Laura Simpson
Summary
Technical leader with 15+ years of experience driving enterprise data, analytics, and AI solutions across financial services and public sector organizations. Proven success leading customer facing engineering and delivery teams, partnering with sales to influence multi million dollar deals and guiding organizations through large scale platform modernization. Expert in translating complex technical capabilities into business value, leading pre-sales engagements, and building high performing teams that drive adoption, revenue growth and long term customer success.
Overview
10
10
years of professional experience
Work History
Customer Success Manager- Financial Services
SAS
01.2024 - Current
- Own technical and executive relationships across 13+ enterprise financial service customers representing $10M+ ARR
- Partnered with sales to shape and influence $7M+ pipeline (2026) and $2.6M in Q1 2026
- Led data and AI platform modernization initiatives, advising on architecture, migration strategy, governance, and business alignment to enhance customer engagement
- Act as a trusted technical advisor translating customer requirements into scalable solution approaches
- Delivered executive QBRs that connected platform capabilities to quantifiable business outcomes
Test Engineering Manager- Professional Services
SAS
01.2021 - 01.2024
- Led a team of 10 engineers supporting 30+ enterprise and government clients across complex data environments
- Directed large scale analytic implementations in partnership with cross functional teams (sales, support, product) to meet client requirements
- Served as escalation point for technical challenges and architectural blockers, ensuring timely resolutions and maintaining project timelines
- Enhanced delivery efficiency by automating processes and optimizing testing and deployment workflows
- Coached team on customer engagement, technical communication and solution alignment
ETL and Data Operations Manager
SAS
01.2016 - 01.2021
- Led data engineering team to deliver ETL pipelines and data integration for 17 enterprise clients
- Designed and implemented data quality frameworks, reducing QA issues by 90%
- Oversaw end-to-end data workflows, ensuring scalability and reliability while aligning with client architecture
- Partnered with stakeholders to define data requirements, system design, and production processes
Education
Master of Arts - Applied Economics
University of North Carolina At Greensboro
Greensboro, NCBachelor of Science - Economics
University of North Carolina At Greensboro
Greensboro, NCSkills
- Field Engineering Leadership
- Pre-Sales and Solution Strategy
- Data and AI Platforms (SAS, Cloud, ETL)
- Enterprise Architecture and Modernization
- Customer Value Engineering
- Executive Stakeholder Engagement
- Team Development and Coaching
- Statistical modeling and evaluation
- Managing multi-disciplinary teams up to 65 people
Timeline
Customer Success Manager- Financial Services
SAS
01.2024 - Current
Test Engineering Manager- Professional Services
SAS
01.2021 - 01.2024
ETL and Data Operations Manager
SAS
01.2016 - 01.2021
Bachelor of Science - Economics
University of North Carolina At Greensboro
Master of Arts - Applied Economics
University of North Carolina At Greensboro