Lakshmi Venkataraman
VP / Head of Customer Success
Chennai, India • +91 90030 71642 • lakshmi.venkataraman@proton.me • linkedin.com/in/lakshmi-venkataraman-cx
Portfolio: www.eliorexa.com/portfolio/customer-success-manager-senior
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.
Skills
Leadership: CS org strategy, Team building (20–35), Hiring & coaching, Executive alignment, Customer advocacy
Revenue & retention: Net revenue retention, Gross retention, Churn reduction, Expansion / upsell, Renewals forecasting
Operating model: Segmentation & coverage, Onboarding programs, QBRs & EBRs, Escalation governance, Health scoring & analytics
Platforms: Salesforce, Gainsight, Catalyst, Zendesk, Tableau / Looker
Core Competencies
customer success leadership · net revenue retention · retention · churn reduction · customer onboarding · CRM · SaaS · NPS · account management · QBRs · Gainsight · escalations
Work Experience
Vice President, Customer Success — Northbridge Software
May 2019 – Present
Chennai
- 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 2019
Bengaluru
- 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 – 2015
Chennai
- Managed enterprise SaaS accounts and renewals; promoted twice for retention performance and onboarding leadership.
Education
MBA — Strategy & Marketing
2013
Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode, Kozhikode
B.E. Electronics & Communication
2009
Anna 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.