Chief Customer Officer

As Chief Customer Officer at NCIA, you will lead the customer-facing function, ensuring a customer-centric approach that aligns resources and delivers maximum value to NATO missions. This executive role involves shaping strategic direction, bridging customer needs with operational delivery, and driving transformational change in NATO's digital capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Embody and role model the NCIA culture principles of Customer First, Together and Impact
• Lead with the customer at the center of every decision, build bridges across organizational pillars and drive delivery with the ownership and pace the mission demands
• Build and lead a cohesive, multicultural and multidisciplinary team, promoting excellence, the highest professional standards and inspiring work environments that enable managers and staff to develop their full potential
• Lead the NCIA’s customer engagement model, embedding a customer-first mindset across all functions
• Shape and manage the customer demand pipeline, ensuring early engagement and clear prioritization of needs
• Translate customer insights into actionable strategies, services, and investment decisions
• Oversee customer relationships, service agreements, service support packages, and price proposals
• Define and evolve the service strategy, ensuring services are scalable, sustainable, and outcome-focused
• Establish and lead prioritization frameworks across competing demands
• Lead value-based decision-making, including costing models and benefits realization
• Act as Senior User on Project Boards, ensuring delivery aligns with customer outcomes

Requirements

• A senior executive leader with 15+ years (holding a Master’s degree) or 20+ years (holding a Bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience in complex organizations
• Proven leadership of large, distributed organizations (e.g. 100+ staff across service, support, CX, and analytics functions)
• A strong track record of defining and delivering customer strategies aligned to organizational goals
• Demonstrated success driving customer-centric transformation and cultural change at enterprise scale
• Experienced in shifting organizations from reactive service delivery to proactive, insight-driven engagement
• Skilled in designing and operating enterprise customer models, including service, support, and engagement functions
• Deep understanding of customer governance, demand management, service performance, and workforce planning
• Strong experience using data and analytics to drive customer insights and decision-making
• Proven ability to balance competing stakeholder priorities and achieve enterprise-wide alignment
• Experience managing large-scale budgets and investment decisions (100M+ EUR)
• Strong commercial or mission awareness, with the ability to link customer experience to value or impact
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, including experience operating in senior and political environments
• Proven experience in managing large, diverse and multidisciplinary teams successfully employing modern, inspirational leadership practices.

Skills

• Customer Strategy Development
• Customer-Centric Transformation
• Enterprise Customer Models
• Service Delivery Management
• Customer Governance
• Demand Management
• Service Performance Management
• Workforce Planning
• Data-Driven Customer Insights
• Stakeholder Alignment
• Budget Management
• Investment decision making
• Commercial Awareness
• Mission Awareness
• Executive Leadership
• Organizational Change Management
• Large-scale Team Management
• Inspirational Leadership
• Communication in Political Environments

Languages

English