Director, Global Critical Situation Manager

Director, Global Critical Situation Management and Incident Response  

Customer Success and operational excellence are vital to Proofpoint’s long-term growth and profitability. Ultimately, Proofpoint’s success is dependent on the success of its customers. The business must ensure its customers are receiving significant value from both its products and services. As such, Proofpoint needs a senior leader to drive success for its customers, executing against the organization’s broader customer success strategy. 

The Director of the Global Critical Situation Management team is a senior leader responsible for driving world class customer support outcomes, leading the organization’s most urgent customer escalations, and ensuring that customers achieve maximum value from Proofpoint’s products and services. 

This role blends operational leadership of global technical support with the strategic, customer advocacy driven functions of critical incident command. The Director will oversee break/fix support delivery, manage critical customer situations from initiation through resolution and postmortem, strengthen cross functional alignment, and drive continuous improvement across people, process, and technology. 

Key Responsibilities 

Customer Success Support Delivery Leadership 

• Execute a comprehensive Critical Situation management and customer success strategy, including hiring, onboarding, performance standards, and operational plans. 

• Define success criteria and track adherence to key operational metrics for escalations 

• Develop standards for handling customer incidents, escalation paths, and communication frameworks that drive successful outcomes. 

• Improve customer satisfaction, and overall customer health across the lifecycle. 

• Evaluate customer needs, identify gaps, and drive initiatives that strengthen customer value realization. 

• Collaborate cross functionally with Technical Account Management, Professional Services, Product and Engineering to support customer success.  

• Promote business continuity and operational excellence across the global support community. 

• Lead effectively in a matrixed, cross functional environment. 

Critical Situation Management & Escalation Leadership 

• Serve as the executive escalation point for the most urgent and complex customer situations. 

• Lead cross functional triage and resolution efforts, coordinating Support, Engineering, Product, Security, and Operations. 

• Provide clear, timely, customer facing status updates and internal reporting during critical incidents. 

• Manage SEV0 escalations from initial detection through root cause analysis and post incident review. 

• Conduct post escalation analysis and author customer facing cause analysis documents. 

• Evaluate customer requests related to SLA violations and ensure appropriate internal review. 

• Lead cross departmental process improvements to maximize customer retention and reduce repeat escalations. 

• Participate in the 24×7 on call rotation as needed. 

Strategic & Operational Excellence 

• Use customer data, operational metrics, and market insights to identify trends and drive continuous improvement with product and engineering teams. 

• Partner with business and technical leaders to build consensus on strategy, prioritization, and process evolution. 

• Identify systemic issues and lead corrective action efforts across departments. 

• Provide leadership in documentation quality reviews, ensuring technical guides, troubleshooting content, and internal training are accurate and effective. 

• Drive improvements within the broader Services organization, influencing processes across teams. 

What You Will Accomplish 

• Navigate ambiguity with confidence and treat obstacles as opportunities to innovate. 

• Communicate effectively with stakeholders at all organizational levels, including executives and customers. 

• Demonstrate the courage to think differently and challenge existing assumptions. 

• Lead with urgency in fast paced, dynamic environments; drive accountability and follow through. 

• Apply analytical thinking and data driven decision making to improve support outcomes and customer loyalty. 

Qualifications 

• 7+ years of customer support, customer success, or professional services leadership in a B2B SaaS environment. 

• Proven track record managing enterprise class support organizations to customer success goals (CSAT, NPS, etc.). 

• 7+ years of experience in escalation or incident management roles with demonstrated success resolving complex, high impact issues. 

• Strong business and management acumen with experience influencing senior leadership. 

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience. 

• Strong technical proficiency, including:  

• Broad understanding of cybersecurity as it relates to email security, enterprise archiving, data and application security 

• Understanding of databases and SaaS architecture 

• Linux command line competence 

• Skilled communicator and influencer with customers, executives, and internal teams. 

• Experience with Salesforce Service Cloud or similar support systems. 

• Ability to independently troubleshoot complex system environments with multiple configurations and protocols. 

• Project Management experience: PMP certification is a plus. 

Why Proofpoint 

Proofpoint is a fast growing, customer focused organization with market leading products and a culture grounded in innovation, collaboration, and appreciation. As a global company with offices in over 10 countries, we believe that hiring exceptional people—and treating them well—is the foundation of our success. Joining the team means contributing to an environment that values diverse perspectives and empowers employees to make an impact. 

#LI-PH1