Lauren Smith

About Lauren Smith

I’m a customer and revenue operations leader with deep experience building the strategies, processes, and operating rhythms that improve retention, expansion, forecasting accuracy, and customer outcomes. A major part of my work has been building and operationalizing renewals as a true function, not just a reactive task. I helped stand up and scale a renewals team and built the underlying processes, visibility, and accountability needed to manage retention more strategically. That included defining roles and ownership, creating workflows for account review and renewal management, improving forecasting discipline, increasing visibility into at-risk and growth accounts, and introducing stronger data hygiene and process consistency across the team. I also helped create the structure needed for renewals to work more effectively cross-functionally, especially across Customer Success, Sales, Finance, and Systems. Over the course of my career, I’ve led global post-sales and customer operations functions focused on renewals, churn reduction, customer health, expansion planning, lifecycle design, and cross-functional execution. I enjoy sitting at the intersection of strategy and execution, turning messy signals into actionable insights, building the frameworks teams need to scale, and helping leaders make better decisions with data. My work has included: Building and operationalizing a renewals function, including team structure, process design, forecasting, account visibility, and performance accountabilityDesigning customer lifecycle and operating models across renewals, risk management, and growthLeading forecasting and improving data hygiene, visibility, and process discipline across at-risk and growth accountsAnalyzing churn, contraction, reactivation, and expansion trends to identify root causes and recommend changesBuilding customer health processes, structured playbooks, and proactive intervention modelsPartnering with Customer Success, Sales, Product, Finance, and Systems teams to improve the customer journeyPresenting performance insights and recommendations to executive leadershipDriving process adoption and operational change across global teams I’m especially energized by roles where I can help scale Customer Success through better lifecycle design, reporting, customer segmentation, systems optimization, renewals strategy, and strategic planning.

Experience

1. VP, Global Customer Operations, Retention, and Growth

   Zeta Global

   Nov 2025 — Present

   Transformation-focused Customer Success and Revenue Operations executive with 15+ years of experience architecting and scaling global, recurring-revenue operating models across complex SaaS and enterprise environments. I lead cross-functional transformation programs spanning post-M&A integration, Sales–Customer Success operating models, and retention and consumption health, translating company strategy into durable execution at scale.Recognized for optimizing the end-to-end revenue lifecycle - from pipeline and deal execution through renewals, expansion, and churn mitigation - while improving forecast accuracy, accelerating deal velocity, and driving predictable ARR growth. I’m known for building and leading high-performing global teams, partnering closely with CROs and executive leadership, and modernizing systems, processes, and analytics to support growth, scale, and increasing organizational complexity.

Education

• Point Loma Nazarene University

  Master of Business Administration (MBA)

  2010 — 2013

• UC San Diego

  Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

  2004 — 2008