Manager, Customer Activation

Job description

ABOUT FLOAT Float is on a mission to simplify finance for Canadian businesses, empowering them to eliminate complexity and unlock new opportunities. Through our innovative platform, Float enables businesses to streamline financial operations and optimize cash flow, so they can focus on what matters most: growth. As one of Canada’s fastest growing companies https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/rob-magazine/top-growing-companies/article-ranking-canadas-top-growing-companies-of-2024/ and top-rated startups in 2025 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/floatfinancial_were-proud-to-share-that-float-has-been-activity-7387093684720300032-2DDz/, 2024 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-top-startups-2024-15-canadian-companies-rise-linkedin-news-llihe/ and 2023 https://lnkd.in/TSU23CA, Float is customer-obsessed, passionate and entrepreneurial, with a team that includes leaders from Uber, Stripe, Shopify, Top Hat, Ada, Doordash, Snowflake, and Wealthsimple. At Float, everyone is an owner, bringing their unique perspective to our team and product. Your voice is important, and we take having a culture based on feedback seriously. We openly share our thoughts and differing opinions so we can continue to improve. We do our best to keep our decision-making decentralized so that all team members feel ownership in our success. OUR PRODUCT Float is Canada’s intelligent financial operating system, combining modern financial services and software to help businesses spend, save, and grow. Trusted by more than 10,000 Canadian companies, Float provides high-limit corporate cards, automated expense management, next-day bill payments, high-yield accounts, and industry-leading support, all built in Canada, for Canada. Float recently announced our $85 million Series C https://floatfinancial.com/press/float-financial-raises-cad-85-million-series-c, and is backed by world-class investors, including Inovia Capital, Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, OMERS Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank. Our team is a collection of ambitious, collaborative and mission-driven people from all walks of life but with one goal: helping Canadian companies not just survive but thrive. And we’re looking for bold innovators to help shape the future of business finance in Canada. AI USE IN OUR HIRING PROCESS We use technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), to support parts of our hiring process. This may include AI-assisted scheduling and candidate communications, and AI-generated interview notes, guides or summaries to help our team focus on the conversation. All hiring decisions are made by our hiring team. ABOUT THE ROLE We're looking for a Customer Activation Team Manager to lead a team of five Customer Activation Managers (CAMs) who own one of the most important handoffs in our business: the moment a deal closes and a new customer needs to get up and running. Once an Account Executive closes a deal, the Customer Activation team takes over — training spenders, migrating corporate card spend, and onboarding customers across Float's full product suite — owning the entire activation journey for a customer's first 120 days. This is a backfill for a strong team with solid foundations already in place, looking for a leader to build on that base. You'll work closely with Account Executives, Product, and Engineering to keep the activation motion running smoothly, standardize how the team operates, and ensure customers realize value fast. This role is hands-on: you'll run the team like a revenue organization against realized TPV and other revenue-tied metrics, and you won't be afraid to get into the weeds on individual accounts. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Lead and develop a team of five Customer Activation Managers, owning their performance, growth, and day-to-day support — in person, in the Toronto office from Tuesdays to Thursdays. - Own the team's results against realized TPV (total payment volume) and other revenue-tied activation metrics. - Standardize onboarding playbooks across scenarios so customers get a consistent experience regardless of which CAM they work with. - Build out playbooks, processes, and metrics for multi-product adoption beyond the first 30 days, extending focus across the full 120-day journey. - Develop deep product fluency across Float's full payments suite — not just cards — and translate that understanding into how the team designs and runs the customer onboarding journey. - Get into the weeds on individual accounts — diagnose blockers, unstick stalled activations, and coach CAMs through complex situations. - Bring rigor and follow-up discipline to the team's sales-like motion, holding reps accountable for proactively driving accounts to activation. - Flag account risks early and proactively — to CAMs, Sales, Customer Success, and Leadership — before they threaten activation or retention. - Partner with Sales to understand the customer journey from first interaction through the CAM hand-off, and with Customer Success to ensure a smooth transition into long-term adoption beyond the first 120 days. - Represent the Customer Activation team in front of customers