Director, Implementation

About Upshop Upshop is the market leader in Total Store Operations solutions for the Grocery and C-Store markets. We offer an AI-powered, SaaS platform connecting Fresh, Center, eCommerce, and DSD department operations to deliver a simplified, smarter, more connected store experience. Customers running Upshop realize significant improvements in sales, shrink, food safety and sustainability across the entire store. 150+ retail chain accounts trust our software in over 30k+ stores, 9 countries, and 3 continents. Role Overview Upshop is seeking a Director of Implementation to lead our Implementation organization and drive successful customer deployments across our Total Store Operations platform. This leader is responsible for developing and mentoring a high-performing team of Implementation Managers and Consultants while ensuring customers achieve successful business outcomes throughout their implementation journey. The ideal candidate combines enterprise SaaS implementation leadership with a strong understanding of retail operations, preferably within grocery, convenience, or food retail environments. This individual will serve as a trusted advisor to customers, a mentor to implementation leaders, and a key contributor in scaling Upshop's Professional Services organization. The Director of Implementation will also lead the evolution of Upshop's implementation practices, championing automation, AI-enabled delivery capabilities, and operational excellence initiatives that improve efficiency, accelerate customer outcomes, and create a more scalable and consistent delivery model. Key Responsibilities Team Leadership & Talent Development Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Implementation Managers, Senior Consultants, and Implementation Consultants. Foster a culture of accountability, continuous learning, collaboration, and customer obsession. Establish clear performance expectations, coaching programs, career development plans, and succession strategies. Drive implementation methodology adoption, process consistency, and operational excellence across the team. Partner with Professional Services leadership on organizational planning, hiring, onboarding, and workforce development. Develop implementation Centers of Excellence and reusable delivery assets that scale knowledge across the organization. Lead the ongoing evolution of Upshop's implementation methodology, delivery frameworks, and best practices. Identify opportunities to leverage automation, AI, and digital tooling to improve implementation efficiency, consistency, and customer outcomes. Foster a culture of innovation and adoption of emerging technologies that enhance customer delivery. Establish measurable delivery standards and KPIs focused on customer adoption, implementation quality, operational efficiency, and team development. Customer Engagement & Delivery Leadership Serve as an executive sponsor and escalation point for strategic customer implementations. Build trusted relationships with customer sponsors, operational leaders, IT stakeholders, and executive teams. Ensure customer objectives, adoption goals, and success metrics are clearly defined and achieved. Guide implementation teams through complex deployments, organizational change initiatives, testing, launch activities, and post-launch adoption. Lead risk identification, mitigation planning, and issue resolution efforts across the implementation portfolio. Partner closely with Customer Success to ensure smooth transitions from implementation to long-term customer adoption and value realization. Collaborate with Sales and Solution Consulting to ensure customer expectations, implementation strategies, and success criteria are aligned from project inception. Implementation Excellence Own implementation delivery standards, methodologies, playbooks, and best practices across the organization. Drive consistency across project planning, discovery, solution design, configuration, testing, training, launch, and hyperca…