Head of Client Experience

Head of Client Experience (Zato) - Auckland or Sydney

For the person whose gift is people. Clients trust you, Partners warm to you, and you've always known that relationships are where the real value lives. You want a place where that gift is the whole job and genuinely moves the business.

What Zato is

Agentic AI for accounting firms, built by trusted, successful operators who have processed over one million jobs and ledgers. We did not improve the old compliance model. We replaced it.

Accounting firms have run on manual processes, fragmented tools, and traditional outsourcing for decades. Zato ends that. Our platform centralises and automates the actual end-to-end work: questionnaires, GL scrutiny, workpapers, query management, and sign-off. One platform. Job done.

We are scaling fast across New Zealand and Australia, tens of thousands of ledgers are live on the platform, and we are becoming the category-defining system for how accounting firms deliver work.

The role

You own the client relationship, and at Zato, that's one of the most important seats in the company. Many of our firms come to us through our subsidiary - Connect, one of ANZ's largest outsourced accounting providers. Right now, most of them deal with our delivery teams. What they don't yet have is a local face who knows them, looks after them, and grows with them. That's you.

You become the person Partners and Directors trust and call first. You look after them properly, and because you do, their firm grows on Zato, more of their work, more of their trust, for the long run. Growth here isn't something you extract; it's what happens when someone this good looks after people this well.

You lead from the front first, personally owning the relationships and growth that matter most, and build the client experience team underneath you as the base grows.

What you'll do

• Own and grow Zato's client relationships, starting with the Connect base and expanding from there.
• Be the local, trusted face for Partners and Directors across ANZ.
• Drive retention and expansion, bringing more of each firm's work onto Zato and deepening every account.
• Carry a commercial number for retained and expanded ledgers.
• Lead end-to-end relationship management: onboarding handover, ongoing care, growth, renewal and advocacy.
• Own complex and sensitive client situations and turn them around with grace.
• Be the voice of the client inside Zato, turning what you hear into what we build and fix.
• Build, lead and develop the client experience function as it scales.

Experience and qualifications

• 7+ years in client relationship management, customer success, account management, partner success or a similar client-facing role, ideally in accounting or business software, fintech, professional services, or in or alongside accounting firms.
• A proven track record of retaining and growing a client base, with the numbers to show it.
• Credible with accountants. An accounting qualification (CA or CPA) or experience working in or alongside firms is a strong advantage. At a minimum, you can hold a genuine conversation about how a firm runs its work.
• Experience handling complex, sensitive or high-stakes client situations and resolving them well.
• Comfortable owning a commercial target, retention and expansion, not just a satisfaction score.
• Ready to build and lead a team as the function grows. Prior people leadership is a plus, not a must.
• A relevant tertiary qualification is advantageous.
• Full working rights in NZ or AU.

Who you are

• Gifted with people. You read a room, build trust fast, and clients light up when you walk in.
• Hands-on, always. Senior enough to be trusted on your own, but you'd never dream of being above the work. You're in the weeds with the client, because that's where trust is built.
• Graceful under pressure. You handle objections and hard conversations so well it never feels like handling.
• Quietly commercial. You know that looking after people brilliantly is how accounts grow, and you want to own that growth.
• High agency. You own outcomes, you don't wait to be told.
• Warm and charismatic, and genuinely energised by being the person clients trust.
• Local, and happy on the road across ANZ to be in front of firms

What you get

The relationships most companies would kill for, a warm base to look after and grow, real ownership and upside in what you build, and a role where your gift with people is the whole point. You'll be the reason firms stay, grow, and tell others. You'll do in one year here what takes ten anywhere else.

--> Based in Auckland or Sydney.

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