Client Success Director

Job description

Thought Machine's mission is bold – to properly and permanently rid the world's banks of legacy technology. To achieve this, we have developed the foundations of modern banking through core and payments technology which run natively in the cloud. What we are attempting is hard and means we need great people working together to build great technology. We have grown rapidly in the past few years – growing our team to more than 550 individuals across offices in London, New York, Singapore, Sydney and our newly established Engineering Hub in Lisbon. We have raised more than £500m in funding and our investors include Molten Ventures, Eurazeo, Intesa Sanpaolo, Temasek, Nyca Partners, JPMorgan Chase Strategic Investments, Standard Chartered Ventures, and more. We have created a culture that enables our team to produce the best work in the industry while ensuring we have fun along the way. We're regularly cited as having a fantastic workplace culture and have been recognised by Sifted magazine as having one of the highest Glassdoor ratings for a UK fintech company and the industry's most generous employee share package. Named one of the world's most innovative fintechs by Global Finance Magazine, we were also recognised by the Financial Times as one of Europe's fastest-growing companies for two consecutive years—and a UK Best Employer for 2026. The Client Success Director (CSD) is accountable for ensuring Clients successfully adopt and scale our platform to achieve their contracted outcomes. The primary measure of success for this role is enabling clients to reach their contracted volume of live accounts within agreed milestone dates and budget, while maintaining high client satisfaction and long-term commercial value. This is a senior, client-facing role requiring deep experience in core banking transformation programmes, strong commercial acumen, and the ability to orchestrate delivery, support, and sales teams across complex, multi-year engagements. Duties Client Outcomes & Delivery • Own the end-to-end client success plan from sales support, to implementation through to scale and steady state. • Ensure clients achieve their contracted account volumes within agreed milestones, timelines, and budgets. • Act as the primary point of accountability for delivery outcomes across implementation, upgrades, and ongoing services within the scope of the MSA. • Proactively identify risks to delivery, adoption, or timelines and drive mitigation plans across internal and client teams. • Monitor and analyse client product usage, forecasting key account metrics. Client Engagement & Governance • Following the Vault Delivery Framework, establish and run robust account governance, including steering committees, operational forums, and executive engagement. • Own CSAT, including measurement, action planning, and continuous improvement. • As part of the governance model and ensuring compliance with Thought Machine Support requirements, define the Target Operating Model for support as early on in the engagement as possible. • As part of being accountable for the client success plan, lead Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), demonstrating progress against milestones, value delivered, and forward roadmap. • Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders across business, technology, and operations. • Ensure Client production readiness is complete and signed off by all stakeholders for all go live events including upgrades, particularly the issue of SPM’s (Service Procedure Manuals) and the acceptance into support by the Thought Machine Support organisation. Support & Platform Stability • Act as the escalation point for support issues, ensuring the support organisation resolves defects and incidents in a timely and transparent manner. • Work with the assigned client support lead to track and communicate bug resolution, root cause analysis, and preventative actions to clients. • Work with the assigned client support lead to ensure platform stability and service quality meet contractual and regulatory expectations. Commercial & Financial Ownership • Own the P&L for all paid services delivered to the client, ensuring services are delivered profitably or within the understood company investment envelope for a specified outcome to assure client success. • Maintain overall services profitability for the client, balancing issue remediation and client satisfaction, delivery quality, cost control, and long-term account value. • Oversee commercials related to professional services, managed services, upgrades, and Statements of Work (SOWs). • Work closely with the CCO office and Finance to forecast revenue, margin, and delivery costs. Growth & Sales Collaboration • Partner with the Account Director who is accountable for growing the account and expanding white space. • Support sales cycles by articulating and presenting the client journey — from onboarding to scale — tailoring the level of engagement to be as “hands-on” as the client desires depending on the nature of the engagement (client maturity, partner involvement etc.). • Identify expansion opportunities across modules, services, upgrades, and additional volumes to get the client to the contracted volume on the platform. • Contribute to renewals and contract extensions through demonstrated value and strong relationships. Upgrades & Roadmap Management • Oversee planning and execution of platform upgrades, ensuring minimal disruption and clear client communication. • Being the voice of the client to ensure alignment of client roadmaps and their required regulatory change with product evolution. • Ensure upgrades are delivered on time, within scope, and are commercially aligned. Requirements Essential • Proven experience delivering core banking transformation programmes, either: • On the vendor side (core banking / fintech provider), or • On the client side (bank, building society, or financial institution). • Strong understanding of core banking domains, including account servicing, payments, lending, and regulatory considerations. • Demonstrated accountability for delivery outcomes, milestones, and Client adoption at scale, • Experience owning or influencing commercials, P&L, and services profitability. • Ability to operate credibly with senior banking stakeholders, including CIO, COO, and business heads. • Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and executive-level presentation skills. Desirable • Experience in SaaS or cloud-based core banking platforms. • Background in professional services, client success, managed services, or large-scale systems integration. • Familiarity with regulated operating environments and supervisory expectations. Personal Attributes • Outcome-driven, commercially astute, and comfortable being held accountable, • Calm under pressure and effective in complex, multi-stakeholder environments, • Collaborative leader who can influence without direct authority, • Pragmatic problem-solver with a strong Client-first mindset. Benefits - Highly competitive salary - Healthcare, vision and dental - 25 days holiday - Unlimited paid safe and sick time - 401K matching (up to 7%) - $750 per year flexible spend benefit - Share options - Commuter Pass - Flexible Spending Account (FSA) - Life and long-term disability insurance - All the latest tech you need - A talented and experienced team as your colleagues - An environment where we encourage learning and progress We actively hire candidates who demonstrate technical excellence in their field and welcome people of all ages and backgrounds, providing everyone with equal access to professional development. You are encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't accurately match the job description. We also encourage applications from those with different abilities, including candidates with ADHD, autism, dyslexia or dyspraxia.