Customer Success is an operating model, not a department.
I am Georges Arnaout, a Chief Customer Officer and advisor. I help SaaS leadership teams and investors turn retention and expansion into growth they can forecast, and redesign Customer Success for a world where AI agents do much of the execution.
What net retention does to the customers you already have
At 105% net retention, a $10M customer base is worth $12.8M in five years. At 136%, it is worth $46.5M.
See the numbers
Simple compounding on a $10M base with no new customers. An illustration, not a forecast. My team held net retention above 136% at CloudHealth by VMware.
- Operator at
- Onclusive
- Abnormal AI
- Exabeam
- CloudHealth by VMware
- Kiva Systems, now Amazon Robotics
- Advised
- Scale Venture Partners
- OpenView
- Container xChange
What I get asked to fix
I work with CEOs and founders, Chief Customer Officers and their leadership teams, and investors who want more from the customers a company already has.
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Redesign Customer Success around AI agents
Decide where people stay involved, where agents act, and which decisions a system can make safely. Then rebuild coverage, roles and playbooks around that split so the team scales without adding headcount.
At Abnormal AI, my team deployed internal agents across CSM workflows, from health-score analysis to renewal forecasting.
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Fix retention and make expansion forecastable
Build health scoring from product telemetry, support data and customer ROI, tie adoption to business outcomes, and turn renewals and expansion into a forecast the board can rely on.
At CloudHealth by VMware I ran a portfolio above $200M in ARR at more than 136% net retention and under 2% gross churn.
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Serve the long tail without the cost
Design a digital motion for the accounts that will never justify a dedicated CSM, so high-touch teams can spend their time on enterprise growth.
The digital program my team built at Abnormal AI cut tech-touch churn by more than 22%.
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Make partners and channels retain and grow
Give resellers and MSPs the onboarding, playbooks and visibility they need to keep and expand their own customers on your platform.
I built VMware's global Partner Customer Success organization for CloudHealth and grew partner MRR by about 200% in two years.
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Build the organization, or rebuild it
From the first post-sales hire to a global structure spanning Customer Success, technical account management, services, support and renewals, including the integration work that follows an acquisition.
I started as CloudHealth's first Technical Account Manager, led the function through the VMware acquisition, and rebuilt Exabeam's EMEA and APJ teams.
Ways to work together
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One-to-one advisory
Regular calls with a CEO, CCO or head of Customer Success on the decisions in front of them.
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Working sessions
Small-group sessions for a leadership team or an investor's portfolio, built around one problem.
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Longer-term advisory
A formal advisory relationship through a build, a turnaround or an integration.
I take on a small number of advisory engagements alongside my operating role.
Track record
Four software companies and a robotics startup, from the first post-sales hire to a global organization, with three exits along the way.
| When | Where | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 to now | Onclusive Chief Customer Officer |
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| 2024 to 2026 | Abnormal AI Vice President, Global Customer Success |
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| 2022 to 2024 | Exabeam (Exited - Thoma Bravo) Vice President, Customer Success, first international and then global |
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| 2015 to 2022 | CloudHealth by VMware (Exited - VMware) First Technical Account Manager to Global Head of Customer Success |
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| From 2011 | Kiva Systems, now Amazon Robotics (Exited - Amazon) Client Solutions |
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Writing
Notes on where Customer Success is heading, from someone still running it day to day.
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The CCO role is changing fast
Retention, expansion, churn, NPS and capacity still matter. The new questions are about where humans stay involved and where agents act.
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Most Digital Customer Success models are about to break
Scaled humans plus automation was the answer to serving thousands of low-ARR accounts. Agents change the economics, and the model with them.
Talks
- Partner Customer Success trends and lessons learned
- Partner success, with Nick Mehta of Gainsight
- Healthscore evolved
- Based in
- Madrid, working with teams across North America, EMEA and APAC
- Education
- Ph.D. in Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, Old Dominion University
- M.S. in Computer Science, Old Dominion University
- B.S. in Computer Science, University of Balamand
About
For more than a decade I have built and run post-sales organizations at technology companies, from the first hire to global teams, and through acquisitions by Amazon and VMware.
I joined CloudHealth Technologies in 2015 as its first Technical Account Manager, when the company was between its seed round and Series A. Over seven years I built the Customer Success function, led it through the acquisition by VMware, and finished as Global Head of Customer Success with a portfolio above $200M in ARR. Since then I have led Customer Success at Exabeam and Abnormal AI, and today I am Chief Customer Officer at Onclusive.
Before software I was an engineer and researcher. My doctorate is in modeling and simulation, and my first job after it was at Kiva Systems, the warehouse-robotics company that became Amazon Robotics. That training is why I treat Customer Success as a system to be modeled and measured. Health scores, renewal forecasts and coverage models come before opinions.
Alongside operating roles I advise early-stage founders. I have also taught graduate courses in simulation and data management, and published research on traffic simulation and intelligent transportation systems. See the research.
Tell me what you are trying to fix.
Send a short note on where retention or expansion is stuck. I will tell you honestly whether I can help, and who can if I cannot.