AMA: LinkedIn Head of North America Customer Success, LinkedIn Talent Solutions, Steph Gerpe on Stakeholder Management

One of the most important shifts I’ve made when navigating historically tense cross-functional relationships is to start with curiosity. It’s easy to anchor on past friction, but much more productive to step back and genuinely seek to understand how we got here and what’s driving each team’s priorities. Asking thoughtful questions and listening without defensiveness often uncovers context that wasn’t visible before. I also try to assume positive intent in prior decisions. Most tension doesn’t co ...Read More

Absolutely - I think it’s one of the most important differentiators in driving effective outcomes. At a high level, the core principle stays the same: you’re always working toward a shared goal. But how you get there should look different depending on the stakeholder, because each team brings its own priorities, pressures, and definition of success. First, I spend time understanding what that stakeholder uniquely cares about and is accountable for. Every function is optimizing for something slig ...Read More

I approach cross-functional partnerships with the belief that alignment starts with clarity and trust - specifically, clarity on what success looks like for each team at the table and trust that our contributions are in pursuit of collective business-level outcomes. The first step for me is always investing the time to understand how each partner measures and quantifies success. That means getting beneath the surface of their stated goals to really understand the metrics, incentives, and priorit ...Read More

Driving alignment across remote, cross-functional teams comes down to creating clarity, consistency, and shared ownership, then reinforcing that through repeatable operational rhythms. 1. Establish repeatable operating rhythms that anchor the work Alignment doesn’t happen ad hoc - it’s built through consistent forums and disciplined execution. The most effective teams define a clear cadence of touchpoints (e.g., weekly execution reviews, monthly strategic alignment sessions, quarterly planning) ...Read More

In my experience, the most effective Customer Success Managers lead with curiosity. At the surface, customers will often articulate symptoms, but the real value comes from getting to the root of the business challenges and opportunities behind those asks. The ability to ask thoughtful, sometimes uncomfortable questions and truly listen is what allows a CSM to connect the dots between a product’s capabilities and the outcomes the customer is trying to drive. Equally important is strong multithrea ...Read More

When there’s ambiguity around ownership across teams, I try to shift the conversation away from “who owns this?” and anchor first on “why does this matter?” For me, the starting point is always getting alignment on the core problem. Why is this something the organization is rallying around? What is the outcome we’re trying to drive, and why now? If that “why” isn’t clearly defined and shared, teams will naturally default to protecting their scope or optimizing for their own priorities. But when ...Read More