directly for high-value accounts, including presenting to stakeholders. - Surface product and process feedback to Product and Engineering leadership, using CAM and customer input to drive real changes to the activation experience. - Advocate cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Marketing to remove friction from the activation journey. - Build a team culture where CAMs feel supported, recognized, and set up to do their best work. ABOUT YOU HERE'S WHAT SETS YOU UP FOR SUCCESS AT FLOAT: - You Put Customers First, Always. You care deeply about delivering meaningful value. Whether you're building internal systems or customer-facing features, you're always thinking about how to make life better for our users. - You Act Like an Owner. You take responsibility for outcomes, step up to challenges, and seek solutions proactively—doing what's best for the business, not just your role. - You Think Big and Move Fast. You're energized by building from 0 to 1. You're not afraid to challenge the status quo, experiment quickly, and learn as you go. - You Constantly Learn and Grow. You're hungry to improve your craft and open to feedback. You bring a growth mindset to everything you do. - You Raise the Bar. You care about doing things well and efficiently. You balance speed with rigor and always look for ways to improve how we work. - You Win as a Team. You're a generous collaborator who values communication, context, and shared wins. You lift others up and help make the team stronger. IN ADDITION TO LIVING OUR VALUES, YOU BRING: - Experience managing a team that owned a revenue or activation-tied outcome — you know how to balance customer experience with hitting a number. Ideally you were also an individual contributor in this world at some point. - Background in an adoption-, usage-, or consumption-based business model; payments or POS experience (e.g. Shopify, Lightspeed, or similar) is a strong signal even if not a "pure" consumption model. - An inherent curiosity about how payment products fit together — not surface-level, but a genuine drive to understand the mechanics and translate that into a better onboarding experience. - Startup or fast-paced environment experience, with a track record of driving initiatives forward without needing heavy direction. - Resourcefulness to unpack a problem, go to the source, and drive it to a solution — rather than escalating and waiting. - A demonstrated ability to unpack customer issues and build a path forward in partnership with CAMs and Sales. - Strong analytical skills — comfortable spotting trends and patterns across both accounts and people, and turning them into action. - A proactive, ownership-driven approach — you diagnose problems before they surface and bring solutions, not just observations. - Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with Sales, Revenue Operations, Product, and Engineering. - Comfort operating in ambiguity — you don't need everything playbooked to move forward. - Strong interpersonal and presentation skills; comfort being customer-facing for high-value accounts. - FinTech and/or financial services experience is highly favoured. THIS MAY NOT BE THE ROLE FOR YOU IF: - You come from a pure customer-success or account-management leadership background where the team's KPIs were satisfaction or SLAs rather than a revenue-tied number. - You prefer to manage from dashboards and don't want to get into the weeds on individual accounts, learn the product deeply, or coach reps directly. - You'd rather escalate and wait than unpack a problem, go to the source, and drive it to a resolution yourself. - You want a purely strategic seat rather than a hands-on, player-coach team lead role. - You're not energized by a fast-moving, evolving environment where processes are still maturing. - You’re unable to come into the Toronto office from Tuesdays to Thursdays. OUR HIRING PHILOSOPHY We hire for character, curiosity, and learning velocity before credentials. Titles matter less than impact, and every hire is expected to raise the bar for Float as a whole. WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN - Work at one of Canada's fastest-growing fintech companies - Make a real impact in a high-autonomy, high-growth role - Collaborate with an ambitious and supportive team - Competitive compensation, equity options, and benefits - Hybrid work model – we are based in Toronto with in-office days for connection and collaboration - Enjoy catered team lunches every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - Bring your pup to our dog-friendly office - Thrive in a high-trust, high-performance culture where your work truly matters IN SHORT At Float, you’ll thrive if you’re bold, curious, and eager to make a real impact. We're building something special—and having a lot of fun along the way. If you’re excited to build, grow, and win together, we’d love to meet you. We’re committed to building a workplace that’s welcoming and accessible for everyone. If you need any accommodations during the hiring process or once you join Float, just let us know! You can reach out to Vic https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-boult-b21b2053/ (victoria@floatfinancial.com), and we’ll work with you to make sure you have what you need to succeed.