Director, Customer Success Atlantic BU

A Career at HARMAN

As a technology leader that is rapidly on the move HARMAN is filled with people who are focused on making life better. Innovation inclusivity and teamwork are a part of our DNA. When you add that to the challenges we take on and solve together youll discover that at HARMAN you can grow make a difference and be proud of the work you do every day.

About the Role

The Customer Success Manager (Automotive) is a key player in driving growth customer satisfaction and long-term partnership success for Harmans Automotive Engineering Services (AES) portfolio in the U.S. As part of the Atlantic AES organization this role focuses on strategic relationship management with key automotive OEMs ensuring the alignment of Harmans solutions with customer needs and business goals.

You will serve as the customers trusted advocate and the internal orchestrator across sales engineering and domain teams. This includes managing escalations tracking budgets influencing solution roadmaps and driving growth strategies that expand Harmans automotive footprint in the U.S.

What You Will Do

• Own the Customer Relationship: Act as the single point of contact for key U.S. automotive OEM customers ensuring proactive engagement seamless communication and a strong partnership built on trust and value delivery.
• Manage Customer Escalations: Lead escalation management by driving structured resolution plans ensuring timely follow-up transparency and customer confidence throughout the process.
• Track Budget and Change Requests: Oversee customer budget tracking project financial health and change request management. Partner with project managers and finance teams to ensure full visibility into scope cost impact and profitability across programs.
• Collaborate with Internal Domain Teams:
  • Work closely with Harmans domain experts (Connectivity Infotainment AI Cybersecurity ADAS etc.) to align solutions with customer needs.
  • Understand existing domain capabilities and promote relevant offerings to customers as part of ongoing and new business opportunities.
  • Ensure feedback from customers informs domain roadmaps and solution priorities.
• Drive Account Growth: Collaborate with sales and pre-sales teams to identify new opportunities shape proposals and introduce advanced AES solutions that align with customer goals.
• Strategic Planning: Partner with the sales organization to develop and maintain the 5-Year Strategic Plan for your accounts defining growth priorities innovation themes and partnership milestones.
• Own the Account Battlecard: Maintain and regularly update the battlecard for your account capturing competitive insights customer strategy key contacts program status stratgey to win and upsell opportunities in coordination with the sales team.
• Voice of the Customer: Serve as a conduit between the customer and Harmans internal stakeholders ensuring product and solution development aligns with customer expectations and future needs.
• Operational Excellence: Support project delivery teams to ensure commitments are met in terms of quality scope and timing. Track account health metrics and deliver quarterly business reviews (QBRs).
• Engagement & Enablement: Support onboarding training and knowledge-sharing initiatives to enhance customer adoption and satisfaction with Harmans AES solutions.

What You Need to Be Successful

• Education & Experience: Bachelors/Masters degree in Business Engineering or a related field; 20 years of experience in customer success account management or program management preferably in the automotive or technology sectors.
• Financial & Change Management: Experience managing project budgets change requests and forecasting with cross-functional coordination. Ability to analyze financial and operational data.
• Customer Escalation Management: Proven ability to handle escalations with composure and structure driving cross-functional resolution and maintaining strong customer trust.
• Collaboration & Influence: Strong interpersonal and communication skills to collaborate effectively across internal domain teams and with customer stakeholders from engineering to executive levels.
• Industry Knowledge: Understanding of automotive development lifecycles OEM/Tier-1 dynamics and automotive technologies such as connectivity infotainment Cloud AI.
• Strategic Thinking: Ability to contribute to long-term planning and account strategy in collaboration with sales leadership.
• Analytical & Organizational Skills: Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple accounts track deliverables and present clear insights on account performance.
• Tools & Systems: Proficiency in CRM tools (Salesforce preferred) Microsoft Office Suite (Excel PowerPoint Word) and project management tools such as Jira or Confluence.
• Customer-Centric Mindset: Deep empathy for customer challenges proactive approach to problem-solving and a commitment to driving measurable outcomes and satisfaction.

Bonus Points if You Have

• Basic instructional design or training coordination experience.
• Organizational change management experience.
• Demonstrated project management experience
• Proficiency in Adobe and or SharePoint.
• Experience in global multi-cultural companies.

What Makes You Eligible

• Willing to travel domestic and international
• Willingness to work from a Harman office location in Sunnyvale CA (Hybrid)
• Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment (post-offer).

What We Offer

• Flexible work environment allowing for full-time remote work globally for positions that can be performed outside a HARMAN or customer location
• Access to employee discounts on world-class products (JBL HARMAN Kardon AKG and more)
• Extensive training opportunities through our own HARMAN University
• Competitive wellness benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• Be Brilliant employee recognition and rewards program
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development

HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard torace religion color national origin gender (including pregnancy childbirth or related medical conditions) sexual orientation gender identity gender expression age status as a protected veteran status as an individual with a disability or other applicable legally protected characteristics.