Now
Headcount Management
VP of Operations
I run Finance, HR, Payroll, Onboarding and Customer Operations for an employer of record and back-office outsourcing firm.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Ariel
Benzakein
I've led Customer Success teams for 25 years, mostly in SaaS, and I'm working toward a PhD in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga. After hours I write a vampire novel set in Cincinnati and build software for bulletin board systems, a hobby I picked up in 1985 and never put down. One of my door games grew into Isle of Morrow, the browser MMO I'm building now.
Work
Customer Success, 25 years in
I treat Customer Success as a profit center. Over 25 years I've built and scaled CS organizations at high-growth startups and multibillion-dollar public companies, and I've turned underperforming teams into ones that beat their retention targets year after year, with an approach that pairs hard data with human-centered leadership.
Before that
RetentionForge
Founder
My Customer Success consultancy, where I led several Series A companies to big gains in gross and net revenue retention.
Earlier, I held VP-level roles at high-growth startups and at large companies, including Experian, Donnelley Financial, PerkinElmer and ITI, now part of Wipro.
Full history on LinkedInHow I work
- Built the first B2B software Customer Success team at a Fortune 500 company; its health metrics became the company-wide model.
- Set up health scoring in Gainsight and ClientSuccess that flags churn early, plus executive reporting that shows the C-suite where the risk and the expansion are.
- Launched Customer Advisory Boards and built 24/7 global support centers.
- Mentored junior leaders and grew teams that turn customers into advocates.
Talks and recognition
I've been a frequent guest on SuccessHacker's CS Leadership Roundtables on a variety of topics. I've also spoken at the Chief Customer Officer Summit in New York and appeared on the Rebels of SaaS and [Un]churned podcasts.
Two-time winner of the APPEALIE Customer Success Leadership Award, 2022 and 2024.
Side projects
The BBS Preservation Project
Save the hobby. Bring back the BBS.
I was a SysOp from 1985 until 1997, and I never really stopped. Bulletin boards are a huge part of computer history, and they've mostly been forgotten. Retro is cool again. This project is my attempt to bring the BBS back with free software that runs on cheap shared hosting, for anyone who wants to run a board of their own or just call one up and play the doors.
ATDT BBS
atdtbbs.com
A free BBS that runs on ordinary PHP hosting, with ANSI art, hotkey menus, message bases, live chat and DOS doors.
ATA BBS
atabbs.com
The original DOS-era boards, unmodified, on plain shared hosting: no Telnet and no always-on server. Installing one takes a single click.
ATO Doors
atodoors.com
Classic DOS door games on shared hosting, with no BBS required. All the server needs is PHP and SQLite.
Usurper 0.25
getusurper.com
The classic Pascal door game, rewritten in PHP with long-standing bugs and exploits fixed. Door and web editions.
ANSI Paint
ansipaint.com
A TheDraw-style ANSI editor in the browser, with shared canvases you can draw on live.
Learn more about the project
bbspreservation.org
Also in development
Isle of Morrow
The tide is coming in.
Sixteen classes. Parties of four. Raids of twelve. No cash shop.
It's a browser MMO. The island runs on its own clock, and more than 200 townsfolk with homes and trades keep real hours on it whether you're logged in or not. The lore runs deep. Alpha is invite-only.
Join the alpha list
Novel
No Pulse
After his family is murdered, Tom Rourke is turned by a vampire and goes hunting the crew who did it. A homicide detective and a medical examiner are working the bodies he leaves behind, while under Over-the-Rhine, in the old brewing tunnels, a vampire clan keeps a faith of its own.
Education
PhD, Leadership Studies
Gonzaga University. In progress.
Proposed dissertation topic
The Effect of Leadership Style on Retention in SaaS
Customer Success teams own retention. I haven't found a study that tests whether the leader's style moves gross or net revenue retention, and that's the question I want my dissertation to answer.
Leadership Style Assessment
150 items across six styles. About 20 minutes.
Scores for all six styles, plus your primary and secondary.
I built this instrument in 2025 from the six styles in Peter Northouse's textbook, Leadership: Theory and Practice.
- Transformational
- Servant
- Authentic
- Inclusive
- Adaptive
- Laissez-faire
Earlier degrees
-
MS, Organizational Leadership
Johns Hopkins University
2025
-
BA, History, summa cum laude
Arizona State University