Director of Strategic Accounts

Job Summary

The Director of Strategic Accounts is responsible for the overall relationship, retention, satisfaction, and growth of the company's most strategic and high-value customers. Serving as the primary corporate relationship owner for assigned accounts, this role ensures customers receive consistent, high-quality experience across the organization and that their business needs are effectively coordinated across laboratory operations, sales, customer service, quality, finance, and other supporting functions. The Director of Strategic Accounts acts as the voice of the customer internally and the face of the organization externally, developing deep customer relationships, proactively identifying risks and opportunities, resolving complex issues, and ensuring the company delivers on its commitments.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Account Management

• Serve as the primary corporate relationship owner for assigned strategic, national, and high-value customer accounts.
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of each customer's business, testing programs, organizational structure, priorities, and long-term objectives.
• Establish relationships with key customer stakeholders at multiple levels, including operational and executive leadership.
• Develop and maintain strategic account plans outlining customer priorities, risks, opportunities, service expectations, and growth objectives.
• Conduct regular business reviews with strategic customers to evaluate performance, discuss upcoming needs, and strengthen the overall partnership.
• Maintain consistent communication with customers beyond individual projects, locations, or laboratory interactions.

Customer Retention & Experience

• Own customer retention and relationship health for the strategic account portfolio.
• Proactively identify customer dissatisfaction, service risks, competitive threats, and potential account attrition.
• Coordinate internal resources to address customer concerns before they become significant relationship issues.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for strategic customer concerns requiring cross-functional or multi-location resolution.
• Ensure corrective actions and customer commitments are clearly communicated, assigned, tracked, and completed.
• Identify recurring customer pain points and work with internal leadership to address systemic issues.

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Coordinate across laboratory operations, Customer Service, Sales, Quality, Finance, IT, Logistics, and other departments to ensure strategic customer requirements are understood and consistently executed.
• Ensure customers with work across multiple laboratories receive a coordinated and consistent experience.
• Facilitate internal strategic account meetings to review performance, upcoming customer needs, open issues, and growth opportunities.
• Establish clear accountability for customer commitments across departments and locations.
• Partner with operational leadership to align capacity, turnaround time, service expectations, and customer priorities.

Account Growth & Commercial Partnership

• Partner closely with Sales and Business Development to identify opportunities to expand existing strategic relationships.
• Identify additional services, testing capabilities, locations, or solutions that provide value to the customer.
• Support contract renewals, RFPs, pricing discussions, and strategic proposals as appropriate.
• Provide customer intelligence to Sales and executive leadership regarding competitive activity, emerging needs, market changes, and potential opportunities.
• Maintain clear distinction between relationship ownership/customer success and new-business sales responsibility, while ensuring both functions operate collaboratively.

Performance Management & Reporting

• Establish and monitor key performance indicators for strategic accounts, including customer retention, revenue trends, service performance, turnaround time, complaints, escalations, and customer satisfaction.
• Develop strategic account scorecards and dashboards to identify trends and areas requiring attention.
• Provide executive leadership with regular updates regarding account health, significant risks, opportunities, and required organizational actions.
• Monitor customer commitments and ensure appropriate follow-through throughout the organization.
• Use customer and operational data to identify opportunities to improve service delivery and strengthen customer relationships.

Leadership Expectations

The Director of Strategic Accounts is expected to operate as a corporate leader, influencing outcomes across departments and locations without relying solely on direct reporting authority. The successful individual will:

• Create alignment between customer expectations and operational execution.
• Hold internal stakeholders accountable for strategic customer commitments.
• Communicate effectively with laboratory leadership and corporate executives.
• Navigate complex customer situations with professionalism and sound judgment.
• Balance customer advocacy with operational, financial, quality, and regulatory considerations.
• Drive a consistent, enterprise-wide approach to strategic account management.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, Science, Environmental Science, Chemistry, or related field preferred.
• 7+ years of experience in strategic account management, customer success, commercial leadership, laboratory services, environmental services, or a related B2B industry.
• Experience managing large, complex, national, or multi-location customer relationships strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to manage executive-level customer relationships.
• Strong understanding of customer retention, account management, and service delivery.
• Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and influence individuals outside of direct reporting relationships.
• Strong analytical, organizational, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Experience working within laboratory testing, environmental services, scientific services, or another technical service organization preferred.
• Ability to travel as required to customer and company locations.

Working Conditions and Physical Requirements

While performing the duties of this job, the employee will be in a general office environment. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate. This job will require 50% of travel time.