Customer Success / Support Manager · Senior · 10+ yrs
Lakshmi Venkataraman
VP / Head of Customer Success
Professional summary
Customer Success leader with 12 years building and scaling post-sale orgs across B2B SaaS. Owns net revenue retention as a P&L line, leads teams of 20–35 across CSM, support and onboarding, and partners with executives on the customer-facing roadmap. Built the CS function from scratch at two companies, drove net retention past 120%, and turned churn into a durable growth engine through segmentation, playbooks and customer advocacy.
121%
Net revenue retention
$48M
Recurring revenue owned
32
Post-sale team led
Skills
Leadership
Revenue & retention
Operating model
Platforms
Work experience
Vice President, Customer Success · Northbridge Software
May 2019 – PresentChennai
- Lead a 32-person post-sale org (CSM, onboarding, support) owning $48M in recurring revenue and a 121% net revenue retention target.
- Lifted net revenue retention from 104% to 121% over three years through account segmentation, expansion playbooks and executive business reviews (EBRs).
- Reduced gross logo churn from 14% to 7% by standing up a health-scoring and save-play program across the enterprise and mid-market segments.
- Set the customer-facing roadmap with the CPO and CRO, translating QBR insights into 9 product changes that improved adoption and renewal intent.
- Hired 24 across CS and grew 5 into team-lead and manager roles; built the onboarding, escalation and renewal playbooks now used company-wide.
Director of Customer Success · Verdantia SaaS
Mar 2015 – Apr 2019Bengaluru
- Built the customer success function from zero to a 14-person team supporting 300+ accounts and ₹62 crore in ARR.
- Designed the onboarding and QBR programs that cut time-to-value 38% and raised NPS from 28 to 56 across the customer base.
- Instituted an escalation-governance model with the support org, cutting executive escalations 44% year over year.
Customer Success Manager → Senior CSM · Earlier roles — Freshworks, Zoho
2013 – 2015Chennai
- Managed enterprise SaaS accounts and renewals; promoted twice for retention performance and onboarding leadership.
Education
MBA — Strategy & Marketing
2013Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode, Kozhikode
B.E. Electronics & Communication
2009Anna University, Chennai
Certifications
Gainsight Customer Success Executive (Pulse) Certification
Gainsight · 2021
SuccessHACKER Customer Success Leadership
SuccessHACKER · 2020
Selected achievements
Scaled net revenue retention from 104% to 121% across a $48M recurring-revenue book in three years.
Built the customer success function from zero to a 14-person team supporting ₹62 crore in ARR at Verdantia.
Speaker, SaaSBOOMi 2023 — "Turning churn into a growth engine: NRR as a leadership metric."
Mentor in a women-in-SaaS leadership cohort; advises 2 early-stage startups on building their first CS motion.
See the work in 3D
Explore Lakshmi's interactive WebGL portfolio — projects, skills and a way to get in touch.