Account Executive

Account Executive
HYBRID / LOCATION (1 - 2 days/week in the office)
SALARY: £32,500

Times Higher Education is the data provider underpinning university excellence in every continent across the world. As the company behind the world’s most influential university ranking, and with almost five decades of experience as a source of analysis and insight on higher education, we have unparalleled expertise on the trends underpinning university performance globally. Our data and benchmarking tools are used by many of the world’s most prestigious universities to help them achieve their strategic goals and our events series act as the home of higher education thought leadership around the world.

About the role

The Account Executive role supports higher education customers by ensuring smooth delivery and fulfilment of services for lower-spending accounts, resolving issues, coordinating requirements and helping them achieve value from the service.

Working closely with Business Development and Account Management, the role looks after a pooled portfolio of lower-spending customers and focuses on onboarding, retention and service delivery through operational excellence, while commercial growth and strategic account ownership remain with Account Management.

AE accounts typically sit within a single sales vertical and do not hold data subscriptions, so delivery coordination is simpler than for Core Account Managers.

Key Responsibilities

Onboarding & service delivery

• Support customer onboarding and the successful delivery and fulfilment of services, ensuring a smooth transition from Business Development.

• Proactively manage customer queries, issues and service requests, resolving them within agreed service levels.

Customer success & retention

• Support customers in maximising the value of THE's services through ongoing guidance and support.

• Monitor customer satisfaction and identify risks that may affect retention or service delivery, escalating to the regional unit and the Head of Retention as needed.

• Manage renewals for pooled accounts, including communicating annual price adjustments in line with THE's pricing policy.

• Track product usage across the pool and run proactive outreach to low-usage customers before renewal.

Account Orchestration

• Own the day-to-day client relationship for pooled accounts and coordinate delivery across THE.

• Services (Events, Branding): own client comms, including project updates, while the delivery unit runs project planning, events and campaign execution.

• Solutions (Hiring, Content): request back-end set-up from the Manila fulfilment team and use its usage reports to track adoption.

• Receive closed deals from Business Development with a strong brief, and introduce the delivery lead to the client within 3 days of close.

• Hand accounts that grow into multiple workstreams or take up a data subscription to Account Management.

Collaboration & records

• Work closely with Sales, Account Management, Finance and Product to ensure customer requirements are understood and delivered effectively.

• Maintain accurate customer records and activity within Salesforce and internal systems.

• Identify and communicate customer needs, feedback, risks and opportunities to relevant internal stakeholders, referring expansion opportunities to Account Managers.

Skills & Experience

• Experience in sales, customer success, account support, client services or onboarding, ideally in a SaaS, data or subscription business.

• Comfortable managing a high volume of customer accounts and prioritising effectively.

• Exposure to the higher education sector is an advantage.

• Working knowledge of Salesforce or a similar CRM.

• Clear, friendly written and verbal communication; able to explain products simply to non-specialists.

• Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail.

• Commercial awareness: recognises expansion signals and knows when to bring in Account Management.

• Additional languages are an advantage for international portfolios.

You do You
You do You. With colleagues located around the world, we know that our individuality and diversity of experiences are our greatest strengths. That’s why we want THE to be a place where you are welcome to be who you want to be at work; where you can share whatever part of your life or self-identity you want, without obligation or facing discrimination; and where all abilities and perspectives are recognised and accommodated.