Director, Customer Success Atlantic BU

About the Role

The Customer Success Manager (Automotive) is a key player in driving growth, customer satisfaction, and long-term partnership success for Harman's Automotive Engineering Services (AES) portfolio in the U.S. As part of the Atlantic AES organization, this role focuses on strategic relationship management with key automotive OEMs, ensuring the alignment of Harman's solutions with customer needs and business goals.

You will serve as the customer's trusted advocate and the internal orchestrator across sales, engineering, and domain teams. This includes managing escalations, tracking budgets, influencing solution roadmaps, and driving growth strategies that expand Harman's automotive footprint in the U.S.

What You Will Do

• Own the Customer Relationship: Act as the single point of contact for key U.S. automotive OEM customers, ensuring proactive engagement, seamless communication, and a strong partnership built on trust and value delivery.
• Manage Customer Escalations: Lead escalation management by driving structured resolution plans, ensuring timely follow-up, transparency, and customer confidence throughout the process.
• Track Budget and Change Requests: Oversee customer budget tracking, project financial health, and change request management. Partner with project managers and finance teams to ensure full visibility into scope, cost impact, and profitability across programs.
• Collaborate with Internal Domain Teams:
  • Work closely with Harman's domain experts (Connectivity, Infotainment, AI, Cybersecurity, ADAS, etc.) to align solutions with customer needs.
  • Understand existing domain capabilities and promote relevant offerings to customers as part of ongoing and new business opportunities.
  • Ensure feedback from customers informs domain roadmaps and solution priorities.
• Drive Account Growth: Collaborate with sales and pre-sales teams to identify new opportunities, shape proposals, and introduce advanced AES solutions that align with customer goals.
• Strategic Planning: Partner with the sales organization to develop and maintain the 5-Year Strategic Plan for your accounts, defining growth priorities, innovation themes, and partnership milestones.
• Own the Account Battlecard: Maintain and regularly update the battlecard for your account, capturing competitive insights, customer strategy, key contacts, program status, stratgey to win, and upsell opportunities in coordination with the sales team.
• Voice of the Customer: Serve as a conduit between the customer and Harman's internal stakeholders, ensuring product and solution development aligns with customer expectations and future needs.
• Operational Excellence: Support project delivery teams to ensure commitments are met in terms of quality, scope, and timing. Track account health metrics and deliver quarterly business reviews (QBRs).
• Engagement & Enablement: Support onboarding, training, and knowledge-sharing initiatives to enhance customer adoption and satisfaction with Harman's AES solutions.

What You Need to Be Successful

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's/Master's degree in Business, Engineering, or a related field; 20+ years of experience in customer success, account management, or program management, preferably in the automotive or technology sectors.
• Financial & Change Management: Experience managing project budgets, change requests, and forecasting with cross-functional coordination. Ability to analyze financial and operational data.
• Customer Escalation Management: Proven ability to handle escalations with composure and structure, driving cross-functional resolution and maintaining strong customer trust.
• Collaboration & Influence: Strong interpersonal and communication skills to collaborate effectively across internal domain teams and with customer stakeholders from engineering to executive levels.
• Industry Knowledge: Understanding of automotive development lifecycles, OEM/Tier-1 dynamics, and automotive technologies such as connectivity, infotainment, Cloud, AI.
• Strategic Thinking: Ability to contribute to long-term planning and account strategy in collaboration with sales leadership.
• Analytical & Organizational Skills: Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple accounts, track deliverables, and present clear insights on account performance.
• Tools & Systems: Proficiency in CRM tools (Salesforce preferred), Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, PowerPoint, Word), and project management tools such as Jira or Confluence.
• Customer-Centric Mindset: Deep empathy for customer challenges, proactive approach to problem-solving, and a commitment to driving measurable outcomes and satisfaction.

Bonus Points if You Have

• Basic instructional design or training coordination experience.
• Organizational change management experience.
• Demonstrated project management experience
• Proficiency in Adobe and or SharePoint.
• Experience in global, multi-cultural companies.

What Makes You Eligible

• Willing to travel, domestic and international
• Willingness to work from a Harman office location in Sunnyvale, CA (Hybrid)
• Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment (post-offer).

What We Offer

• Flexible work environment, allowing for full-time remote work globally for positions that can be performed outside a HARMAN or customer location
• Access to employee discounts on world-class products (JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and more)
• Extensive training opportunities through our own HARMAN University
• Competitive wellness benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• "Be Brilliant" employee recognition and rewards program
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development