Senior Strategic Customer Account Manager – SLED (Public Sector & Education) – Driving Growth, Retention, and Innovation at brighthush

About brighthush

brighthush is a global leader in high‑performance networking and digital infrastructure. With a network that spans over 141,000 miles across North America and Europe, we empower the world’s most impactful organizations to connect, innovate, and transform. Our portfolio includes dark fiber, private data networks, wavelengths, Ethernet, and dedicated Internet access—delivering the bandwidth and reliability that modern enterprises, governments, and educational institutions demand.

At brighthush, we believe that connectivity is the foundation of progress. We partner with wireless and wireline carriers, media, technology, content, finance, healthcare, and large enterprises to provide mission‑critical bandwidth that fuels innovation across society. Our culture is built on collaboration, continuous learning, and a relentless focus on customer success.

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Senior Strategic Customer Account Manager – SLED to lead the post‑implementation relationship, revenue strategy, and continuity for our largest and most complex Public Sector and Education accounts. In this role, you will act as a trusted advisor to state and local government agencies, K‑12 school districts, higher education institutions, and related public‑sector organizations. You will manage renewals, retention, churn risk, expansion opportunities, and complex customer requirements across the full spectrum of brighthush’s services.

As a strategic partner, you will collaborate closely with Sales, Sales Engineering, Finance, Billing, Legal, Service Assurance, Operations, and Product teams to align customer priorities, procurement timelines, funding cycles, and network needs with brighthush’s capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and nurture executive relationships with Public Sector and Education customers and their account teams, ensuring a deep understanding of their business objectives and technology roadmaps.
• Develop multi‑year account plans that incorporate customer priorities, service needs, contract positions, funding cycles, procurement timelines, competitive risk, and financial exposure.
• Own revenue protection by managing churn, executing renewals, and driving expansion strategies for assigned accounts.
• Lead complex renewals and RFP/RFQ responses across multi‑service, multi‑location, or multi‑year engagements, and conduct executive business reviews.
• Align strategies with E‑rate funding cycles, eligible service categories, RFP timelines, budget cycles, and procurement requirements.
• Identify growth opportunities in partnership with Sales by understanding infrastructure needs, funding availability, upcoming procurements, technology initiatives, and service expansion possibilities.
• Navigate public‑sector procurement mechanisms such as state contract vehicles, cooperative purchasing programs, education consortiums, and other procurement tools to support renewals and growth.
• Manage churn forecasts and mitigation plans, balancing customer outcomes with pricing discipline, contract terms, margin, capital recovery, and long‑term account value.
• Negotiate contract adjustments including saves, replacements, portability, migration, network redesign, relocation, decommission, and restructuring strategies appropriate to the customer and procurement environment.
• Provide commercial judgment on credits, ETL, portability, contract exceptions, rate increases, renewal pricing, and revenue treatment.
• Coordinate cross‑functional initiatives across Sales, Sales Engineering, Finance, Billing, Legal, Deal Management, Service Assurance, Service Delivery, Product, and Operations.
• Serve as a subject‑matter expert on brighthush services and their alignment to Public Sector and Education requirements, procurement processes, and funding programs.
• Monitor market and funding changes and translate those insights into actionable account strategies.
• Lead executive engagements focused on service performance, business priorities, upcoming procurements, renewal readiness, funding opportunities, and future network requirements.
• Mentor junior CAMs and contribute to renewal playbooks, training, negotiation practices, and operating standards, especially for Public Sector and Education accounts.

Essential Qualifications

• Minimum 6 years of experience in Customer Retention, Strategic Account Management, Client Services, Sales, or a comparable customer‑facing role; senior roles typically require 8+ years.
• Proven success managing large, complex SLED accounts, including public‑sector, government, education, K‑12, and higher education organizations.
• Experience managing strategic, high‑revenue relationships with multiple stakeholders and extended buying cycles.
• Deep expertise in the E‑rate Apply for this job