Hotan Zadeh

• I was the first CS hire for the company in EMEA, back in 2019.
• I was brought in to build the Customer Success team, the post-sales SalesOps, as well as local Support function from scratch.
• In less than 4 years, I now manage a team of 10 CSMs and 1 Sales Engineer all based across the EMEA region.
• Managing a portfolio worth $7.5M in ARR.
• Quarterly renewal rates of 91%, and an average portfolio expansion of 20% for each CSM through upselling/cross-selling.
• Designed and implemented a sustainable and profitable commission scheme for our CSMs and Sales Engineer.
• Revamped, localized, and implemented our Customer Journey/Onboarding process for clients in EMEA.
• Created Account/Success Plans to enable and empower CSMs and their sales colleagues to help achieve our land and expand goals within strategic accounts.
• Shifted the team's mindset and approach from conducting generic QBRs, to having strategic EBRs.
• Streamlined and created workflows and handover procedures between Sales and CS. As well as being the voice of the customer and sharing valuable insight with our Product, Engineering, Sales, and Marketing teams.
• Promoted 5 CSMs in the last 2 years, and continuously spend time and budget for the team to upskill and address their personal learning and development requirements.
• Client advocacy has significantly improved in the last 4 years. Customer case studies, referrals, references, and webinars with our clients as guests, are all important KPIs for my department.

• Built the entire customer success team, department, processes, functions, cross-departmental workflows, and product feedback across the business.

• Chaired and implemented new monthly churn, engagement, and adoption meetings, focusing on analyzing the data to identify the trends, and not just sharing the results.

• Reduced the company’s monthly revenue churn by £2K, as well as achieving a 90% successful adoption of all PoCs, as well as a 90% renewal rate in Q2 and Q3 2019.

• As the first ever official customer success employee, I recruited and brought on board 3 other customer success managers (at different seniority levels), growing the team from 1 to 4 in 6 months.

• Laid the foundations for the company to be customer-obsessed, instead of being obsessed with their competitors, which included a lot of internal training and education on the importance of retaining our current clients, as well as getting the most out of our current contracts.

• Left before my probation period as I did not enjoy working in a software application testing service that outsources most of its services, leaving very little room for the CSMs to own the service they provide to their clients.

• Temporary/contract role, brought in specifically to work on the Revolut account.

• Renewed Modulr’s contract with Revolut, with an estimated ARR value of £1.2M, while managing a portfolio of £2.6M for the entire team.

• Implemented foundations and processes required to get the best out of Modulr’s CRM system. Creating a unique source of customer and prospect information for the Success, Sales, Support, and Operations teams.

• Developed an FEP (Full Economic Potential) portfolio for our success team, helping identify cross-selling and up-selling opportunities, and increasing our quarterly target success rates by 25%.

Having joined the company as their first Customer Success Manager in 2016, I went on an amazing journey with the Founders and the rest of the team for almost 3 years, moving up to Senior Customer Success Manager after 12 months, and in my last 15 months, I was promoted to Team Lead, managing a team of 5 account and success managers based in the UK.

• Employee number 19 (now up to 110 employees).

• Full post-sales cycle management for all FUTRLI enterprise and key accounts.

• Recruiting, training, and managing a team of customer success and account managers, with my department growing from 1 to 6 members in 3 years.

• Reducing FUTRLI’s monthly client churn rate from 12% to less than 4%.

• Managing a team portfolio worth £2.2M in ARR, and increasing the teams’ book of business in account expansions by over 29% YoY, with an average renewal rate of 85% in 3 years.

• Responsible for the biggest enterprise contract renewal in the company’s history with Grant Thornton (RCGT Canada), valued at £800K ARR.

After finishing my MBA in Florida, and an internship with Motorola, I went back to my hometown of Dubai and started and successfully ran my own start-up for four years.

iPickChic was the first ever payment-on-delivery e-commerce subscription-based website in the region. With clients such as IKEA, Sony, Mothercare, Souk.ae, and Etihad Airlines, with operations in the UAE, North Africa, India, and China.

Leading a team of 5 employees, I was in charge of the day-to-day operations of the company, international business development, contract negotiations, procurement, retention, and of course, brand ambassador for all our in-house and partner brands.

Successfully sold the company in 2015, and moved to the UK.

• Worked for Al Habtoor Engineering (Also known as Haboot Leighton Group), starting as a Market Research Executive, and working my way up to Corporate Strategy Assistant Manager.
• Developed reports and analysis for the EMEA market, and helped our Operations and Corporate Strategy teams identify new opportunities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and North Africa.
• As part of the Corporate Strategy team, I helped develop our HLG branding, as well as internal and external communications.