Women in Customer Success Podcast

147 - From Languages to Ops Leadership: Emily Nguema on Ambiguity, Influence & Growth

• Marija Skobe-Pilley • Season 5 • Episode 147

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Sometimes the fastest way to grow your influence isn’t chasing a bigger title,  it’s expanding your understanding of how the business actually works.

In this episode, we sit down with Emily Nguema, Senior Manager, Commercial Operations at Relay Technologies, to unpack her non-linear journey from studying languages and doing humanitarian work in Ecuador to partner success, edtech, and ultimately a far-reaching role in commercial operations. Through every pivot, one thread stays constant: value - how to define it, measure it, and translate it into stories executives can do something with.

We explore:

  • What it really looks like to shift from senior CSM to commercial ops
  • How embracing ambiguity becomes a competitive advantage in fast-moving orgs
  • Emily’s personal operating system (weekly roadmaps, calendar-bound priorities, and celebrating small wins like it’s a sport)
  • Humility as the hidden accelerator for influence and leadership
  • Career decisions that prioritize learning, exposure, and meaningful impact over titles

You’ll also hear a fresh take on consultative customer success, executive-ready storytelling, and the mindset shift that helps CS professionals influence at higher levels (long before they have a formal leadership title).

If you’re eyeing a move into operations, or simply want your customer success strategy to resonate in the boardroom, this episode will give you both the frameworks and the courage to go for it.

And if this conversation sparked something for you, share it with a colleague or teammate who needs the boost today.



💚 This episode is brought to you by Deployflow: https://deployflow.co/


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👉 Follow Emily: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-nguema/

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Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other.


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SPEAKER_00:

I was in Ecuador. Actually I was it was part of my study abroad. I went and worked with vulnerable women in a center in Petro. And essentially we worked with victims of drug trafficking who had like really suffered. And we essentially worked with them to like on rehabilitation so that they could then go back into their lives in society. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to go and support those individuals and uh one that was saved with me first. For a long time. Yeah. There's so much value that could be had by understanding your stakeholders and what they're measured on and how they're measured internally as well. And and like when you start to kind of get into that and really build those relationships with the stakeholders you have, and you know like what's motivating them, and then how that impacts how you report back to them because you want to build them something that they can then take back internally to their senior leadership. When you start to like build those connections, I think it just unlocks so much within within customer success.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the new episode of Women in Customer Success Podcast. My name is Maria Scobapili, and I'm delighted to spend some time with you today. And thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. Today, I really have a privilege of talking with a wonderful young lady who is currently a senior manager of commercial operations at Relay Technologies. Her name is Emily Ungerman. Emily, welcome to the show. Hi Maria, nice to be here. Emily, where are you joining from? Where are you calling from?

SPEAKER_00:

I am joining from our London office. So I'm just in a little meeting room to record this episode. But yeah, really excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. And before we go into details about your career and different paths that you have taken throughout your years in customer success and beyond, would you say for yourself that you are an introvert or an extrovert?

SPEAKER_00:

I find it hard to say. I think I'm more of an introvert in many ways. I like to spend time on my own. We have a quiet room here in the office, and I'm often found in that quiet room. Just like head down getting my work done. But then I do like to socialize and I do like to, you know, be a part of the team as well. So I've got a bit of that extrovert quality as well, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

I've seen that glow on your face when you've been talking about the quiet room song. Maybe, maybe there's a tendency there. Anyway, just joking. I'm sure the audience would like to get to know you a bit better. So, Emily, you will tell us more about your career path, but tell me one thing before. Would the 16-year-old Emily be surprised to find you in your current role?

SPEAKER_00:

Definitely. Yeah, even I'm surprised that I'm here. No, I don't know. I mean, I was always passionate about languages. So I studied languages at university. Like I love learning new ones, speaking different languages in my work and things. And I always kind of thought that I'd be probably working somewhere in a far corner of the world, using those languages in my day-to-day. Yet here I am in London working in a UK-based company. I have obviously done a bit of work with French clients and Spanish clients in the past, but definitely I thought I wouldn't still be in the UK at this point.

