Director, Public Sector Customer Success

About the Role:

Love our Customers is our #1 Value at Okta. The Okta Customer First Team lives and breathes this every day. A critical element of Okta’s strategy is helping our Federal and Public Sector customers accelerate their time to value and expand their relationship with Okta. This is a key differentiator for Okta, and we believe that these customers deserve a unique and exceptional experience. When we do this well, our customers succeed in their missions, and Okta succeeds by increasing our renewal and growth rates.

As the Director of Federal and Public Sector, Customer Success, you will lead a team of highly skilled Customer Success Managers and implement a repeatable methodology across our public sector customer base to drive consistency in execution. You will contribute to a customer success strategy that drives faster time to value, resulting in higher renewal and growth rates for our largest and most strategic government accounts. This is a highly visible and strategic role. You and your team will drive customer success as well as resulting renewals and growth with the world’s most important public sector organizations. You will work closely with Okta’s Customers, Partners, and key internal organizations. Success will require collaborating with other Okta internal teams including: Marketing, Operations, Partners, Renewal Sales, Product, and Engineering. As such, you will need to be an adept communicator, equally comfortable having strategic conversations as well as tactical program-level discussions.

Job Scope:

• Vision and Strategy: Develop and champion a comprehensive customer success strategy for the Federal and Public Sector, with a clear focus on driving rapid time-to-value, maximizing customer retention, and identifying opportunities for expansion within this critical portfolio.


• High-Performance Team Building and Management: Recruit, mentor, and empower a team of managers and Customer Success Managers to consistently deliver exceptional value and achieve ambitious goals for customer satisfaction, adoption, and retention within the public sector.


• Driving Customer Lifetime Value: Implement and refine customer engagement models that proactively address the unique needs of government and public sector customers throughout their lifecycle, ensuring high levels of product adoption, driving high renewal rates, and collaborating with Sales teams to identify and capitalize on growth opportunities.


• Strategic Stakeholder Collaboration: Forge strong working relationships with key internal stakeholders, including Renewals, Sales, Technical Account Managers, Marketing, Product, and Engineering, to ensure alignment on customer priorities, resolve escalations effectively, and contribute to a unified customer experience.


• Data-Driven Optimization and Continuous Improvement: Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and leverage data analytics to monitor team performance, identify areas for process improvement, and continuously refine customer success strategies to enhance efficiency and maximize customer outcomes within the Federal and Public Sector.

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• Define the strategy and detailed execution plan for Okta’s Federal and Public Sector Customer Success team, driving faster customer time to value, renewal rates, and growth.


• Drive renewal rates above 94%.


• Lead and manage the team, providing guidance, mentorship, and performance feedback to foster a collaborative and customer-focused culture.


• Develop detailed customer lifecycle process flows tailored to the specific needs and procurement cycles of public sector customers.


• Personally lead and build high-impact relationships with key strategic government customers.


• Build and lead a high-impact team that operates with urgency and drives measurable results.


• Continuously test, measure, and improve processes and tactics based on data-driven insights.


• Hold accountability for adoption and renewal rate improvement goals for the Federal and Public Sector customer segment.

Minimum Required Skills, Abilities, and Qualifications:

• 12+ years of experience in functions such as Customer Success, Strategic Sales, Renewal Sales, or Consulting within the software/SaaS industry.


• 5+ years of experience in a leadership or management capacity, with demonstrated success in managing and developing high-performing teams.


• Extensive experience and deep understanding of the Federal and Public Sector, including government technical considerations and cloud computing security requirements (e.g., FedRAMP).


• Demonstrates high-impact leadership skills, including setting a clear vision and strategy, motivating others, and driving urgency and results.


• Proven ability to deal with ambiguity, utilize robust problem-solving skills, and manage parallel efforts effectively.


• Exceptional business acumen with world-class presentation and customer interaction skills, comfortable engaging with executive leadership.


• Ability to base decisions on deep data analytics and persuade, influence, and motivate people.


• Experience with, or understanding of, large-scale software deployments; familiarity with the security or identity management industry is a strong plus.


• Bachelor’s Degree required, preferably in a technical discipline. Master’s degree/MBA is a plus.

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