New

VP of Customer Success & Adoption

Santa Clara

Forward Networks is transforming how the world’s most complex networks are managed and secured. Founded in 2013 by four Stanford Ph.D.s, we built the industry’s first network digital twin — a mathematically precise model of the production network that gives IT teams unmatched visibility, verification, and agility across every major cloud and vendor environment.

Our customers include global leaders such as Goldman Sachs, PayPal, S&P Global, IBM, and Dell, as well as fast-growing enterprises and government agencies. According to IDC, Forward Networks customers realize an average of $14.2 million in annual benefits through improved efficiency and security.

Backed by world-class investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, MSD Partners, and Threshold Ventures, Forward Networks offers a people-centric, innovative culture where brilliant minds are shaping the future of network reliability, security, and AI-ready operations.

The Role

We're looking for an experienced VP of Customer Success to architect Forward's customer success function with a clear mandate: drive adoption and grow revenue inside our existing accounts. You'll own the post-sale customer journey end to end — onboarding, adoption, retention, and expansion — and the metrics that come with it (net revenue retention, gross retention, product adoption, and expansion pipeline).

You'll personally be involved with our most important accounts helping to understand challenges they are facing and how our products and services can help drive value inside their organizations. You’ll work collaboratively with your other peer leaders in the revenue and GTM organizations to architect the function across various customer segments and define roles & responsibilities to scale the function.  

What You'll Do

  • Own adoption and time-to-value. Build the onboarding and adoption motion that gets customers to value fast and keeps them using Forward as part of how they work. Design change management frameworks for our customers to transform how they manage their networks.
  • Drive net revenue retention. Own NRR and GRR as your headline numbers. Identify expansion opportunities, run renewals proactively, and turn healthy usage into growth.
  • Build CS playbooks. Define the customer journey, segmentation, health scoring, success plans, QBR cadence, and the lifecycle motions for each stage.
  • Stand up the tooling and signals. Evaluate our current CS tools, platforms and analytics; and evolve them to support the future vision of the function.
  • Engage with the most important accounts. Be the trusted advisor to Forward's key customers, tying their business outcomes to product value.
  • Reduce churn and de-risk renewals. Build an early-warning system for at-risk accounts and a clear play to recover them.
  • Close the product feedback loop. Be the voice of the customer to Product and Engineering in partnership with Pre-Sales engineering, turning usage patterns and customer needs into roadmap influence.
  • Partner cross-functionally. Work with Sales on smooth handoffs and expansion, with Product on adoption blockers, and with Marketing on advocacy, references, and case studies.
  • Build the team. As the motion scales, hire, onboard, and lead a customer success team.

What We're Looking For

  • 12+ years in customer success, with at least 6+ years in leadership, including hands-on account ownership, not just program management.
  • Proven experience building the CS function — you've built or substantially scaled a CS function, ideally at a startup or small team where you didn't have existing playbooks or tooling to lean on.
  • A track record of driving adoption and expansion — measurable NRR/GRR improvement, reduced churn, and revenue grown inside the existing base.
  • Strong commercial instincts — you're comfortable owning a number and spotting and closing expansion, not just keeping customers happy.
  • Coaching mentality — you’ve demonstrated that you know how to develop and grow your people.
  • Data fluency — you use usage data and health signals to prioritize and act, not just react.
  • Comfort with ambiguity and a builder's bias — you create a process where none exists and move fast.
  • Excellent communication — credible with a customer's executive sponsor and their day-to-day users alike.

Nice to Have

  • Experience in Networking or Security tools.
  • Familiarity with CS platforms and tooling (e.g., Gainsight, Catalyst, Vitally, ChurnZero) and product analytics.
  • A background that blends customer success with account management, renewals or sales, given the expansion focus.

    The expected On-Target Cash Earnings for this role is between $360,000-$380,000 per year. Within this range, individual pay is determined by several factors including but not limited to, job-related skills, work experience, and relevant education/training

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at Forward Networks? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV*

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Select...
Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Forward Networks’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.