Principal Vendor Partner Manager

Overview

We are a high-impact, fast-moving Customer Success organization on a transformational journey. With bold goals and a deep obsession for both customer and expert experiences, we operate at velocity and with purpose to deliver measurable impact 're looking for a bold, strategic, and hands-on leader to join our passionate team and help us drive large-scale change across both internal operations and external partner ecosystems.

We are a high-impact, fast-moving Customer Success organization on a transformational journey. With bold goals and a deep obsession for both customer and expert experiences, we operate at velocity and with purpose to deliver measurable impact 're looking for a bold, strategic, and hands-on leader to join our passionate team and help us drive large-scale change across both internal operations and external partner ecosystems.

As a Principal-level individual contributor in Vendor Partner Management, you will serve as a subject matter expert and strategic force across our highest-priority customer success partnerships. You will shape how we deliver excellence at scale – designing programs, influencing cross-functional strategy, and driving complex initiatives with a high degree of autonomy. You are a critical connector between internal teams and external partners, and a key voice in how we evolve our service delivery model.

• Serve as the primary strategic lead for multiple high-impact vendor/BPO relationships, responsible for driving operational excellence and measurable business outcomes.
• Own KPI performance across CSAT, AHT, and Issue Resolution, conducting deep root-cause analysis, driving performance improvement plan accountability, and escalating systemic issues to senior leaders with clear improvement paths.
• Lead Weekly and Monthly Business Reviews (WBRs/MBRs) with analytical rigor, ensuring partners deliver data-driven pre-reads, own performance gaps, and execute on improvement actions with urgency.
• Monitor staffing delivery against capacity plans in real time, partnering with WFM to address intraday gaps and maintain supply-demand alignment.
• Act as the primary escalation and advocacy point across internal stakeholders, influencing resolution paths and shaping long-term operational improvements.

• Lead cross-functional initiatives that improve support delivery, expert experience, expert readiness, and tooling across vendor networks.
• Shape how our engagement models are operationalized across partner-initiated flows, translating engagement types (testing/piloting, service guidance, comms/cascade, VOE, strategy alignment) into clear governance routines and partner accountability structures.
• Champion expert readiness ensuring change management, training design, and cascade coordination are built into initiative planning from the outset.
• Serve as a trusted advisor across CX, Product, Ops, and Finance to inform experience design and scaling decisions at an organizational level.
• Drive service innovation by designing and piloting new staffing models and workflows, working closely with internal technology and CX teams to bring new approaches from concept to execution.

• Synthesize complex, multi-source data, including Expert Performance dashboards, Customer Insights, and Staffing Scheduled vs. Delivered reports, into compelling business insights and strategic recommendations for senior leadership.
• Develop performance frameworks and analytical models that assess the health of partner relationships, identify root causes, and quantify the ROI of strategic initiatives.
• Build and maintain executive-level reporting on partnership performance, initiative impact, and expert readiness trends.

• Lead change management for complex, multi-partner initiatives, navigating sensitivity levels, managing narrative coordination, and ensuring service delivery managers are prepared before any change reaches the expert network.
• Champion innovation by introducing new approaches to service delivery and partner operations, and by helping cross-functional partners understand the execution requirements their initiatives create for the expert network.
• Model and advance a culture of continuous improvement, bold thinking, and operational excellence across the partner ecosystem.

• 10+ years of leadership experience in Vendor Partner Management, Customer Experience, Business Operations, Program Management, or Strategic Partnerships
• Proven track record managing BPO/vendor partnerships, with a focus on performance management and relationship development across senior stakeholders
• Fluency in contact center KPIs (CSAT, AHT, Issue Resolution) and deep experience running W /M  cadences, performance improvement plan protocols, and performance accountability frameworks
• Experience shaping or operationalizing engagement model governance, change management coordination, and bidirectional…