Senior Customer Success Manager, SLED

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About the role:

The Sr. Customer Success Manager - SLED role will play a critical part in the exciting growth trajectory of the Public Sector at Okta. You will report to the Regional Manager, Customer Success - Public Sector and be responsible for complementing Okta’s innovations, best practices, and capabilities with our valued customers’ business objectives and priorities. As a trusted advisor, you will shift customer mindsets, create demand for our solutions, and drive higher business value and executive alignment between Okta and our customers.

The ideal candidate embodies a high-performance mindset—consistently raising the bar, turning action into traction, thriving in change, and moving fast to simplify and repeat. Supporting State, Local, and Education (SLED) customers requires a comprehensive understanding of government and institutional processes, procurement cycles, regulations, and compliance requirements, but it also demands a leader who can navigate these constraints with urgency and an obsession for concrete outcomes. Strong problem-solving, orchestration, and consultative skills are necessary for navigating SLED challenges, finding innovative solutions, and winning as a team.

In this role, you will: 

• Deliver Customer Value: Develop and nurture strong customer relationships to understand their business goals and needs, ensuring retention, happiness, and a significant return on investment. Cement yourself as a trusted and strategic advisor, translating complex technical concepts into actionable business outcomes.
• Drive for Results: Create and implement proactive customer success plans and Strategic Business Reviews (SBRs) that outline goals, potential challenges, KPIs, and timelines to turn action into traction and accelerate growth.
• Win as a Team: Act as the liaison for technical inquiries, issues, or escalations. Forge strong multidisciplinary relationships with Sales, Support, Engineering, Product Management, and other stakeholders to lead and coordinate customer success.
• Act as the voice of the customer and collect feedback to drive continuous improvement across all areas, constantly interrogating what needs to evolve to thrive in change.
• Provide insight with respect to the availability and applicability of new products and features, guiding customers into the agentic era.
• Identify renewal risk and collaborate with internal teams to remediate, ensure a successful renewal, and proactively spot expansion opportunities.

You will thrive in this role if you:

• Have 5+ years of experience in a customer success, account management, or consulting role, managing relationships with large, complex state, local, or higher education organizations with a SaaS-based technical enterprise product.
• Have a solid track record of delivering and scaling an exceptional customer experience, choosing ambition over comfort and consistently raising your own bar.
• Demonstrate strong emotional intelligence and an elite level of relationship management and executive stakeholder development.
• Understand SLED regulatory, procurement, and compliance requirements (e.g., StateRAMP, FERPA, CJIS) deeply, yet look for ways to eliminate friction and move fast within those boundaries.
• Possess exceptional presentation and communication skills, particularly when engaging with C-level executives and institutional leaders to align technical goals with business value.
• Have strong listening and analytical skills with the demonstrated ability to ask effective questions, dive deep, understand the customer’s business priorities, and anticipate their needs.
• Exhibit strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work collaboratively and cross-functionally to win as a team.
• Have good technical and problem-solving skills coupled with the ability to provide quick resolution to problems. Experience in enterprise security tools is preferred.
• Are willing to travel up to 35%.
• Hold a Bachelor's Degree (Required) and equivalent experience.
• Meet SLED-specific background requirements: Familiarity with state and local compliance standards is a bonus, and you must be eligible to clear specific state, local, or educational background checks as required by our customers. Must be a US Citizen.
• The ideal candidate will be located in Sacramento California or New York City.

#LI-Hybrid

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