SPEAKER_01:

Now we have to confirm. Do you speak then English, French, and Spanish?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I do. And I've also dabbled in a few other languages in the past. So I learned a bit of quichua when I was in Ecuador, try my hand Japanese for a holiday. So yeah, I love any opportunity to learn a language. Um, I have a whole shelf of uh all the phrase books and uh the dictionaries to go with them. So yeah, big fan.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, actually, this is very, very surprising. I didn't expect this. So many languages and Ecuador. Tell me about that trip in Ecuador. Like what was the highlight and when? Why? This is awesome. Yeah, forget customer success. Just joking for the moment, but like this is fun. Come on.

SPEAKER_00:

I was in Ecuador. Actually, I was it was part of my study abroad. And so I went and worked with vulnerable women in a center in Quito, and essentially we worked with victims of drug trafficking who had like really suffered, and we essentially worked with them to like on rehabilitation so that they could then go back into their lives in society. So that was what I was doing there. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to uh go and support those individuals and uh yeah, oh, one that will stay with me for for a long time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, how long have you stayed there?

SPEAKER_00:

I was there for three months.

SPEAKER_01:

Three months. So it was part of the study abroad. What did you study? I mean, what takes you to the trip like that? That is awesome. I mean, not the the situations were not awesome, but it is an awesome opportunity to help out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so as part of my degree, I needed to do a year abroad. So because I was studying Spanish and French, it was up to me to decide where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to Peru, but there was no space left on the Peru placement. So I ended up in Ecuador and I literally knew nothing about Ecuador before I went. But it turned out to be one of the best experiences I've ever had, and I stayed with an amazing family who I'm still in touch with today, who just like took me in as one of theirs, and it was just yeah, an amazing, amazing experience.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. I could say that that experience is still very very important in your life and and and that's probably important. Lots of other decisions you made throughout your career.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely, 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, that's interesting. Okay, so when you finished your studies, your French and Spanish, yes, tell me more from that moment onwards. You know, what what were the main things that happened for you to enter into customer success world?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so I as you know, a lot of people are supposed to interview me, you'll start applying to graduate programs and try and figure out what you're supposed to do. And I ended up at Accado. So I was on a graduate program for two years at Accado, and then this was at the time when we were starting to launch the Accado Smart Platform in other countries, and so we essentially needed like a partner success team, and so I was one of the first three partner success managers at Accado for the tech side. So my role was basically to help our clients in France, Spain, and Sweden to launch the Accado Smart Platform in their countries, and from there, like I loved the role and wanted to do more of that. So then I moved into a senior role in that team. So I was a senior partner success manager, and I built out the EMIA and APAC functions. So I had a couple of direct reports in in Japan, so that was really, really interesting. Like getting to know that culture and starting to build out our partner success team. And then from there, I completely pivoted industry, but I still loved customer success. So I moved into ed tech. And the reason I did that was because I felt like I just wanted to try something completely different, test myself, and also have a bit more of the commercial responsibility. The what we were selling at Ecado, the the smart platform, is like so massive that you're a cog within a big, very big wheel. So moving into ed tech, I had more ownership, and that was really, really an interesting time to join that company. I was at General Assembly, and so then I've been in that was again three or three more years in customer success, which I very much enjoyed. But I think by the time I left General Assembly, I was looking for a way to carry on using what I'd learned in customer success and building on that, but doing something different, and so that's why I've ended up here at Relay, working very closely with customer success still, but in this commercial operational role.

SPEAKER_01:

I think this is really interesting. In in your few years of corporate experience, you you came across lots of different teams in different types of industry, from SAS and non-SAS to then ed tech, and then again something completely different. What would be one or or you know a main lesson that you believe every woman should learn about their careers in their life? What was something most memorable that you have learned in this journey?

SPEAKER_00:

