Senior Manager of Strategic Account Management

This position is remote with travel. Successful candidate must be located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Maryland, 

Clearwave Fiber is seeking a Sr. Manager of Strategic Account Management to lead and grow our existing team of Strategic Account Managers (SAMs), reporting to the Vice President, Strategic Commercial Sales. This leader will own team performance, customer retention, renewals, and revenue growth across our Key Commercial Accounts (KCAs). 

This is a hands-on leadership role responsible for recruiting, training, coaching, and accountability. The successful candidate will teach disciplined account planning, build a strong pipeline, deliver accurate forecasts, and establish effective processes for retaining at-risk customers. 

What You’ll Do

• Build and Lead the Team 
• Lead the existing SAM team and recruit additional SAMs as business needs grow. 
• Onboard, train, and coach team members through regular one-on-ones, account reviews, and customer meetings. 
• Set clear revenue, retention, renewal, and growth goals; address performance gaps and recognize achievement. 
• Build a positive, collaborative, and competitive culture grounded in accountability and development. 

Blueprint KCAs and Drive Growth

• Establish and coach account blueprinting that maps customer locations, stakeholders, decision-makers, existing services, competitors, and contract milestones. 
• Identify what KCAs need today and tomorrow, translating those needs into actionable retention and growth plans. 
• Expand existing accounts through additional locations, service upgrades, and cross-selling. 
• Support executive relationships, major proposals, pricing discussions, and contract negotiations. 
• Team with Strategic Account Executives (SAEs), our hunter sales representatives, on selected KCAs with clear ownership, coordinated engagement, and effective handoffs. 

Strengthen Customer Relationships and Retention

• Ensure consistent customer engagement, business reviews, and proactive renewal planning. 
• Establish a formal process to identify, track, escalate, and recover KCAs in jeopardy. 
• Maintain visibility into customers with repeated or extensive service issues and incorporate their service history into documented retention plans. 
• Require clear recovery actions, accountable owners, customer communication, and measurable milestones. 
• Partner with support, technical, and operational teams to resolve issues and confirm customer recovery. 

Own Performance, Pipeline, and Forecasting

• Own team quota attainment, KCA revenue growth, retention, and renewal results. 
• Build a qualified pipeline that supports revenue goals and hold SAMs accountable for opportunity development and progression. 
• Deliver accurate, timely reports and forecasts supported by realistic opportunity values, stages, close dates, and renewal expectations. 
• Maintain CRM discipline and visibility into account plans, expansion opportunities, and revenue at risk. 
• Balance account assignments and staffing needs while improving account management playbooks and processes. 

Partner Across the Business

• Work with Sales, Sales Engineering, Service Delivery, Operations, and other partners to align customer needs with Clearwave Fiber’s capabilities. 
• Collaborate with Finance and Legal on pricing, contracts, and renewals. 
• Coordinate customer commitments, implementations, escalations, and account handoffs to support a consistent customer experience. 

• Bachelor’s degree in business or a related field, or equivalent education and experience. 
• Five or more years of experience in telecommunications, fiber, broadband, technology sales, or strategic account management. 
• Three or more years directly managing quota-carrying account management or sales professionals. 
• Demonstrated success recruiting, training, and leading teams accountable for revenue, retention, renewals, and account growth. 
• Experience blueprinting complex accounts and coaching teams to identify current and future customer needs. 
• Proven ability to build qualified pipelines, forecast accurately, and maintain reliable CRM reporting. 
• Experience managing executive relationships, contract negotiations, customer escalations, and at-risk account recovery. 
• Working knowledge of business telecommunications services, including fiber connectivity, dedicated internet access, Ethernet, and networking solutions. 
• Strong communication, financial judgment, and cross-functional leadership skills. 

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading and expanding a geographically distributed account management team within telecommunications or managed services. 
• Background managing large, multi-location commercial customers. 
• Experience teaming account managers with hunter sales representatives. 
• Familiarity with Salesforce or comparable CRM and reporting tools. 
• How Success Will Be Measured 
• Team quota attainment, KCA revenue growth, and expansion revenue. 
• Customer and revenue retention, renewal rates, and recovery of at-risk accounts. 
• Account blueprint quality, pipeline strength, and forecast accuracy. 
• Customer satisfaction and progress resolving recurring service issues. 
• SAM productivity, new-hire readiness, team development, and retention. 

Work Environment and Travel

• This position is remote. Travel is required as needed for customer meetings, coaching, recruiting, and team development, totaling less than 25% of the time.