Head of Customer Success & Onboarding (f/m/d)

Apaleo is the world’s most open, API-first property management platform powering the next generation of hospitality operations. Its modular, AI-powered infrastructure enables hoteliers to customise their tech stack, automate routine work, and deliver seamless, personalised guest experiences, powered by best-in-class apps and autonomous AI agents that adapt to every stay.

Your Role

This is a leadership role that spans two interconnected disciplines: owning Apaleo’s Customer Success function from the ground up, and ensuring every new customer lands well through a best-in-class onboarding experience.

On the CS side, you’ll drive adoption, expansion, and long-term retention across the customer base, building the systems, playbooks, and team culture that makes success scalable. On the onboarding side, you’ll set the strategic direction for how new customers implement and activate Apaleo, ensuring the team delivers a smooth, efficient, and confidence-building experience from day one.

What You’ll Be Up To

Customer Success Strategy & Execution

• Define and own the Customer Success strategy, team structure, lifecycle methodology, and the metrics that matter (NRR, churn, CSAT, adoption).
• Lead, coach, and grow a team of Customer Success Managers, setting the standard for ownership, accountability, and customer impact.
• Build scalable, repeatable CS processes across the full post-onboarding lifecycle: adoption, advancement, and expansion.
• Own Apaleo’s most important customer relationships, guiding executive-level business reviews and driving meaningful outcomes.
• Represent the Voice of the Customer at the leadership level, translating insights into actionable feedback for Product, Engineering, and Go-to-Market teams.
• Define and track customer health using data and tooling (HubSpot, Gainsight, or similar) to proactively manage risk and identify growth opportunities.
• Partner cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, Product, and Engineering to deliver a seamless and commercially aligned customer experience.

Onboarding Leadership

• Set the strategic direction for onboarding working closely with the Onboarding Lead.
• Act as the senior escalation point for complex onboarding issues, partnering cross-functionally to resolve systemic challenges. Hold the Onboarding Team Lead accountable for delivery outcomes, stepping in only where recurring patterns require escalation to Product or leadership.
• Represent onboarding performance at the leadership level, translating KPIs into business impact narratives that inform investment decisions, headcount planning, and product roadmap priorities.

What You’ll Bring to the Team

Must-Have Skills & Experience

• Significant experience in Customer Success, Account Management, or Customer Growth within SaaS, Hospitality Tech, or similar industries.
• Proven track record in a senior CS leadership role, you’ve built or significantly scaled a CS function, not just managed one.
• Strong strategic instincts: able to zoom out to set direction while staying close enough to the detail to build credibility with your team and customers.
• Experience designing and implementing scalable CS and onboarding processes in a scale-up environment, you’re a builder, not an inheritor.
• Comfortable operating with ambiguity and limited resources. You create structure where little exists.
• Technically confident - able to engage on platform, API, and integration topics alongside customers and internal teams without breaking a sweat.
• AI native - integrates AI into workflows to improve CS performance.
• Excellent communicator with strong stakeholder management skills, internally and externally.
• Proficient with tools like HubSpot, Gainsight, or similar CS/CRM platforms.

Nice-to-Have Skills & Experience

• Experience in hospitality tech or B2B SaaS for operationally complex industries (a strong plus).
• Exposure to commercial CS frameworks: NRR ownership, account forecasting, and expansion playbooks.
• Experience contributing to or leading Voice-of-Customer programmes at an organizational level.
• Familiarity with API-first or platform-model products.

Why You’ll Love It Here

• Define and build the CS & Onboarding function at a pivotal moment in Apaleo’s growth.
• Have a genuine seat at the leadership table - your strategy will shape the business.
• Work alongside a collaborative, curious team that values autonomy and moves fast.
• Enjoy a flexible working model, regular team events, and an office in central Munich..

Culture & Growth

• A Diverse & International Team: Work alongside professionals from many backgrounds and nationalities shaping the future of hospitality tech.
• Growth & Development: Feedback-driven culture, learning budget, and room to grow as the enterprise motion scales.
• Autonomy & Ownership: High trust, high accountability - impact over process.
• Shape the Future of Hospitality Tech: Your work helps define how enterprise growth is built at Apaleo.
• Competitive & Fair Compensation: Benchmark-guided compensation and clear performance expectations.

Perks & Lifestyle

• Flexible & Remote Work Options: Remote-first across Europe with regular in-person moments where it matters.
• Free Public Transport: Fully covered Deutschland Ticket (Germany-based).
• Team Connection: Regular team dinners, company meetups, and offsites.
• Paid Time Off: 30 days of vacation.
• Personal Development Budget: 1.000 € per year (can exceed with approval).
• Health & Wellbeing: Access to gyms and wellness options via EGYM Wellpass.

How You Make an Impact

Joining Apaleo means more than taking on a role, it’s about driving real change in the hospitality industry. As Head of Customer Success & Onboarding, your decisions will directly shape how hundreds of hospitality businesses experience our platform, influence product direction, and define what world-class CS looks like at Apaleo. Your voice matters, your strategy will be felt, and your impact will be tangible.

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer, committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming workplace. We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds, regardless of race, colour, religion, gender identity or expression, sex, national origin, age, marital status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Your personal data will be handled with the utmost care and in compliance with GDPR and relevant data protection regulations. We celebrate differences and believe that diversity enriches our team and drives innovation