I think having changed like industry in such like a dramatic way, I suppose, and having sort of been at one point in a very much started environment where I am now, and I'd also have been in like a very sort of more corporate business like I was previously. I think my one kind of learning or the one thing I always think to do is to try and be very, I suppose, humble in how I approach things. I think that sometimes when you join a new company, it can be you feel like you want to, I don't know, you want to make your voice heard, you want to sort of put your name on the on the map immediately. But I think what I've tried to do in every sort of role I've taken up or a new company I've joined is take a bit of a backseat at the start and just like take the time to absorb everything around me. And I feel like that approach has really like paid dividends because it's allowed me in those first months to like really build my knowledge and really uh, you know, get to know the team before moving into actually kind of action and trying to build my role, for example.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a wonderful career lesson. I have seen it many times. Well, actually, not that many, but with some awesome individuals who had that attitude of, you know, having a humble mindset, especially because their background was maybe a little bit, you know, different than everybody else in the team. And you come with the attitude of, I don't know enough. I need to learn. I need to learn constantly. And then you are constantly absorbing the knowledge from other people. You are open to receive everything. And I've seen those people fly because they are awesome performers, they allow themselves to just experience and learn. They don't think, you know, I know it all, that's why I'm here. I think sometimes that's the you know the biggest obstacle in career. So thank you for sharing that lesson. So you stayed humble. What uh prompted you to uh to join your current company in a role? I would like to hear a bit more from you. What do you do on a day-to-day? Because it's a very interesting role that uh again sits in between customer success and lots of other departments. Uh, and and how has been this whole transition for you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's a great question. I think what made me want to join the company overall was I was craving being back in a world where I can have a tangible impact. And I think that when you work in logistics, you can see the impact you're having on what you're doing because quite literally we're delivering parcels, it's a very tangible thing, and you can see the you can see the detrimentals, you can see the numbers, and you can see how that's moving every day. And I really enjoy that kind of aspect. I love going to like warehouses and talking about uh, you know, lorries and freight and stuff. So it's just like very much up my street. But in terms of the role, I having done customer success for quite a few years, I felt like I wanted a change and I wanted to still be close to customer success. This role kind of came up and it felt like it fit the bill. And then I met the co-founder Nikki, and she's like super inspirational in terms of like how she's built up the team and how she's built up the company. And I just kind of wanted to be a part of it. So I joined the role description, I think that I initially saw. It's quite different to what I've ended up doing, but it's super interesting. So my role sits essentially at the cross-section of customer success and the rest of the business, whether that be finance, tech, data, legal, whoever it might be. And I'm responsible for essentially supporting our customer success team in building proposals for their clients, in growing our accounts, and also ensuring like the profitability of our accounts. So I have like a financial element as well to my role. And so it's super vast, but it's a role where you really get to see all sides of the business, and you're exposed. Like I'm in meeting often in meetings with the with the CEO and the CEO and CFO, and like you're exposed to such a seniority and the decision making that happens. And so this role is sort of an eye-opener, I suppose, uh a mini MBA, as some people call it, like to yeah, in business, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I love it. So you moved from a senior CSM working very closely with customers to the more operational role, which sits in between of all those C-level roles because you have a lot of influence in presenting the data and financials and basically the state of kind of customer success team and what goes on with customers. Now, tell me, that sounds like a very different role from the previous one or previous few. What has been the learning curve and how do you even prepare yourself for that type of a different role?

SPEAKER_00:

It's been a steep learning curve. I think that when I was a senior customer success manager previously, I had my portfolio of accounts and I like to think I pretty much knew what I was doing on a daily basis, and I and I knew what my team needed to do, so I felt very secure in the structure. I think the biggest learning curve for me has been coming into a role where the structure of the role is in itself less defined. And so I think learning to embrace the ambiguity is been like the biggest kind of method, I suppose, that I've used to approach the role. And what I mean by that is like sometimes I find it overwhelming in terms of the number of different things I've got on my plate or the number of different topics. And I'm a very big fan of like my to-do lists and notebooks and everything. And so at the end of the week, I try and like think of or find even like the small things that I've managed to achieve or accomplish that week because finding those within all the number of topics that you're handling, I think, is so important, especially when you're in a role that's so vast and so changeable on a week-to-week basis. Like I could be working on a proposal this week for a client we currently have for an expansion project, and then next week I'm, you know, deep diving into profitability of one of our anchor accounts. So just trying to find the little nuggets of like, I did that and I achieved something. I think that's the that's been the way I've approached it and tried to like manage, I suppose, um the variance in the work.

SPEAKER_01:

It sounds like you are one of the very few people who are doing that role, or if not even the only one, who has to create it, so create every single aspect of the role. So I wonder, have you already created or designed a framework that helps you organize your months and weeks or quarter, or you know, on Monday morning, how do you know what's on the plate for the whole week? I mean, there seems to be so many juggling, and customer success would say, Oh no, we are juggling a lot. Of course, everybody is juggling. But how do you find a system in the chaos when there is like everything is there, everything is priority potentially? Where do you even start from?

