Graduate Customer Success Manager Jobs in Chicago, IL

At StarTech.com, we help IT professionals solve connectivity challenges through reliable, performance-driven solutions that make hard-to-find, made easy. The Customer Success Manager plays a critical role in advancing this mission by building strategic relationships with IT professionals within Global 5000 organizations. By understanding customer environments, influencing technology standards, and positioning StarTech.com as a trusted partner, the Customer Success Manager creates scalable and repeatable demand across key enterprise accounts while driving long-term revenue growth.

Working closely with the Director of Strategic Accounts and cross-functional leaders across Sales, Marketing, Product,  Operations, and Customer Delivery, the Customer Success Manager serves as a connector between the customer and the organization. Through ongoing engagement with decision-makers and influencers, the Customer Success Manager uncovers customer challenges, gathers actionable insights, and develops strategies that deliver differentiated value. These insights help shape business plans, inform company priorities, and ensure StarTech.com remains aligned with the evolving needs of its most important customers.

Success in this role requires a highly customer-centric, entrepreneurial mindset and the ability to navigate complex, unstructured business challenges. The Customer Success Manager is responsible for developing and executing account strategies that deepen customer relationships, generate incremental revenue, and foster long-term loyalty. By championing the voice of the customer and driving cross-functional collaboration, the Customer Success Manager helps advance StarTech.com's end-customer strategy while contributing directly to the company's global growth objectives.

What You’ll Do

The Customer Success Manager is accountable for the continued evolution of the strategy, aimed at cultivating end customer development. This involves the following responsibilities:

• Build and nurture relationships with Technology professionals at high opportunity end customers. This entails identifying new prospects through both personal research and peer lead generation to create regular engagements with target personas at existing top-end customers. By regularly interacting with these customers, the Customer Success Manager will gain an in-depth understanding of their roles, organizations, pain points, and technology needs, leveraging these insights to deliver incremental value, novel solutions, resolve issues, build trust, and deepen customer loyalty.
• Identify and deliver new value propositions that strengthen customer loyalty. This will be achieved through the development and deployment of a robust business plan designed to integrate new cross-functional capabilities within the company, ensuring these offerings are leveraged to develop and grow loyalty and revenue with top end customers. The Manager will be instrumental in enhancing customer loyalty by successfully implementing and executing this strategic plan.
• Systematically capture pertinent data regarding contacts, companies, and their content and product/category preferences. This data-driven approach will enable tailored engagement strategies, enhance customer experience, and guide the product and service development pipelines to meet the evolving demands of our customer base.
• Facilitate seamless cross-functional collaboration within the broader organizational matrix. The Manager will bridge the Customer Success team with key internal stakeholders from Customer Delivery, Global Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Merchandising, Operations, Market Research, and Business Intelligence. This involves setting the rhythm for collaboration and interaction to ensure the company and team remain aligned and can prioritize and act on their shared mission effectively.

 What this role is:

•  Revenue-driving, commercial role - drive revenue growth, increase product adoption, and close opportunities
• Strategic account growth role - Builds account plans, long-term value propositions, and demand generation strategies
• Relationship-led influencer role - building and nurturing relationships with IT / AV technology professionals
• Cross-functional quarterback role - aligning teams, driving execution, and operationalizing strategy
• Data-informed, insight-driven growth role - Analytical, structured, comfortable with CRM + metrics, hypothesis-driven

This role is not a:

•  Service focused / ticket-based CS role
• Pure farmer / relationship maintainer
• Sales rep with a narrow quota and territory motion
• Specialist role
• Low-autonomy or execution-only role

Skills & Knowledge

• Entrepreneurial and Customer-centric Mindset 
  Entrepreneurial disposition and a commitment to understanding customer needs, empathizing with their challenges, developing solutions and delivering exceptional customer experiences by embracing and applying the company’s business model. 

• Strategic Thinking 
  Ability to analyze market trends, customer needs, and competitive landscapes to develop long-term business strategies that drive revenue growth. 

• Industry Knowledge 
  Familiarity with the technology industry and value chain, including an understanding of industry trends, dynamics, and the competitive landscape. 

