The Top 20 Customer Success Mentors To Learn From And Work For - 2025
View the most recent year here: 2026
Overview
The knowledge we need to excel at our jobs is often locked in the minds of peers. At Sharebird, our mission is to make this knowledge accessible to everyone. Imagine succeeding with top mentors by your side.
The Customer Success Mentor List showcases the top 20 customer success mentors to learn from and work for to develop your career. Every one of these practitioners has contributed content that Sharebird users trust and value for their professional development.
Methodology
Sharebird's algorithm ranks customer success contributors based on how helpful our users perceive their content to be. We do not handpick people. To be considered for this list, mentors need to be current customer success practitioners and in a leadership role. We look at the following factors with Sharebird content: views, saves, and followers. We then apply a proprietary algorithm to calculate content credibility and helpfulness. Views show us content relevancy, saves show us content quality, and followers show us content credibility.
Sharebird does not accept payment to be included on this list, which allows us to maintain objectivity and independence. We update this list every year. For any questions about this list, please contact support@sharebird.com.
About Sharebird
Sharebird is where the top customer success leaders share their expertise. Discover actionable insights and advice to tackle your toughest work challenges and unlock your full career potential.
In Alphabetical Order by Company:
Career Path Tip: Own your own career and cultivate a growth mindset to continuously learn, develop, and improve. Be the architect of your own success as a Customer Success Manager. Embrace change with resilience and adaptability, as these qualities are essential in today’s dynamic environment. I believe in the power of networking; seek mentors and coaches, and remember to pay it forward by helping others along their journey
Career Path Tip: Customer Success, at the end of the day, is about making customers successful. The more time you invest on your customers' ultimate success, the more personal success you will see.
Career Path Tip: No matter what you know, how far you’ve come, or how good you are — earn your spot, every day through learning and service. You will always have areas where you can improve, learn, grow, and challenge yourself so stay curious and open, whether that feedback is coming from your customers, teams, peers, colleagues, or a fortune cookie, stay open and invested in self-growth! Bonus for the women out there: Find ways to honor the women who came before you and leave a better, more empowering place for the ones coming after you; it matters more than you know.
Career Path Tip: Embrace your role today with the confidence that you are capable of tackling even greater challenges. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the next step in my career, I remind myself that I experienced the same feelings when I first entered the industry. If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have worried so much. I strive to project that sense of calmness into my daily routine.
Career Path Tip: Details matter. Whether it’s preparing for a customer call, crafting a presentation, or even having a casual coffee with a new hire, the difference between doing something thoughtfully and doing it half-heartedly is profound. Prioritizing self-awareness and preparation will not only elevate your work but also accelerate your personal and professional growth.
Career Path Tip: Collect skills and experiences, not job titles. Too often we're all focused on progression being a change in title or a step up the seniority level. But actually, progression is learning new skills and perfecting a skillset. Leaders will hire you for your collection of skills and experience, not just the titles you've held. Don't be afraid to take on new roles and responsibilities that build your experience, even if it feels like a step sideways or back with title!
Career Path Tip: I find the best CSMs have strong business acumen, can step into a customer relationship and understand where there is opportunity to either (1) inject their product into existing process to create efficiency or (2) suggest a new process built around their product that drives better outcomes.
Career Path Tip: Constantly ask yourself: “how would I explain this to a customer in the simplest language possible?” As organizations grow, complexity creeps into internal processes first, and then customer process. If you can’t explain a process to a customer in 30 seconds or less, you need to strip it down and simplify it further.
Career Path Tip: Growth happens outside your comfort zone. In Customer Success, and in leadership, everyone is figuring it out as they go. Embrace the discomfort, stay curious, and trust your ability to adapt and learn along the way.
Career Path Tip: There are no neutral interactions with customers; each interaction is either positive or negative. If you aren't giving value in some way, you are eroding trust, brand and goodwill. Be sure to always provide some value - big or small. This will force you to become more and more customer-centric, and customer-centricity is the difference between thriving and dying.
Career Path Tip: In sales, we've heard the phrase "Always be closing." In Customer Success, we should Always be Discovering. This means that every conversation a CSM has with a customer is an opportunity to ask why, learn how, and dig deeper into the customer's business goals. The more we know about the client's goals and business, the more valuable we become.
Career Path Tip: Customer Success is all about relationship building. CSMs spend a ton of their time on zoom calls with their customers and valuable/engaging conversations are what help build strong and trusting partnerships. The CSMs I typically see with the most success (especially regarding renewals and upsells) are the ones who have built the best relationships with their partners.
Career Path Tip: Be curious! Ask questions about the future of your organization, what your leaders are focused on, what needs your customers have, and how you can help move all of these folks forward!
Career Path Tip: Design for Scale, Not Reactive Execution! Great Customer Success is no longer about individual excellence. It’s about building systems and processes that consistently deliver value. Create clarity through strong operating rhythms, decision frameworks, and outcome-based accountability. Empower leaders, develop emerging leaders, and reduce dependencies. Consistent, scalable success enables both customers and teams to thrive.
Career Path Tip: Now more than ever, CSMs are under increasing pressure to drive revenue for the business. But this is our time to shine. Take the opportunity to deeply understand your customers, continuously sharpen your business acumen, and focus on delivering and showcasing tangible value at every touchpoint. At the same time, stay open to change and be intentional about adopting new ways of working, particularly by leveraging AI to scale insights, improve prioritization, and spend more time on high-impact customer interactions. If you focus on these principles, you will set yourself apart and make a lasting impact.
Career Path Tip: Keep your customer at the centre of your decision making, put yourself in their shoes and aim not just to solve problems that arise but to preempt them. The best customer success pros build trust through genuine empathy and curiosity, an authentic desire to understand their customers' challenges and an ability to spot patterns early and transform those challenges into at best opportunities and at worst moments of learning/growth. Also be professional but don't be afraid to be yourself, humans connect with humans and at its core customer success is about helping others succeed.
Career Path Tip: Master the art of being a business strategist, not just a relationship manager. The best CSMs don't wait for customers to ask for help—they proactively analyze usage data, identify expansion opportunities, and connect product capabilities to business outcomes. Develop deep industry expertise so you can speak your customer's language and anticipate their challenges before they do. Learn to quantify your impact in revenue terms: retention rates, expansion ARR, and customer lifetime value. Finally, build cross-functional influence—your ability to advocate for customers internally and drive product improvements will set you apart and accelerate your career growth.
Career Path Tip: Work for a good manager — someone who cares, wants you to succeed, and has your back. If they’re great, they will give you feedback that stings and hurts, but is a true blessing to you. They will strengthen your strengths, help you see yourself better, and help you navigate your career goals. In short, if you want personal growth, you need a person to help you grow.
Career Path Tip: They say, ‘Wear your customer’s shoes,’ or ‘Walk the talk.’ Never claim, ‘I understand,’ unless you truly do. To genuinely understand your customer, you must grasp not just their immediate requirements and use cases but also their broader circumstances—how these factors impact their business outcomes and decisions. It goes beyond mastering the CSM process or your product; it’s about connecting the dots between your customer’s needs, other customers’ use cases, and how competitors position their products. Don’t just mimic competitors—learn and innovate.
To thrive in customer success, immerse yourself in the industry, become a subject matter expert in the application of your product across verticals, and cultivate a deep, trusted relationship with your customer. ‘Customer for Life’ is not a slogan—it’s a commitment to fostering trust, delivering value, and consistently evolving to meet your customers' ever-changing landscape. True customer success lies in aligning your expertise with their growth and positioning yourself as a thought leader who empowers them to succeed.