SPEAKER_00:

It back to basics in terms of my organization of my week. I try to essentially build myself a roadmap of my week and what I think that that week should look like. I worked very closely previously with product teams, and I think that structure works very well for me. So I tried to build my own roadmap in terms of the things that I want to achieve, how long I think they're gonna take, and try and build that into my week. I mean, it's nothing groundbreaking, but I think that that kind of structure seems to work for me and allows me to kind of prioritize the most important things. That said, there's always going to be something that comes up that's like the Trump card that can shift everything. But I'm a big believer in just trying to keep track, have like a very systematic to-do list, law link to your calendar and make sure that that's like up to date all the time. And I think that helps. But yeah, it's uh it's a it's a challenging one.

SPEAKER_01:

I like when you spoke about in your previous role of being a senior CSM. That means by default, you know it all, you know what to do with customers. You know, there are challenges, but you kind of you figure it out. Like that's why you were senior. So there is loads of familiarity with everything. And then from that sense of accomplishments, of being, you know, senior, well accomplished in the role, you jumped into something completely new where you are an absolute beginner. But again, then I love that jump. I love it so much because it's something very different. You're stretching yourself, you're trying out different things, and it has a huge impact on the organization because it again is a very important role. In hindsight, if somebody is asking you about that career move, ooh, why you didn't go for you know, director of customer success role somewhere else or manager position, why did you move to operational role? Like what kind of career jump was that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that I mean, it's a good question. I could have gone down the the director of customer success role for sure, but I think I felt like I had still something more to learn. I think sometimes as well we get maybe a bit bogged down in like title and moving up the ranks in terms of title, but actually, like for me, like as long as I'm still learning and as long as I'm still pushing myself, then that's what's important to me in terms of that's what motivates me every day is being surrounded by people that are inspirational, that are you know smart, that challenge me. And so if I'm getting all of that in a in a role, that's that's what I need. So for me, it was kind of an easier decision to make. I felt that I could learn something in this new role, so why not give it a why not give it a shot? Because that's ultimately why yeah, what gets what gets me out of there in the morning, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01:

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SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think for me, you're you're right, you know, that senior operations, like VP of operations, something along those lines, that's definitely where I'd love to aim for. I think that in customer success, you build so many kind of functional skills, and you know, having being in relationship, like being working closely with clients. It gives you, you know, such a great perspective that you can bring back to the business. And then coupling that with the kind of role I'm doing now. Yeah, I think that's that kind of where I see myself going forward is into that kind of more operation space. And yeah, who knows, one day maybe, you know, as CEO, that would be amazing. But for now, just happy to continue learning and continue kind of building my skills as much as I can, and then I'll see where things take me.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I will always jump many years ahead and tell you, yes, I see you in this particular role because I know you can do it really well. But now thinking more of you know those different career paths and different jumps, I wonder if you could start your career all over again, is there anything that you would change or do differently with everything that you know now?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm gonna say no, because I think it's important to not have regrets. So I think you know, everything's happened in the right way that it should happen. Perhaps looking back, I should have leveraged more kind of communities like this one, for example, like for like Women in Customer Success and whatnot, to kind of build a bit more my knowledge around how other teams work and how other companies work. Because I think in the first years of my career, probably say a lot of people like you're very focused on what you're seeing within the within your the company you're working in. But yeah, I don't want to say I have a regret. I think like I'm happy with where where I've got to, and you know, this is the part from one. So yeah, that's that's it really.