• Leadership and Team Management with a One Team Mindset 
  Experience in leading and motivating cross-functional teams, setting performance goals, providing feedback, and fostering collaboration. An approach that applies big-picture thinking to take decisions for the greater good of the company, fostering a One Team spirit. 

• Communication and Interpersonal Skills 
  Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, including active listening, persuasive presentation abilities, to foster relationship-building with clients and internal stakeholders. 

• Customer Success Management 
  Expertise in designing and implementing customer success strategies to drive customer loyalty, satisfaction, and growth. A commitment to continuous improvement by staying up to date on industry trends, customer success best practices, and emerging technologies that can enhance business development efforts. 

• Technical Aptitude 
  Above average technical knowledge to comprehend the company's product offerings, provide technical guidance to customers, and collaborate effectively with product development teams. 

• Project Management 
  Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, set priorities, allocate resources, and ensure timely delivery of customer success initiatives and business development activities. 

• Metrics and Reporting 
  Proficiency in defining and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of customer success and business development efforts. Ability to leverage comprehensive reports and dashboards to communicate results and insights. 

• Curiosity, Adaptability, and Resilience 
  Insatiable curiosity, willingness to embrace change, work in a fast-paced environment, and quickly adapt to customer and market dynamics. Ambition and a bias toward action, ensuring a proactive approach to both internal and external interactions. A can-do attitude that focuses on opportunities and problem-solving. 

• Business Acumen 
  Understanding of financial concepts, profit margins, revenue forecasting, and budget management. Ability to align initiatives with overall business goals. 

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 
  Proficiency in utilizing CRM tools to manage customer interactions, track sales activities, and identify growth opportunities. 

What You Bring

Education & Experience 

• At least 10 years of experience in business development and commercial team leadership in the information technology industry, focused on connectivity hardware (preferred) or an adjacent technology focused industry. 

• Track record of exceptional listening, analytical and problem-solving capabilities requiring interaction with multiple departments internally and external execution across a multi-tier value chain. 

• Demonstrated tenacity, customer-orientation, and the ability to initiate relationships with IT decision-makers at large and/or high-potential organizations. 

• Demonstrated understanding of customer needs, and experience translating customer needs into business results/growth. 

• Experience crafting, developing, and executing cross-functional business plans that enable the collaboration of various departments and stakeholders to achieve company objectives. 

Physical & Sensory Demands

• Remote work environments. 

• Continuous use of a multi-monitor workstation with frequent video calling. 

• Ability to travel as required for customer meetings, industry events, and internal in-person meetings at the company office(s).

We respect your time and value transparency. Here’s a general idea of what to expect:

• Introduction call with Talent Acquisition (30-minutes)
• First Interview with Director, Strategic Accounts (60-minutes)
• Second Interview – Director Panel (45-minutes)
• Final interview with Chief Revenue Officer (45-minutes)
• Offer & onboarding

About us

We are in the business of human-centered experiences starting with yours. We believe delivering on our promise of "hard-to-find, made easy" begins with an employee experience founded in opportunity, teamwork, empowerment, and curious minds always asking what if. Not only does our commitment to the exceptional deepen relationships with our partners and customers, it also ignites connection within our team.

StarTech.com is a global leader in tech connectivity solutions, manufacturing a wide range of accessories designed to meet the demanding performance standards of IT professionals and businesses. Since 1985, the company has expanded into 28 markets across five continents, with products trusted by more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies. StarTech.com has been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies by Deloitte for 15 consecutive years and is ranked in the top 5% of companies worldwide for sustainability by EcoVadis. 

StarTech.com is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 and the Ontario Human Rights Code, StarTech.com will provide accommodations throughout the recruitment, selection and/or assessment process to applicants with disabilities. If selected to participate in the recruitment, selection and/or assessment process, please inform Human Resources of the nature of any accommodation(s) that you may require in respect of any materials or processes used to ensure your equal participation.

StarTech.com uses AI tools only for administrative support, such as transcribing interview notes and organizing candidate details into standardized prescreening and interview templates. These tools do not screen, rank, or assess candidates. All hiring decisions are made by our Talent Acquisition team and Hiring Managers. Candidate information is collected and used solely for recruitment purposes in compliance with applicable privacy laws.