Principal Customer Success Account Manager

A Principal Customer Success Account Manager is a senior customer success leader responsible for driving strategic customer outcomes, accelerating cloud and AI adoption, and ensuring long-term customer health and value realization across enterprise accounts. The role acts as the trusted advisor to senior customer stakeholders while orchestrating Microsoft’s full capabilities to deliver measurable business impact.

Responsibilities

Strategic Customer Leadership: Own the end-to-end customer success strategy, aligning Microsoft solutions to customer business priorities and driving executive engagement and trust.

Customer Health & Value Realization: Lead customer health, security, resiliency, and operational excellence while proactively preventing risks and managing critical situations.

Consumption & Growth: Drive Azure and AI consumption growth by identifying expansion opportunities, accelerating adoption, and ensuring delivery of committed outcomes. 

Orchestration & Delivery Excellence: Orchestrate cross-functional teams (CSA, partners, delivery, sales) to execute high-quality, outcome-driven engagements and Customer Success Plans. 

Trusted Advisory & AI Leadership: Act as a strategic advisor on digital transformation and AI, guiding customers through adoption journeys and aligning technology to business value. 

Business Ownership & Influence: Operate with strong business accountability—balancing customer success, consumption targets, and long-term partnership growth.

Role Characteristics

• Operates at executive level with customers and Microsoft leadership
• Drives complex, multi-workload, multi-country engagements
• Balances strategy, operations, and delivery oversight
• Acts as a multiplier for team impact and customer success outcomes

Customer Relationship Management

Synthesizes and combines various insights from their team and customer industry regarding business and Information Technology objectives for customer organizations using partnership with other account team leaders. Identifies customer priorities with shared accountability for the creation of shared customer account plans in support of customer security and resiliency needs and customer objectives specific to the customer's business transformation programs and common to the industry. Provides leadership to the team to execute support, security, and consumption delivery programs. Uses industry trends and program delivery progress to identify priority area to drive customer environmental health outcomes. Shares industry trends with customers in terms of Microsoft current practices for their industry.

Builds and coaches others on customer, partner, and internal stakeholder engagement strategy and models. Creates, influences, and evolves healthy, strategic relationships with key customer stakeholders, partners, and technical professionals to lead quality and secure solution delivery and health using partnerships with other account team leaders and lead orchestration across internal/external stakeholders. Expands and holds accountability for executive customer and partner relationships with a focus on leading the definition of business outcomes and how to align Microsoft strategy to customer business priorities.

Identifies, navigates, communicates, and influences key customer technical, business, and executive-level stakeholders (including partners). Guides and leads conversations to facilitate the achievement of customer business objectives by leveraging their investment in Microsoft. Maps internal roles to customer priorities to action the needs of customers and provides input into customer priorities. Holds, maintains, and nurtures internal stakeholder relationships. Influences and challenges senior/executive internal stakeholders. Leads business value conversations at customer executive levels and coaches others to communicate effectively in business value conversations and incorporates a focus on security and resiliency.

Customer Success Leadership

Drives conversations with customers to demonstrate alignment between customer objectives and the current Microsoft portfolio of work in the customer account. Embraces the organizational and customer success strategy to maximize customer's investments and value. Drives and agrees upon a long-term approach to fuel adoption of Microsoft technology and services in alignment with the customer's goals and objectives, and includes security as a core component. Drives account team planning, promoting business and technical needs for change to challenge customer thinking that drives transformation towards modern digital approaches. Aligns with the account team to link Customer Success Plans (CSPs) with account plan priorities and develop bookable programs of work. Challenges the customer and influences their strategic decision making, driving the case for change towards improved operational health and security.

In partnership with key stakeholders and executives, develops and delivers strategic roadmaps for executing program planning and customer-facing program review, prioritizing engagements, and influencing key stakeholder and executive expectations to address agreed-upon customer outcomes and account priorities to deliver ongoing customer success. Leverages, improves upon, and streamline Microsoft delivery management methodologies, processes, and tools to improve and mitigate risks to customer operational health. Proactively anticipates, identifies, and mitigates customer blockers (including security and compliance risks) and risks by leveraging Microsoft solutions and services, and develops deliverable programs of work. Orchestrates delivery resources to facilitate value realization with a focus on driving operational health. Leads delivery program reviews with internal stakeholders to ensure alignment on customer outcomes and account priorities. Leads escalation management and communications for delivery programs in the customer account.

Leverages and improves upon methods for identifying, monitoring, and mitigating actual and potential blockers (including security and compliance concerns) to consumption through data analysis and customer feedback. Mobilizes resources to address actual and potential blockers to consumption, ensure delivery on and continuously refine Customer Success Plans (CSPs), and identify opportunities for consumption optimization. Holds accountability for identified consumption milestones and their completion. Partners with customers to understand their business objectives and priorities, identify cross-selling and add-on opportunities, optimize usage, drive adoption, prioritize Microsoft products and services delivery to meet the most critical agreed-upon customer outcomes and account priorities, and develop and execute CSPs to meet them in order to manage consumption holistically across the entire portfolio. Proactively drives business growth strategies.

Technical Relevance

Understands, identifies, and aligns Microsoft solutions, cross-cloud and technical capabilities (e.g., Azure, Security, Modern Work, Dynamics) to expand upon and accelerate customer needs and priorities. Leverages deep foundational industry, technical expertise, and visionary mindset to enable customer success. Articulates cross-cloud technology, solutions, and services in a compelling way to internal and external stakeholders. Evangelizes Microsoft's position in the customers' cloud technology marketplace against competitors. Leverages understanding of the customer's technology platform and Microsoft's technology roadmap to enable customer digital transformation.

Required/minimum qualifications

Master's Degree in Business, Sociology, Psychology, Computer Science, or related field AND 4+ years customer success, solution delivery, practice management, customer-facing consulting, or portfolio management experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Business, Sociology, Psychology, Computer Science or related field AND 6+ years customer success, solution delivery, practice management, customer-facing consulting, or portfolio management experience OR equivalent experience.

Additional or preferred qualifications

Master's Degree in Business, Sociology, Psychology, Computer Science, or related field AND 10+ years customer success, solution delivery, practice management, customer-facing consulting, or portfolio management experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Business, Sociology, Psychology, Computer Science or related field AND 12+ years customer success, solution delivery, practice management, customer-facing consulting, or portfolio management experience OR equivalent experience.

5+ years relevant work experience within customer industry.

Microsoft or competitor equivalent (e.g., AWS) certification in relevant technologies (e.g., Azure, 365).

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation certification or equivalent service management certification.

Project Management Institute (PMI) or equivalent Project Management certification.

Prosci or equivalent certification.

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.