SPEAKER_01:

Learning from others and learning within the community. Certainly, when you were even more closely in customer success, I have seen you being involved in in various different communities and and participating in different learnings. I'm aware that in your CS experience, I think you're fortunate enough to have experienced SaaS model and customer success in SaaS, but also in in a non-SAS business, which very often we we don't talk enough now. I'm not asking you to do a huge huge comparison, but like how was it being customer success in a non-sAS business and what have been some of your learnings from that area?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's it's it's very interesting. I think that like the the kind of experience that stands out is in my previous run at General Assembly, obviously that's an ed tech business, so it's not directly SaaS. I think the similarities is that you're still trying to realize ROI for your clients, but the way you do that and the metrics that you use are just very different to what you would see in a typical SAS business. So we were looking at like learner outcomes, for example, and how individuals like use the skills that they learned within their roles. And I think the trickier bit is probably that it can be a little bit less tangible to demonstrate the ROI. So we had we worked a lot on learner impact surveys, building testimonials, speaking with like the managers who had had their employer go through the training programs that we were running and trying to and obviously building the ROI in in that sense and then presenting that back to clients. So I think it's the same principles, but it's just a different way of doing things. So I think it's more kind of you're more potentially more relationship building and more sort of consultative with your client stakeholders, and really kind of having to go like the extra mile to understand how what you've implemented has actually had an impact, and that's not going to be necessarily an increase in usage or a or something like that's much maybe easier to measure, let's say.

SPEAKER_01:

I really like how you go around it because very often in SAS we tend to be focused on usage as is as if that's the you know holy grail of customer success. Yeah, if everybody's using it, everybody's happy, seeing value. Not. So I actually really like that you were in a situation where you needed to focus on learners' outcomes because for years we've been always talking about what is the outcome of all the customer success activities we are doing for customers without very often being able to properly measure. And I can I can guarantee there are so many of the listeners who are in customer success currently working with customers who can't exactly measure the ROI of their activities and ROI of their customer success programs to the customers. Yes, we measure often in our own internal metrics, which is great because we have to measure something, but we have no idea what are the actual outcomes of the customers in many situations. Of course, it's it's it's not cross-the-board. So I really love that approach. When you're almost not in SAS, you have to think even harder. How do we measure those outcomes and how do we really focus on the outcomes? Because very often in other situations we may be uh like not deceiving ourselves, but we may be quite happy to accept our own internal metrics rather than focusing firstly on customers. Yeah, that's what I want you to say.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely absolutely agree. And I think there's so much value that can be had while understanding your stakeholders and what they're measured on and how they're measured internally as well. And and like when you start to kind of get into that and really build those relationships with with the stakeholders you have and you know like what's motivating them, and then how that impacts like, you know, that impacts how you maybe you report back to them because you want to build them something that they can then take back internally to their senior leadership. When you start to like build that kind of, you know, con those connections, like I think it just unlocks so much within within customer success. And I think, you know, so not not always, but sometimes customer success, if you're not careful, it can become like a bit of this post box situation where you're bringing information in and you're you're passing it on, and vice versa. And I think when you can become that consultant to your client and then the internal consultant as well, that's when like we're really getting value from the customer success function and the customer success team.

SPEAKER_01:

It's very well put. I'm a firm believer that consultative skills are one of the most important skills that CSMs need to have now and in the future, probably even more with all the AI. This will never go out of fashion. Just being able to understand customers' business, ask deeper questions, and really point that value that they are receiving. Emily, thank you so much for joining the show. I really enjoyed this conversation. And as we are wrapping up, I wonder what would be your advice or a message for aspiring leaders in customer success or those ones looking what is beyond customer success. What are your parting words for them?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it goes back to kind of what I said, just being humble. I think that it can be challenging, like moving, trying to like get into a leadership role in customer success. Like that is that is definitely true. I think sometimes just finding opportunities to take the lead is the first step in that. It might not, you might not have a leadership title, but that doesn't mean that you can't show that you're an actual leader. And I think, you know, whether that's supporting someone with their onboarding or becoming a like a buddy internally or launching a system that sort of supports that, or whether it's even just something like really simple within your team, like you're rolling out a new process to help the team work more efficiently, that's all showing your leadership skills and like putting you on that pathway and into becoming a leader, even if you're not technically called a leader and you don't have direct reports. And I think that finding those little pockets of opportunity is so so important when you're kind of aiming towards something in a more leadership capacity later on.

SPEAKER_01:

This is a wonderful advice. Thank you for sharing it. Not every role or every path needs to be towards leadership path in title. There are so many different ways to lead. Exactly. Thanks for joining us, Emily. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I really appreciate you taking time to learn something new and propel your career in customer success and beyond. If you like this episode, share it with your colleague, with your team member, with someone you know needs to hear it today. We appreciate your support, so please follow us and subscribe to our channels so many more women can hear about it.