Account Management and Customer Service Leader

Location: Newark, NJ
Travel: Quarterly travel to the Dominican Republic (approximately four trips per year)
Reports To: Sales Director
Peer To: Sales Manager
About the Role
We are seeking an experienced, results-driven leader to oversee our Account Management and Customer Service organizations. This role is responsible for driving revenue growth, improving customer service performance, developing talent, and creating accountability across a multi-location team.
The successful candidate will lead a team of five Account Managers in New York and a nine-person Customer Service team in the Dominican Republic, while partnering closely with Sales, Operations, the Dominican Republic Manager, and local leadership to support the company's growth objectives.
Key Responsibilities
Account Management Leadership

• Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable a team of five Account Managers.
• Conduct weekly one-on-one meetings focused on customer growth, revenue, margin performance, opportunities, and execution.
• Drive revenue growth, customer retention, share-of-wallet expansion, and profitability across assigned accounts.
• Ensure win-back, cross-sell, and upsell opportunities are actively pursued and tracked.
• Establish and enforce CRM discipline, sales processes, and customer engagement standards.
• Protect Account Managers' selling time by preventing administrative and transactional work from pulling them away from customer-facing activities.
• Define and enforce pricing and discount approval guidelines.
• Build a culture of accountability, urgency, customer focus, and business development.

Customer Service Leadership

• Provide leadership and strategic direction for the Dominican Republic Customer Service organization.
• Partner closely with the Dominican Republic Manager and local leadership team to maintain alignment on priorities, staffing, performance expectations, and business objectives.
• Establish clear performance standards, KPIs, operating procedures, and accountability measures.
• Hold local leadership accountable for service levels, productivity, quality, employee development, and execution.
• Develop future leaders and build a strong succession pipeline within the customer service organization.
• Conduct regular performance reviews, coaching sessions, and team development initiatives.
• Ensure staffing levels are aligned with business volume and customer requirements.
• Travel quarterly to the Dominican Republic to reinforce culture, review performance, develop leaders, and support operational improvements.
• Maintain a visible leadership presence and strong alignment across all locations.

Customer Service & Operational Excellence

• Own customer service performance, response times, order accuracy, and service-level achievement.
• Audit transactions and processes regularly to ensure accuracy and consistency.
• Implement continuous improvement initiatives that enhance efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
• Develop and maintain written procedures and operating standards.
• Monitor key performance indicators and drive corrective action where necessary.

Order Entry Transition & Process Improvement

• Lead the phased transition of order entry responsibilities from Account Managers to the Customer Service team.
• Implement quality controls, validation checkpoints, and measurement tools throughout the transition.
• Monitor and report on service levels and order accuracy during implementation.
• Adjust implementation plans when quality or service performance falls below expectations.
• Enforce the operating model:
• Account Managers own customer relationships, pricing decisions, account growth, and sales opportunities.
• Customer Service owns order processing, order entry, and transactional execution.
• Measure improvements in customer-facing time and sales productivity resulting from the transition.
• Drive process improvements that increase efficiency, scalability, and customer satisfaction.

Partnership with Outside Sales

• Ensure each Outside Sales Representative is effectively supported by an assigned Account Manager.
• Collaborate closely with the Sales Manager on account coverage, territory support, and sales execution.
• Participate in weekly and monthly planning sessions to review opportunities, priorities, and business objectives.
• Resolve customer coverage, account ownership, service, and credit issues in a timely and professional manner.
• Promote strong collaboration between inside and outside sales teams to maximize growth opportunities.

Reporting & Accountability

• Provide a concise weekly leadership report covering:
• Revenue performance
• Gross margin performance
• Customer retention and growth
• Account Manager performance
• Customer Service KPIs
• Order accuracy metrics
• Staffing updates
• Key opportunities and risks
• Process improvement initiatives
• Order-entry transition progress
• Action plans and priorities

Qualifications & Experience
Required Experience

• 7+ years of leadership experience in inside sales, customer service, account management, sales operations, or commercial leadership.
• 3+ years of experience leading teams, managers, or multi-functional departments.
• Proven success leading both customer-facing sales teams and operational support functions.
• Experience managing remote and multi-location organizations.
• Strong coaching, leadership, communication, and performance management skills.
• Experience improving business processes, workflows, and operational efficiency.
• Strong understanding of customer relationship management, account development, pricing, and margin management.
• Experience using CRM and ERP systems; abas ERP experience is a plus.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and communication skills.
• Willingness to travel to the Dominican Republic approximately four times per year.

Preferred Experience

• Distribution, industrial, building materials, manufacturing, or other B2B environments.
• Experience supporting and partnering with Outside Sales organizations.
• Experience leading customer service transformations, shared service environments, or order-entry centralization initiatives.
• Strong KPI management and reporting experience.

Key Leadership Competencies

• Strong business and financial acumen.
• High level of accountability and ownership.
• Results-oriented leadership style.
• Ability to drive change and lead through influence.
• Exceptional coaching and talent-development skills.
• Strong conflict-resolution and decision-making abilities.
• Effective communicator across all organizational levels.
• Ability to balance strategic planning with hands-on execution.
• Process-oriented while maintaining a customer-first mindset.
• Demonstrated ability to build high-performing teams and future leaders.

Join Our Team
This is an excellent opportunity for a proven sales and customer service leader to make a significant impact in a growing organization. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to build high-performing teams, develop future leaders, improve processes, and help drive profitable growth across the business.