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VP, Customer Operations

About Us:

BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company. We own and operate the world's most advanced space-based intelligence platform and provide customers satellite imagery, automated analytics and high-frequency monitoring of strategic locations, economic assets and events from around the globe. BlackSky is trusted by the most demanding allied military and intelligence organizations and commercial companies to deliver foresight into critical matters that affect national security and the economy. BlackSky's data enables governments and businesses to see, understand and anticipate change as it happens, giving them the ultimate strategic advantage so they can act quickly. Our global team works with cutting-edge technology to make a difference around the world and prides itself on being people-first, customer-focused and fun.

Reporting to the COO, the Vice President of Customer Operations is responsible for driving world-class customer experience, retention, and growth across a set of customers supported by the Account Management team. The VP will define the operational strategy, build global high-performing teams, optimize the customer journey, and partner with Sales, Product, and Engineering leadership to ensure customers receive maximum value from BlackSky's unique real-time intelligence capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and scale multidisciplinary customer-facing organizations globally.
• Develop operational processes, KPIs, and performance dashboards that measure satisfaction and drive improvements.
• Recruit, mentor, and develop customer-centric teams across multiple regions.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with domestic and international government and commercial customers.
• Lead complex, high-touch, technical customer engagements with long lifecycle demands.
• Communicate effectively with executive-level and technical stakeholders.
• Drive strategies that maximize customer retention, recurring revenue, and account expansion.
• Build customer health metrics and forecasting models to track experience, usage, and growth potential.
• Partner closely with Sales and Business Development to ensure seamless customer success and expansion.
• Apply knowledge of remote sensing, geospatial analytics, and space-based intelligence solutions to customer needs.
• Guide discussions on SLAs, data delivery, system integrations, and operational workflows.
• Translate complex technical concepts to support decision-making for non-technical audiences.
• Design and optimize onboarding, support, and retention processes across the full customer lifecycle.
• Lead incident management, service reliability, and quality assurance initiatives.
• Map and enhance the end-to-end customer journey for efficiency and satisfaction.
• Translate BlackSky's corporate vision into a cohesive customer operations strategy.
• Provide insights and customer intelligence that guide product prioritization and roadmap evolution.
• Work closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Executive Teams to support strategic priorities.
• Represent Customer Operations in presentations to leadership, partners, and government stakeholders.
• Lead transformation efforts in rapidly evolving environments.
• Implement new structures, processes, and systems to support long-term scale.
• Drive modernization initiatives that elevate the customer experience and operational effectiveness.

Success Metrics

• Customer satisfaction and NPS improvements
• Customer retention and renewal rates
• Account expansion and usage growth
• Time-to-value and onboarding efficiency
• Operational reliability and incident reduction
• Performance of customer-facing team
• Adoption and impact of operational processes and tools

Required Experience & Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business or related field
• 20+ years of total professional experience
• At least 10 years leading customer-facing teams
• Minimum 6 years in the geospatial or remote sensing sector
• Proven experience scaling global customer operations teams
• Strong operational, analytical, and strategic planning capabilities
• Experience with complex technical or government customer engagements
• Excellent communication and executive stakeholder management skills

Travel Requirements

• Domestic and international travel as required (typically 15-20%) to support customer engagements, team activities, and executive meetings.

Work Environment

• Fast-paced, high-growth technology and space industry environment
• Strong emphasis on cross-functional collaboration and remote teamwork
• Ability to work across multiple time zones and global teams
• Flexible work location depending on organizational needs

Life at BlackSky for full-time benefits eligible employees includes:

• Medical, dental, vision, disability, group term life and AD&D, voluntary life and AD&D insurance
  • BlackSky pays 100% of employee-only premiums for medical, dental and vision and contributes $100/month for out-of-pocket expenses!
• 15 days of PTO, 11 Company holidays, four Floating Holidays (pro-rated based on hire date), one day of paid volunteerism leave per year, parental leave and more
• 401(k) pre-tax and Roth deferral options with employer match
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Employee Assistance and Travel Assistance Programs
• Employer matching donations
• Professional development
• Mac or PC? Your choice!
• Awesome swag

BlackSky is committed to hiring and retaining a diverse workforce. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. #LI-Hybrid