What are the responsibilities and job description for the Strategic Account Manager - Stellarus, Sr. Principal position at Blue Shield of California?
Your Role
The Customer Experience organization is responsible for ensuring Stellarus’ most critical customers achieve measurable, sustained value from the platform and maintain long-term trust and partnership with the company. The Senior Principal, Strategic Account Manager is a senior individual contributor role accountable for the strategic, commercial, and executive level management of Stellarus’ most valuable and complex customer relationships with flagship health plans.
In this role, you will serve as the primary executive level account owner for designated strategic customers whose success materially impacts Stellarus’ revenue trajectory, platform adoption, and market credibility. You will operate with broad autonomy to shape multi-year account strategies, negotiate complex commercial agreements, guide value realization and solution adoption, and represent Stellarus directly with C suite leaders, including CEOs, within large, regulated, and highly matrixed customer organizations.
This role is calibrated at the Senior Principal level due to its enterprise-wide impact, executive decision-making authority, and responsibility for high risk, high visibility customer outcomes. The role does not have direct people management responsibilities.
Our leadership model is about developing great leaders at all levels and creating opportunities for our people to grow – personally, professionally, and financially. We are looking for leaders that are energized by creative and critical thinking, building and sustaining high-performing teams, getting results the right way, and fostering continuous learning.
Your Work
In this role, you will:
Strategic Account Ownership (Enterprise Scope)
- Own the overall strategic direction, health, and long-term success of Stellarus’ highest value customer accounts.
- Develop and maintain multiyear account strategies aligned to customer business priorities, Stellarus’ platform roadmap, and enterprise growth objectives.
- Cultivate long-term, high-value partnerships that extend beyond individual initiatives to sustain enterprise collaboration.
Executive & C Suite Engagement
- Act as Stellarus’ senior executive representative to strategic customers.
- Build and sustain trusted relationships with senior executives and C suite leaders, including CEOs.
- Lead executive business reviews, strategic planning sessions, and executive level negotiations.
- Communicate progress, insights, risks, and future direction clearly to executive audiences on both sides.
Commercial Value Realization and Solution Adoption
- Ensure strategic customers achieve measurable, sustained outcomes from Stellarus solutions.
- Develop a deep understanding of customer workflows, challenges, and strategic priorities.
- Guide solution adoption and value realization in partnership with Customer Experience, Product, Technology, Clinical, and Operations teams.
- Proactively identify opportunities to enhance customer value through optimization, expansion, or new use cases.
Commercial Strategy, Retention & Growth Partnership (Non-Sales)
- Lead complex commercial negotiations for strategic accounts, including renewals, expansions, and new strategic initiatives.
- Collaborate with Sales, Legal, Finance, and executive leadership to structure pricing, scope, and contractual terms.
- Support renewal preparation by providing executive level account insights, value realization outcomes, and relationship context.
- Surface and shape growth opportunities aligned to customer needs while remaining accountable for customer trust and long-term partnership health.
Cross Functional Leadership & Customer Advocacy
- Serve as the enterprise voice of the customer, translating insights into actionable guidance for Product, Technology, and Market Strategy teams.
- Influence prioritization of features, enhancements, and roadmap decisions for strategic accounts.
- Lead cross functional account teams accountable for delivering exceptional, consistent customer experience.
- Identify, manage, and escalate risks that could materially impact customer outcomes or enterprise performance.
Governance, Planning & Change Leadership
- Guide integration planning, roadmap discussions, and change management efforts with internal teams and customer stakeholders.
- Establish and operate appropriate governance models for complex, multi-stakeholder accounts.
- Communicate value and impact clearly to technical, clinical, operational, and executive audiences.
Your Knowledge and Experience
Required
- Bachelor’s degree or High School Diploma/GED and 4 years of additional relevant experience in lieu of a degree.
- 12 years of experience in strategic account management, customer success, healthcare consulting, or related roles within:
- A health plan or payer organization
- A healthcare or enterprise technology company, or
- Another large, complex, regulated enterprise
- Proven success building and sustaining trusted relationships with C suite and senior executive stakeholders.
- Strong understanding of health plan business operations; experience with clinical, technical, or product workflows preferred.
- Demonstrated experience partnering with Product and Technology teams to support solution delivery, integration, and enhancement.
- Ability to synthesize complex information and communicate compelling narratives to diverse audiences.
Preferred
- Experience operating in fast paced, innovative environments.
- Comfort with ambiguity and proactive problem solving.
- Familiarity with healthcare data, analytics, or AI enabled platforms.
ABOUT THE TEAM
About Blue Shield of California
As of January 2025, Blue Shield of California became a subsidiary of Ascendiun. Ascendiun is a nonprofit corporate entity that is the parent to a family of organizations including Blue Shield of California and its subsidiary, Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan; Altais, a clinical services company; and Stellarus, a company designed to scale healthcare solutions. Together, these organizations are referred to as the Ascendiun Family of Companies.
At Blue Shield of California, our mission is to create a healthcare system worthy of our family and friends and sustainably affordable. We are transforming health care in a way that genuinely serves our nonprofit mission by lowering costs, improving quality, and enhancing the member and physician experience.
To achieve our mission, we foster an environment where all employees can thrive and contribute fully to address the needs of the various communities we serve. We are committed to creating and maintaining a supportive workplace that upholds our values and advances our goals.
Blue Shield is a U.S. News Best Company to work for, a Deloitte U.S. Best Managed Company and a Top 100 Inspiring Workplace. We were recognized by Fair360 as a Top Regional Company, and one of the 50 most community-minded companies in the United States by Points of Light. Here at Blue Shield, we strive to make a positive change across our industry and communities – join us!
Our Values:
- Honest. We hold ourselves to the highest ethical and integrity standards. We build trust by doing what we say we're going to do and by acknowledging and correcting where we fall short.
- Human. We strive to listen and communicate effectively, showing empathy by understanding others' perspectives.
- Courageous. We stand up for what we believe in and are committed to the hard work necessary to achieve our ambitious goals.
Our Workplace Model
We believe in fostering a workplace environment that balances purposeful in-person collaboration with flexibility - providing clear expectations while respecting the diverse needs of our workforce. Our workplace model is designed around intentional in-person interaction, collaboration, connection, creativity and flexibility:
For most teams, this means coming into the office two days per week.
Employees living more than 50 miles from an office location, out of state employees, and employees in certain member-facing roles should work with their manager to determine in-office time based on business need.
For employees with medical conditions that may impact their ability to work in-office, we are committed to engaging in an interactive process and providing reasonable accommodations to ensure their work environment is conducive to their success and well-being.
The Company reserves the right to require more presence in the office based on business needs, and requirements are subject to change with periodic reviews.
Physical Requirements:
Office Environment - roles involving part to full time schedule in Office Environment. Based in our physical offices and work from home office/deskwork - Activity level: Sedentary, frequency most of work day.
Equal Employment Opportunity:
External hires must pass a background check/drug screen. Qualified applicants with arrest records and/or conviction records will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with Federal, State and local laws, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disability status and any other classification protected by Federal, State and local laws.