Role: Lead Account Manager

Location: USA

Job type: Full Time, Permanent - Remote

Why QS?

At QS, our culture fosters a flexible working environment that encourages our employees to own their career whilst personally and professionally thriving. We collaborate, respect, and support each other – and as a company, our values underpin these.

Our mission is to empower motivated people around the world to fulfil their potential through higher education, and to ensure everyone has the same opportunity to achieve that potential. We celebrate the diversity of our teams and believe through sharing our experiences we can learn from one another and become stronger together, which enables us to achieve our goal.

At QS, you’ll be responsible for implementing real change in the international higher education landscape, full of exciting and interesting challenges where you can drive positive impact across the business.

In October 2023 we were thrilled to be included in Newsweek’s Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces® in the UK list which is compiled using employee sentiment and satisfaction data.

Using insights from more than two million employees in organisations with 50 to 100,000 members of staff, the list recognises workplaces where employees feel most respected and appreciated.

As a Lead Account Manager, this is what you’ll be doing:

The newly formed Student Recruitment Division comprising Digital & Events, QS Apply and University Branded Services is about to embark on a highly critical period in quest for growth. We are evolving our business to optimise our support structure as we look to break into new markets, new products and look to add greater value to the broad spectrum of our product offering across existing markets.

QS has been providing services to universities and business schools in the United States and Canada since 1990.We are seeing positive growth in client acquisition and have strengthened our in-market commercial team to meet our growth ambition. During 2024, we wish to re-invent our North American client support model to align with our growth goals and to deliver best in class support to our clients whilst optimising all revenue opportunities in market. This role is an exciting opportunity to help QS build on its strong foundations in the NA as we look to scale up in market.

You will bring an understanding of the client need and expectation, be able to anticipate client recruitment aspirations and lead the activities within the Division to ensure our customer support structure in North America is fit for purpose. The role will require you to deliver high levels of client focus, service delivery, commercial drive and ambition to make the difference we need working with the operational delivery teams.

This role is critical to the success of our growth and client delivery strategies. Reporting to our London-based Operations Director this role will engage with the Commercial team, global customer service colleagues, specialist delivery teams and our Product teams, to design and deliver the commercial success of our client support strategy in North America.

Role responsibilities:

Account Management – full-service account management across all QS products and services in USA and Canada

• Represent the entire service portfolio with N American clients across the service life-cycle
• Ensure we delight partners through an exceptional experience to help retain and grow client accounts and enhance our reputation in the market
• Managing the onboarding, set-up and ongoing management of major accounts in liaison with service delivery areas
• Effective senior-stakeholder management up to and including University Provost, including effective reporting of the benefit and ROI of services to the client
• Account management throughout the service life-cycle, ensuring delivery to client outcomes
• Lead on strategic recommendations to partners in order to increase recruitment performance
• Standardise and enhance our onboarding of North American partners ensuring we’re setting partners up to succeed
• Act as the in-country expert for international student recruitment product suite and be the subject matter expert for sales when required and assist in late stage contract negotiations
• Develop a deep understanding of client needs, and work closely with product and commercial teams on of the identification of commercial growth opportunities
• Management of renewal conversations in collaboration with the Commercial team
• Project management of strategic client accounts, to ensure delivery and co-ordination within QS to achieve client outcomes
• Collaborating closely with in-country Sales and off-shore service delivery teams through client lifecycle to ensure delivery to client outcomes
• Taking an insights-led approach to QS partnerships with clients
• Monitoring of the competitive landscape to recommend innovations in our product and service delivery
• Coordinating and managing partner spend activities with in-country recruitment and marketing teams

Strategy and Service Development

• Definition and implementation of an excellent customer success capability in North America, with efficient scalable processes to ensure effective client retention and satisfaction
• Input to and deliver the full service account management strategy across all QS products and services in USA and Canada
• Defined ways of working and processes for full-service account management working with the Head of CS (ROW), ensuring accountability and clarity of roles and responsibilities
• Implementing necessary tools and reporting
• Evolving an automation led and self-service culture to drive cost effective yet client appropriate segmented service delivery
• Nurture and foster a high performing team who are account management generalists with subject matter expert skills and knowledge across the wider QS product portfolio, including management of the existing NA customer success team
• Embedding insights into our customer success approaches, to elevate the perception of QS

Key skills and experience:

• Significant experience in an account management or senior university administrative role
• Knowledge and experience of recruiting international students to US institutions
• Preferably experience of international admissions
• A degree, preferably a post-graduate qualification.
• Knowledge and understanding of student recruitment and university or business school challenges & needs
• Experience of complex multi-product sales and service operating environment
• A solutions focus with a track record of working collaboratively with cross functional teams to cost effectively deliver great customer experiences
• Strong reporting and analytical skills
• Ability to identify key metrics, report on those and use insights and data to inform key decisions
• Experience of delivering commercial success, recognising new commercial opportunity
• An innovative, experimental mindset coupled with an eye on the bottom line. Return on investment is key

So, who are we and what do we do?

QS is the world’s leading provider of services, analytics, insights, and intelligence to the global higher education sector - supporting university excellence across the world. Our student recruitment and enrolment solutions enable universities and business schools to connect with talented individuals seeking to further their academic progress and career development. Our portfolio of professional services includes consultancy, student mobility and academic partnerships management, and branding solutions. We publish highly visible and influential rankings of international universities, including the QS World University Rankings® which reaches a global audience of hundreds of millions of people.

Founded in 1990, our activities span across 50 countries, working with over 2000 of the world’s leading higher education institutions and over 12,000 employers.

Headquartered in London, QS has over 750 employees globally with offices in Australia, Malaysia, India, Romania, Singapore, France, Germany, and the USA. QS keeps growing organically, through acquisition and by recruiting top talent across key regions.

We take investing in our people very seriously.

Outside of the standard benefits we also offer resources to allow professional growth and wellness initiatives to nurture a healthy mindset:

• Free subscription to the Calm App – the #1 app for sleep, meditation, and relaxation
• A focus on welfare which is led by our global wellness team, with mental health first aiders globally
• Access to a variety of diversity and inclusion initiatives and groups
• Strong recognition and reward programs – including a peer-to-peer recognition platform, quarterly and annual QS Applaud Awards, Connect with your Career annual PD event
• Support for volunteering and study leave
• Free subscription to LinkedIn learning – with over 5000 courses and programmes at your fingertips Options to join our outstanding global Mentorship programme

Like what you’ve heard? Great, apply now!

As a candidate, we know the application and interview process can be daunting and so it’s important that you have a great experience with us. Our dedicated Talent Team will work hard to ensure you are fully informed at all stages and you are really excited by this opportunity to do meaningful work in the education space.

Equal opportunities

QS Quacquarelli Symonds is proud to be a fair and equal organisation where everyone has the same opportunity to achieve their full potential, irrespective of their background or personal attributes. We celebrate our diversity and believe through sharing our experiences we can learn from one another, be stronger together, and enable our business to thrive.