comprehensive Incident Management Framework for priority escalations.
Key Achievements
- Conceived and executed a strategic "re-selling" initiative to newly appointed Telkom executives (including the CDIO and Consumer CEO); presented to MANCO and the Steering Review Committee (SRC) during architectural and commercial workshops to successfully secure the renewal of the company's largest revenue stream.
- Exceeded all annual targets across three consecutive financial years, culminating in R23.5M achieved in FY26 (116% of target) and driving R1.86m in expansion revenue.
- Maintained a 100% contract renewal rate with 0% customer churn for FY26, securing a Net Revenue Retention (NRR) of 108.65% while single-handedly running the portfolio during a sales headcount vacancy.
- Successfully intervened and de-escalated commercial and legacy billing risks at major accounts, including Thurrock Council and OAS Consulting.
Relationship Manager | CLEVVA SA Jul 2018 – Dec 2020
Key responsibilities
- Reported to the Co-CEO and drove improved sales conversion and deal closure rates by preserving early-stage momentum and proactively advancing opportunities through the sales pipeline.
- Actively managed day-to-day customer engagement, ensuring high service standards and consistent communication across all customer touchpoints.
- Supported contract administration, commercial governance, procurement processes, reporting, and invoicing coordination, which ensured smooth account continuity.
Enterprise Partner Manager – Channel and Alliance | Mimecast Dec 2015 – Nov 2017
A global cybersecurity and risk management company headquartered in London, specialising in cloud-native email security and human risk management.
Key responsibilities
- Reported to the Director: Channel and Alliances.
- Collaborated with all the Mimecast divisions, including Sales, Pre-Sales, Customer Advocates and Support Community, Finance and Marketing.
- Articulated the Mimecast strategy to the Partner and have a deeper understanding of Partner strategy/plans, Mimecast relevance and new avenues for Mimecast positioning in order for effective alignment to take place.
- Developed and executed a strategic framework for the managed partners through crafting business and marketing plans with the custodians of the Mimecast relationship within the partner base, and tracked their progress methodically and consistently.
- Mastered the channel program and in turn adapted it accordingly to each of the partners in order to ensure their successful development.
- Amplified Mimecast's relationships with designated enterprise partners to create new opportunities.
- Drove pipeline growth and revenue through partners, through enablement, creative incentive initiatives, campaigns and alignment of business objectives.
- Applied product knowledge and commercial acumen to all business units within the partner to present a compelling partnership proposition.
Achievements
- Awarded Top Performing Partner Manager (FY17) for rapidly adapting to the role and delivering immediate commercial impact, ultimately achieving 137% of the annual revenue target against a R25m baseline (with sustained momentum, including 117% in FY18 Q1 and 99% in FY16 Q4).
- Successfully managed and upskilled the partner ecosystem, directly leading to key partners securing top vendor accolades, including Top Achieving Partner (Dimension Data), Top Performing Government Partner (ITNA), and Most Certified Partner (Datacentrix).
- Consistently hit 100% of required channel KPIs, effectively managing partner margin percentages, deal volumes, and technical certification pipelines to drive ecosystem maturity.
Oracle Brand/Product Business Unit Manager | First Distribution Mar 2015 – Nov 2015
A value-added distributor of leading global brands, providing complex ICT solutions to the Enterprise and SME markets.
Key responsibilities
- Managed the Oracle business unit that comprised of four team members – Software Product Manager; Hardware Product Manager; Solutions Architect and Sales Operations for Oracle Category.
- Managed the full product lifecycle, including pricing strategy, including sales forecasts, rebates, performance reports and market insights for First Distribution and Oracle executive management, vendor programmes and product positioning within the market.
- Partnered with existing resellers to develop and execute tailored strategic business plans, sales strategies and go-to-market initiatives that increased product adoption and revenue.
- Drove partner recruitment, onboarding and development initiatives to expand the Oracle Hardware partner ecosystem.
- Worked closely with the sales team to maximise pipeline opportunities, improve conversion rates and accelerate revenue growth across the product portfolio. This included the design and implementation of enablement programmes that consisted of sales tools, marketing initiatives, partner development plans and product awareness campaigns.
- Coordinated product training and enablement programmes for internal sales teams and resellers to improve product knowledge and sales capability.
- Built and maintained strong working relationships with local and international Oracle stakeholders, ensuring alignment with vendor objectives, commercial priorities and growth initiatives.
- Collaborated with Oracle and First Distribution’s Marketing and Sales teams to execute targeted demand generation activities, customer engagement initiatives and promotional campaigns.
- Managed vendor programme compliance, reporting requirements and commercial governance in accordance with Oracle policies and distribution agreements.
- Worked cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, Finance, Operations and Vendor Management teams to ensure successful execution of business plans and achievement of commercial objectives.
- Resolved partner and channel-related issues promptly, ensuring high levels of partner satisfaction and long-term business relationships.
Achievements
- Invited to be a guest speaker at Oracle’s Value-Added Distributor Forum in Prague
- Completion of multiple Oracle Sales & Pre-Sales certifications, 2012 – 2015
- Completion of Oracle Black Belt training, 2014
Previous Roles
Product Manager: Oracle Hardware – First Distribution | Nov 2013 – Feb 2015
Sales Operations: Oracle Category & Oracle Remarketer Programme Manager – First Distribution | Nov 2012 – Oct 2013
Account Manager: IBM, EMC, Veeam & VMware – First Distribution | Sep 2011 – Oct 2012
Category Assistant: Lenovo Category – Axiz | Apr 2010 – Aug 2011
Product Logistics Administrator: Lenovo Category – Axiz | Mid-Oct 2009 – Mar 2010
Sales Support Consultant – Axiz | Jul 2008 – Oct 2009
Internal Sales Administrator – Axiz | Feb 2008 – Jun 2008
