Director, Customer Success

Director, Customer Success (Regional Leader)

Location: Chennai, India | Work Model: In-office (5 days per week)

About the Team

Our Chennai Shared Services Center (SSC) is the engine room that powers Appian’s global Customer Success delivery. We are a high-performing, rapidly growing hub of world-class consultants and specialists who enable global enterprise clients to maximize the value of the Appian platform. Our culture thrives on operational excellence, collaboration, and a shared pride in driving tangible business outcomes for our customers worldwide.

The Opportunity

As the Director, Customer Success (Regional Leader), you will hold the keys to the overall health, performance, and scalability of our Chennai SSC. This is a pure operational and people leadership role where your success is measured not by technical code, but by organizational vitality- ensuring we have a healthy, optimally staffed, and highly motivated operation. Acting as a critical bridge between local execution and global strategy, you will balance the fast-paced expectations of our US headquarters with the unique needs of our regional talent. If you are an operational strategist who loves building cohesive team cultures, managing global stakeholder matrices, and scaling high-performing regional hubs, this role offers an incredible platform for global impact.

What You’ll Do

• Build and Scale the Team: Define hiring profiles in collaboration with Capability Leaders and Talent Management, support interviewing, and manage headcount growth to keep supply aligned with the SSC's expanding service portfolio.  Proactively keep an eye toward the operational infrastructure needed as the center scales.

• Set and Uphold the Standard: Establish a culture of excellence and intensity across the Chennai team.  Hold consultants to high expectations for quality, accountability, and conduct.  Reinforce those standards through performance conversations, recognition, and a consistent, visible leadership presence.  Resolve performance issues quickly. 

• Own the Supply Side of the Business: Maintain complete visibility into available capacity across all resource pools and make final consultant assignment decisions in close consultation with Chennai Leaders, who advise on technical readiness, Engagement Managers, who carry the engagement context, and US HQ.

• Drive Utilization Performance: Monitor and manage billable utilization across the Chennai team as an active, ongoing discipline. Proactively identify underutilization risk.  Resolve allocation gaps before they become problems, and hold theater leaders accountable for the pipeline visibility that makes good staffing possible.

• Govern Regional Finances: Collaborate closely with operations to manage cost tracking, theater charge-backs for unbillable work, and financial discipline across the SSC.  Serve as the primary point of contact for Ops finance and ensure the center operates within a clear, defensible cost model.

• Create and Run Operational Governance: Lead the BAU steering cadence, manage the staffing conflict resolution process, and enforce the lead-time and forecasting expectations that theater leaders must meet. Treat reactive, last-minute staffing requests as a governance issue to be corrected, not an inconvenience to be absorbed.

• Lead People and Organizational Health: Own the full people management lifecycle for the Chennai team, including performance reviews, career development conversations, compensation inputs, and HR matters. Ensure consultants have the support and clarity they need to grow and stay.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.

• 10+ years of professional experience with a proven track record of leading operations, resource management, or regional hub delivery within a global enterprise software company or top-tier consulting firm.

• Direct experience working within a US-headquartered organization, with a demonstrated ability to successfully navigate the pace, operating frameworks, and communication style of a US-based matrixed business.

• Deep expertise in managing resource management metrics, including billable utilization, capacity planning, and operational forecasting.

• Demonstrated experience in people management, including performance development, compensation planning, and scaling large teams.

• Strong financial acumen with experience managing regional budgets and internal charge-back models.

• Ability to work on-site 5 days a week at our Chennai office.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master of Business Administration (MBA) or equivalent advanced degree in Operations or Management.

• Experience scaling a Global Capability Center (GCC) or Shared Services Center (SSC) during a phase of rapid growth.

• Exceptional stakeholder management and conflict resolution skills, with a history of successfully partnering with global executives across different time zones.