Director, Customer Experience Strategy

An overview of this role

As the Director, Customer Experience (CX) Strategy at GitLab, you will lead the team responsible for shaping the strategic direction of our post-sales organization and turning complex customer, market, and business signals into clear decisions that improve retention, expansion, adoption, and long-term customer value. 

This role is a direct business partner to our Chief Customer Officer (CCO) and supports our Global Customer Experience organization which encompasses Customer Success, Renewals, and Professional Services. It focuses on business planning, lifecycle design, coverage/segmentation strategy, executive decision support, strategic programs, and performance insight across the customer journey.

Success in this role means owning several high-priority cross-functional initiatives, leading the strategy function effectively, and helping the business make better decisions through strong analysis, planning, and structured execution. 

What you’ll do

• Set the vision and priorities for the CX Strategy function, aligning strategic programs, analytics, and planning around customer lifecycle outcomes and GitLab business priorities.
• Own annual planning and in-year strategic cadences for CX, including business planning, coverage and segmentation decisions, headcount and investment proposals, executive reviews, and priority-setting across Customer Success, Renewals, and Professional Services.
• Develop and evolve business models, KPI frameworks, and executive decision support for CX leadership so the organization can make better tradeoffs around customer health, retention, expansion, and growth efficiency.
• Lead high-priority cross-functional initiatives from ideation through implementation, bringing structure to ambiguous problems and driving alignment across CX, Sales, Finance, Product, Revenue Operations, and Data teams.
• Shape customer lifecycle strategy, including journey design, handoffs, engagement models, and program recommendations that improve customer outcomes and field effectiveness.
• Partner with Product and customer-facing leaders to bring voice-of-customer insights, adoption signals, and customer feedback into roadmap discussions, program design, and strategic decision-making.
• Define the strategic requirements and business cases that inform systems, tooling, reporting, and process changes, in partnership with CX Operations and Revenue Technology leaders.

What you’ll bring

• Progressive experience in strategy, analytics, customer success, renewals, revenue operations, consulting, and/or business planning roles in a B2B SaaS environment.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect customer lifecycle strategy to operating metrics, planning decisions, financial considerations, and go-to-market outcomes.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional initiatives and influencing without direct authority across multiple senior stakeholder groups.
• Experience hiring, developing, and leading high-performing distributed teams.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to interpret complex data and translate it into clear recommendations, business cases, and strategic decisions.
• Fluency with key CX and GTM systems and analytical tools such as Salesforce, Gainsight, BI tools, spreadsheets, and SQL, along with comfort defining business requirements for data and tooling investments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to create executive-ready documents, decks, proposals, and recommendations.
• Comfort operating in an all-remote, asynchronous, values-driven environment with a high degree of ownership, iteration, and transparency.

About the team

The CX Strategy team is a small, high-impact partner to the broader Customer Experience organization, focused on steering the end-to-end customer journey from purchase through adoption, renewal, expansion, and advocacy. The team works across strategy, analytics, planning, and cross-functional programs to help CX leaders make better decisions, prioritize investments, and improve customer and business outcomes.