Director of Client Services

Job Summary:

The Director, Client Services leads Blossom’s client-facing delivery organization across all product lines — Core, Digital, Cards, AI, and Hardware. The area comprises three functions: Implementation, which brings new clients live; Professional Services, which delivers paid client-requested work; and Client Education, which makes credit union staff proficient and keeps them informed.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

• Oversees staffing, training, and performance management to ensure high-quality, consistent delivery.

• Provides mentorship, coaching, and professional development opportunities for all direct reports.

Duties/Responsibilities:

Implementation Delivery

• Directs all client implementation projects across Core, Digital, Cards, AI, and Hardware, ensuring on-time, on-scope, and high-quality launches.

• Exercises independent judgment in scoping, sequencing, and approving client implementation plans, including production cutover go/no-go decisions.

• Establishes go-live readiness criteria spanning data readiness, training readiness, and site readiness, and approves readiness at each gate.

• Serves as the senior escalation point for at-risk implementations, engaging credit union executives directly to define and commit to remediation approaches.

• Establishes and chairs a portfolio-level risk and status cadence, tracking risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies across concurrent engagements, and reports portfolio health to the executive team.

• Negotiates implementation scope, milestones, and timelines directly with client credit union executives.

• Personally leads or accompanies strategic implementations — merger conversions, first deployments of a new product, flagship and reference clients, at-risk recoveries, and multi-branch hardware rollouts.

Data Conversion

• Owns end-to-end client data conversion — conversion strategy, mock conversion cycles, balancing and data-integrity validation, cutover planning, and post-conversion verification.

• Directs merger conversions, including dual-institution data reconciliation, member record consolidation, and coordination against a committed regulatory close date.

• Directs card processor conversions and the core-side work they depend on, including file formats, posting logic, and card record setup.

• Formulates conversion standards, validation criteria, and acceptance thresholds, and authorizes deviation from standard procedures where client circumstances warrant.

• Directs post-conversion issue triage and resolution through stabilization.

Professional Services Engagements

• Directs the delivery of paid client-requested engagements — configuration, custom development, integrations, custom reporting, and data extracts.

• Approves engagement scope and estimates, and authorizes Statements of Work within delegated authority.

• Approves post-signature scope changes and change orders, and commits the company to revised timelines and delivery approaches.

• Is accountable for estimate accuracy — actual effort against scoped effort — and directs corrective action to scoping standards when variance exceeds threshold.

• Manages the services backlog and prioritizes engagements against implementation commitments and available capacity.

Delivery Partner Management

• Owns Blossom’s relationship with the onsite implementation partner, including scope definition, service levels, and performance standards.

• Is accountable to clients for partner-delivered outcomes, including installation quality, schedule adherence, and onsite client experience.

• Monitors partner performance against agreed service levels, conduct periodic performance reviews, and directs remediation where standards are not met.

• Directs coordination with third-party vendors, OEMs, card processors, and integration partners on dependencies affecting client go-live dates.

Client Education

• Owns Blossom’s client education function, directing the design and delivery of onboarding curricula for new clients and role-based training for credit union staff.

• Establishes competency standards and certification criteria for client staff, and determines client training readiness as an input to go-live approval.

• Directs ongoing post-launch client training, including refreshers, new-feature enablement, and training tied to new product deployments, whether included in a setup fee or scoped under a Statement of Work.

• Directs client-facing product and release communications, ensuring credit unions understand and can act on product changes.

• Directs the development of internal staff training and knowledge resources, including onboarding for new hires across the Client Services organization.

• Partners with Product and Engineering to identify enablement needs and to build knowledge resources that measurably reduce support volume and delivery friction.

Team Leadership

• Directs the work of the Client Services organization. Recommendations regarding hiring, performance, promotion, discipline, and other changes of status are given particular weight.

• Provides mentorship, coaching, and professional development, and manages performance to consistent quality and delivery standards.

• Forecasts resource capacity against the combined implementation and services backlog, and plans staffing and assignment to meet committed dates across all product lines.

Commercial and Operational Ownership

• Owns the Client Services budget and is accountable for delivery cost and team utilization against plan.

• Partners with Sales during the pre-sales cycle to scope and estimate implementation effort and to define Statements of Work.

• Establishes scoping and estimation standards, and is accountable for the quality of estimates the organization commits to.

• Is accountable for professional services revenue delivery and backlog realization against plan.

Process, Standards, and Reporting

• Formulates and maintains Blossom’s delivery methodology, project plan templates, quality gates, and milestone tracking, and revises them as the product portfolio and client base evolve.

• Establishes delivery and education metrics and quality benchmarks across all product lines, and drives measurable improvement against them.

• Directs the transition from implementation to ongoing support, ensuring clients are fully trained and support-ready at go-live and that Client Support receives complete handoff documentation.

• Interprets and applies regulatory and contractual requirements in implementation design and configuration decisions.

• Reports on delivery performance, services revenue, training completion, and client satisfaction to senior leadership on a defined cadence.

Performs other related duties as assigned.

Required Skills/Abilities:

• Demonstrated ownership of a departmental budget or equivalent financial accountability.

• Proven success running concurrent, complex implementations across multiple products or business lines.

• Working knowledge of financial institution operations and core banking systems, including data conversion methodology and integration concepts.

• Demonstrated ability to establish delivery metrics and drive measurable improvement against them.

• Strong problem-solving, troubleshooting, and analytical abilities.

• Outstanding written, verbal, and presentation skills, with proven executive presence in client-facing settings.

• Proficiency with project and knowledge management tooling — for example (Jira / Confluence / Smartsheet / Salesforce / LMS platform).

• Proficiency with Google Workspace or similar productivity tools.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Business,Information Systems, or related field (Master's degree preferred).

• 8+ years in client implementation, project management, professional services, technical onboarding, or delivery leadership within financial technology, SaaS, or financial services.

• 4+ years leading and developing a client-facing delivery team, with accountability for team performance and outcomes.

• Experience scoping and estimating project effort and documenting solutions in Statements of Work.

• Experience managing third-party delivery partners or subcontracted implementation resources, with accountability for their performance to the client.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.

• Occasional travel to client sites, training sessions, or conferences may be required.

• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

What We Offer

• Company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees
• Company-paid life and AD&D insurance
• Company-paid short- and long-term disability
• 401(k) retirement plan
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)/ Dependent Care Spending Account (DCSA)
• Unlimited PTO
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Voluntary supplemental insurance options