Account Manager
Job Description:
The Account Manager owns the long-term success of Smart Panda Tools’ partner institutions. You will manage a portfolio of colleges and universities after they go live with the Student Mobility Suite, carrying responsibility for renewals, retention, and expansion. We describe ourselves as infrastructure, not a tool, and that means our relationships are built to last and grow over many years. You are the person who makes that true.
Our partners are registrars, evaluation teams, enrollment leaders, and IT leaders who trust us with students’ academic records. This is a consultative, relationship-driven role. The work rewards someone who wants to understand how each registrar’s office runs, who notices when an institution’s needs are changing, and who can connect those needs to where the Suite can help next.
You will partner with Implementation and Support to keep institutions running smoothly, with Account Executives on expansion opportunities, with Product to carry partner feedback into what we build, and with leadership to keep an accurate renewal and expansion forecast.
Why Join Us?
Smart Panda Tools builds the enterprise infrastructure that higher education institutions rely on to modernize transcript evaluation, automate credit articulation, and protect their academic authority. Our Student Mobility Suite is used by nearly 250 universities to process millions of transcripts without replacing the systems those institutions already depend on.
We are a team of higher education veterans, engineers, and enrollment operations experts. Many of us have sat in the Registrar’s chair, managed enterprise IT systems, and built the infrastructure to connect them. We build the technology we wish we had.
The people who thrive here care deeply about operational detail and student outcomes. They want to understand why institutions work the way they do before building something to improve it. They bring strong opinions while remaining curious, and design for the specific rather than the generic.
Administrative friction should never obstruct the path to great education.
Key Responsibilities:
- Own Renewals and Retention: Manage the full renewal cycle for your portfolio of partner institutions, from early health checks through to a signed agreement. Spot risk early, address it directly, and carry the retention and renewal targets that come with your book.
- Grow Partnerships Over Time: Identify where each institution’s needs are heading and where additional layers of the Suite (Raptor, Equate, Gateway, and RuleMaker) can address the next pain point. Lead expansion conversations and carry the expansion target for your accounts, partnering with Account Executives where it makes sense.
- Stay Close to the People Doing the Work: Build relationships beyond a single contact: with evaluators and registrar staff, enrollment leadership, and IT. Make sure the people who use the Suite every day feel supported, heard, and confident in what it does for them.
- Know Each Institution’s Operation: Understand each partner’s system of record, workflows, peak seasons, and goals. Run regular business reviews that tie the Suite to outcomes the institution cares about, such as turnaround time, backlog, and staff capacity.
- Be a Trusted, Honest Partner: When something unexpected comes up, acknowledge the partner’s experience, describe what happened accurately, and coordinate with Support and Engineering to resolve it. Set realistic expectations and follow through on them.
- Run an Accurate Forecast: Maintain a disciplined, CRM-driven view of account health, renewal dates, and expansion pipeline so leadership has clear visibility. Keep the numbers honest so the business can plan on them.
- Bring the Field Into the Company: Share what partners want and need with Product, and help turn successful partnerships into success stories, references, and advocates across the higher education community.
- Represent Us in the Market: Stay current on higher education trends and enrollment pressures, and represent Smart Panda Tools credibly with institutional leaders and at sector events and conferences.
Required Qualifications:
- 4+ years of account management, customer success, or renewals experience, preferably in B2B SaaS or within the higher education market
- A proven record of meeting or exceeding renewal, retention, or expansion targets
- Experience managing a portfolio of enterprise or institutional accounts with multiple stakeholders and long decision timelines
- Strong relationship-building, discovery, presentation, and negotiation skills
- Ability to understand a complex software platform and explain its value in the context of a partner’s specific operational environment
- Clear, warm, and precise written and verbal communication, including in difficult conversations
- Proficiency with CRM software (Pipedrive experience is a plus)
- Self-motivated and able to work independently in a remote environment
- Bachelor’s degree in business, education, or a related field, or equivalent experience
Nice to have:
- Direct experience managing higher education accounts, or having worked inside a college or university (registrar, admissions, enrollment, or IT)
- Familiarity with transcript evaluation, transfer credit articulation, or enrollment management workflows
- Working knowledge of student information systems such as PeopleSoft, Banner, Colleague, or Workday, or CRMs such as Slate or Salesforce
- Experience with higher education associations or conferences such as AACRAO or HEUG