Vice President, Customer Operations

VP, Customer Operations

About Us:

BlackSky is a real-time intelligence company. We own and operate the world's most advanced space-based intelligence platform and provide customers satellite imagery, automated analytics and high-frequency monitoring of strategic locations, economic assets and events from around the globe. BlackSky is trusted by the most demanding allied military and intelligence organizations and commercial companies to deliver foresight into critical matters that affect national security and the economy. BlackSky's data enables governments and businesses to see, understand and anticipate change as it happens, giving them the ultimate strategic advantage so they can act quickly. Our global team works with cutting-edge technology to make a difference around the world and prides itself on being people-first, customer-focused and fun.

Reporting to the COO, the Vice President of Customer Operations is responsible for driving world-class customer experience, retention, and growth across a set of customers supported by the Account Management team. The VP will define the operational strategy, build global high-performing teams, optimize the customer journey, and partner with Sales, Product, and Engineering leadership to ensure customers receive maximum value from BlackSky’s unique real-time intelligence capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

Lead and scale multidisciplinary customer-facing organizations globally.

Develop operational processes, KPIs, and performance dashboards that measure satisfaction and drive improvements.

Recruit, mentor, and develop customer-centric teams across multiple regions.

Build and maintain trusted relationships with domestic and international government and commercial customers.

Lead complex, high-touch, technical customer engagements with long lifecycle demands.

Communicate effectively with executive-level and technical stakeholders.

Drive strategies that maximize customer retention, recurring revenue, and account expansion.

Build customer health metrics and forecasting models to track experience, usage, and growth potential.

Partner closely with Sales and Business Development to ensure seamless customer success and expansion.

Apply knowledge of remote sensing, geospatial analytics, and space-based intelligence solutions to customer needs.

Guide discussions on SLAs, data delivery, system integrations, and operational workflows.

Translate complex technical concepts to support decision-making for non-technical audiences.

Design and optimize onboarding, support, and retention processes across the full customer lifecycle.

Lead incident management, service reliability, and quality assurance initiatives.

Map and enhance the end-to-end customer journey for efficiency and satisfaction.

Translate BlackSky’s corporate vision into a cohesive customer operations strategy.

Provide insights and customer intelligence that guide product prioritization and roadmap evolution.

Work closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Executive Teams to support strategic priorities.

Represent Customer Operations in presentations to leadership, partners, and government stakeholders.

Lead transformation efforts in rapidly evolving environments.

Implement new structures, processes, and systems to support long-term scale.

Drive modernization initiatives that elevate the customer experience and operational effectiveness.

Success Metrics

Customer satisfaction and NPS improvements

Customer retention and renewal rates

Account expansion and usage growth

Time-to-value and onboarding efficiency

Operational reliability and incident reduction

Performance of customer-facing team

Adoption and impact of operational processes and tools

Required Experience Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Business or related field

20+ years of total professional experience

At least 10 years leading customer-facing teams

Minimum 6 years in the geospatial or remote sensing sector

Proven experience scaling global customer operations teams

Strong operational, analytical, and strategic planning capabilities

Experience with complex technical or government customer engagements

Excellent communication and executive stakeholder management skills

Travel Requirements

Domestic and international travel as required (typically 15-20%) to support customer engagements, team activities, and executive meetings.

Work Environment

Fast-paced, high-growth technology and space industry environment

Strong emphasis on cross-functional collaboration and remote teamwork

Ability to work across multiple time zones and global teams

Flexible work location depending on organizational needs

Life at BlackSky for full-time benefits eligible employees includes :

Medical, dental, vision, disability, group term life and AD D, voluntary life and AD D insurance

BlackSky pays 100% of employee-only premiums for medical, dental and vision and contributes $100/month for out-of-pocket expenses!

15 days of PTO…