Manager, Customer Success (Activations)

About Auror

At Auror, we’re empowering the retail industry to tackle theft and Organised Retail Crime, a $150 Billion problem globally. It’s high volume crime that’s increasingly organised in nature and is putting people, retailers, and communities at risk every day.

Founded in New Zealand 12 years ago, we’re working with some of the best and largest retailers in the world across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Auror is connecting people and intelligence to reduce crime. We’re using technology for good. 

In partnership with our leading retail partners, we need people with the passion, determination, and innovation required to overcome one of the world's largest problems. If you’re looking to make a difference with and for the people dedicated to stopping crime, for good, then we want you on our team.

We're also embracing the potential of AI to supercharge our impact—whether that's enhancing the way we detect trends, support our customers, or improve internal workflows. As a company, we're committed to responsibly incorporating AI into how we work and what we build, and we encourage all Aurors to be curious about how AI can elevate their work, regardless of role or function.

The Role

As a Customer Activation Lead (PL3), you will lead Auror's Customer Activation function in North America, owning the strategy, team performance, and continuous improvement of how customers are activated across pilots, implementations, and onboarding. You will manage and develop a team of Customer Activation Managers, and hybrid CAMs/CSMs, ensuring the function operates at a consistently high standard as Auror scales.

This role sits at the intersection of people leadership and operational excellence. You'll set the activation playbook, coach your team to deliver repeatable results, and act as a senior partner to Sales, the Customer Success Engagement team, and Product in shaping how activation works at Auror. Success is measured by time-to-value, team performance, and the quality and scalability of the activation motion, not just individual account outcomes. You'll connect the team to the "why" behind decisions, keeping them aligned and motivated through change, and proactively adapt plans as business priorities evolve.

Practically this will involve:

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Customer Activation Managers, setting clear expectations, providing regular feedback, and supporting career growth. Foster a culture of curiosity, reflection, and self-awareness, building adaptive leaders who thrive through change.
• Own the overall performance of the activation function, ensuring the team is acting as a great partner to sales, owning implementation success rates, time-to-value, and adoption metrics across the team's portfolio.
• Define and continuously improve the activation playbook for Auror — pilot frameworks, onboarding templates, success criteria, and handoff processes — so the team operates with consistency and rigour at scale. Translate patterns from across the portfolio into clearer guidance and stronger interventions, raising the capability of the whole function.
• Actively explore how AI can accelerate playbook development, surface portfolio risks, and reduce manual work across the activation function.
• Maintain visibility across all active pilots and implementations, tracking health status, risks, and outcomes and intervening where needed to keep engagements on track. 
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex accounts, at-risk pilots, or stakeholder misalignment, helping the team navigate and resolve blockers with confidence.
• Translate team and customer insights into process improvements, feeding learnings back into how activation is designed and executed across Auror.
• Partner closely with Sales, CS Engagement, and Product to align on activation strategy, improve cross-functional handoffs, and ensure the team has the resources and context to succeed.
• Represent the activation function in cross-functional forums, contributing to go-to-market planning, product feedback loops, and decisions about how the function scales.
• Support hiring, onboarding, and development of team members as the activation function grows.
• In some instances, lead hybrid Customer Activation Managers and Customer Success Managers, in cases where a hybrid role is required. As part of this, you are responsible for ensuring CSMs successfully complete their engagement activities including Business Reviews and strategic engagement planning. 

This role reports to Ruby Arden, VP, Global Customer Success.

As the VP of Global Customer Success at Auror, I lead our CS teams across the UK, US, Australia, and New Zealand. With a career spanning SaaS scale-ups like Vend and Timely, I bring over a decade of experience building high-performing teams that drive customer impact and long-term growth. I combine commercial acumen with a strong customer lens — building trust, driving momentum, and helping teams deliver exceptional value for our customers.

You can connect with me on Linkedin.