20+ years total experience; 8+ years in professional services; 10+ years in a leadership role
This is the person who runs the "getting clients live and successful" function at a large SaaS company for event/meeting management software. Think of it this way: Sales sells the software, but once the client signs, someone has to actually get them set up, trained, and using it well so they don't churn. That's Professional Services, and this person leads that whole team.
In practice, they own three things:
1. A team of people (project managers, implementation consultants, trainers) — hiring them, coaching them, setting their targets
2. A P&L-ish; budget — services isn't free to deliver, so this person has to keep it profitable while keeping clients happy
3. The client relationship during and after rollout — when a big client implementation is going sideways, this person is the escalation point