Vice President of Product Strategy and Customer Growth

Vice President, Product Strategy & Customer Growth
Location: United States | Full-Time | Remote / Hybrid / On-site
Reports To: Chief Growth Officer / Chief Executive Officer
Executive Opportunity
The Vice President, Product Strategy & Customer Growth will lead initiatives that strengthen product-market alignment, increase customer adoption, and expand the long-term value of the organization's customer base.
This position combines product strategy with customer growth management. The executive will identify which customer needs should shape future product priorities, determine how products can attract and retain valuable customer segments, and develop strategies that improve customer engagement, expansion, and lifetime value.
The role is particularly suited to a leader with experience in customer lifecycle strategy, customer insights, product-led growth, retention programs, and commercial planning. The successful candidate will connect customer behavior with product decisions and establish a disciplined approach to sustainable customer growth.
Strategic Priorities
1. Customer Insights as a Product Strategy Input
Establish processes for collecting and interpreting customer feedback, usage patterns, customer interviews, and market research.
Identify unmet customer needs, adoption barriers, and opportunities to improve product relevance.
Segment customers according to behavior, needs, lifecycle stage, engagement, and commercial potential.
Translate customer insights into recommendations for product positioning, feature priorities, onboarding improvements, and future offerings.
Partner with Product and Research teams to validate assumptions through customer discovery and structured testing.
Monitor changing customer expectations and recommend strategic responses before they materially affect adoption or retention.
2. Customer Acquisition, Activation & Adoption
Develop strategies that help target customers discover, evaluate, adopt, and gain value from the organization's products.
Work with Marketing and Sales to align customer acquisition priorities with product capabilities and target segments.
Improve onboarding journeys and early customer experiences to reduce friction and increase activation.
Identify product education, customer communication, and engagement opportunities that support sustained usage.
Partner with Product and Technology teams to improve adoption through product enhancements, usability improvements, and customer-focused initiatives.
Establish lifecycle strategies for new, active, inactive, and returning customers.
3. Retention, Expansion & Customer Value
Develop programs designed to improve customer retention, deepen product usage, and expand relationships with existing customers.
Identify churn drivers and develop targeted initiatives to address customer dissatisfaction, declining engagement, and unmet expectations.
Establish strategies for cross-selling, upselling, product bundling, and broader product adoption where appropriate.
Collaborate with Customer Success, Account Management, and Sales teams to identify expansion opportunities and improve customer outcomes.
Evaluate customer lifetime value, retention cohorts, engagement trends, and other indicators of long-term commercial value.
Build feedback loops that connect customer experience issues with product improvements and operational changes.
4. Product-Market Fit & Growth Experimentation
Assess product-market fit across customer segments and identify where positioning, functionality, or distribution should change.
Develop structured experiments to test product propositions, onboarding approaches, engagement initiatives, and customer growth strategies.
Work with Analytics and Finance to evaluate experiment results and determine which initiatives merit broader investment.
Establish decision criteria for scaling successful programs, modifying underperforming initiatives, or discontinuing ineffective approaches.
Monitor competitive offerings and emerging customer expectations to inform product strategy.
Provide executive leadership with recommendations supported by customer evidence and measurable business outcomes.
Customer Growth Operating Model
The VP will build a coordinated operating model connecting product decisions, customer insights, and growth initiatives.
Core elements will include:
Customer intelligence: A structured view of customer segments, behaviors, needs, and feedback.
Lifecycle management: Defined strategies for acquisition, activation, engagement, retention, and expansion.
Growth experimentation: Repeatable processes for testing initiatives and evaluating incremental impact.
Product feedback loops: Mechanisms for converting customer evidence into product and experience improvements.
Performance governance: Regular reviews of customer growth metrics, strategic initiatives, and emerging risks.
Cross-functional accountability: Clear responsibilities across Product, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and Analytics.
Measures of Success
Performance will be assessed using customer and product outcomes, with specific targets established according to the business model and existing customer base.
Performance area
Illustrative measures
Acquisition and activation
Qualified customer growth, activation rate, onboarding completion
Product adoption
Active usage, feature adoption, engagement frequency
Retention
Customer retention, churn rate, repeat usage
Customer expansion
Cross-product adoption, account expansion, revenue per customer
Customer value
Customer lifetime value, satisfaction, customer health
Growth efficiency
Cost per acquired customer, experiment performance, return on growth investment
The VP will be expected to distinguish between growth driven by short-term promotions and growth supported by durable customer value.
The Candidate We Want to Attract
We are seeking a customer-focused executive who understands how people and organizations adopt products, what drives continued engagement, and how customer behavior should influence business strategy.
The ideal candidate has built customer growth programs using a combination of qualitative research, behavioral analysis, lifecycle management, experimentation, and cross-functional execution.
Professional Experience
20+ years of progressive experience in customer growth, product strategy, customer lifecycle management, customer insights, customer experience strategy, or related disciplines.
Senior leadership experience overseeing customer adoption, retention, engagement, product-led growth, or customer expansion programs.
Demonstrated success using customer research and behavioral data to shape product priorities and growth strategies.
Experience developing customer segmentation models, lifecycle programs, retention initiatives, and expansion strategies.
Strong understanding of customer acquisition economics, churn analysis, customer lifetime value, and product adoption measurement.
Experience designing experiments, evaluating growth initiatives, and translating results into business recommendations.
Ability to influence Product, Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and Analytics teams without relying solely on formal authority.
Strong analytical judgment, executive communication, organizational leadership, and strategic planning capabilities.
Preferred Career Backgrounds
Candidates may come from customer growth leadership, customer lifecycle strategy, customer experience analytics, product-led growth, loyalty strategy, or subscription business management.
Relevant previous positions may include:
Vice President of Customer Growth
Head of Customer Lifecycle Strategy
Vice President of Customer Experience Strategy
Head of Product-Led Growth
Director of Customer Insights and Growth
Senior Customer Retention Executive
Customer Strategy Partner at a consulting firm
Candidates whose experience is limited to traditional brand marketing or sales quota management may be less suited unless they also have substantial ownership of customer adoption, retention, or lifecycle performance.
Education & Technical Fluency
A bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Economics, Psychology, Analytics, or a related discipline is required. An MBA or advanced degree in a relevant field is preferred.
Experience with customer analytics, CRM platforms, product analytics tools, experimentation frameworks, and business intelligence systems is beneficial. The executive should be comfortable interpreting data and guiding analytical teams, even if

Work arrangement
Yes