Charting New Waters - Amir Karera's navigational journey through Xurrent

From Sales to Customer Success: A Strategic Shift

🌟 🙌 Setting sail with the newly formed Customer Success team in 2023, Amir Karera was ready to transition from sales into uncharted waters.

"After a decade in SaaS sales, I was ready to challenge myself in a different direction. I didn't need much time to find my bearings in the new Customer Success role since I had always worked with customers and partners. Sales gives you a sense of urgency and the ability to steer towards problems to do discovery and find how you can solve them. I was also able to draw from my previous experience, which left me with more time to explore our amazing product and get certified."

Born in Rwanda to a Congolese father and Rwandese mother, Amir's family moved to Belgium to follow his father's professional football career. From an early age, he learned to embrace competition, seek new challenges, and adapt quickly - traits that would later lead him to London and software sales.

"I wanted an adventure after university and to push myself in a different direction. I like to venture outside of my comfort zone and was ready in my mid 20's to set sail for London. I grew up speaking French and Dutch in Belgium and was interested in English in school, and London was a good place to apply it."

‍

Setting Sail Again: Embracing the Partner Operations Mission

🤝 🧭 In February 2025, a business need to develop a Partner Operations Manager role piqued Amir's interest to navigate into a new realm again.

"I've enjoyed having the exposure to different roles within the organization. My experience in Customer Success was really beneficial to springboard me into this role. I had established strong relationships with partners in Benelux and could build off of that. I love that the role is ground zero and you get to create something entirely new and launch it."

The core focus for Partner Operations is to develop and maintain the partner program - creating a strategic ecosystem that delivers enhanced customer value while expanding market reach and driving mutual growth. We're defining why partners should work with us, the benefits, how to engage with us, everything they need to be successful creating value for our customers together with the Xurrent team and leading technology. It's a very rewarding mission and we have amazing partners!

In his new role, Amir gets to work with different parts of the business from Sales, Marketing, Training & Enablement, Customer Success, Support, Legal, and Finance.

"It's a spectrum of different ways of thinking and skillsets that I'm able to develop through constantly switching contexts, which makes it really interesting. I've really enjoyed being part of this journey of transformation the company is on and it suits my character and wide ranging interests."

‍

Beyond Work: Exploring Culture, History, and Fitness

🍲 🏛️ In his free time, Amir likes to travel and deep dive into subjects such as history, learning new languages, and cooking. He explores different cuisines and areas in the city with friends, recently trying Georgian food. Fitness is also a big part of his routine, challenging himself at the gym or on his runs through London.

Looking ahead, Amir thrives on the constant exchange of knowledge and growth in both his professional and personal life. At work, he's helping manage the flow of collaboration between Xurrent and its partners, while personally he's absorbing new cooking techniques through YouTube videos - remaining always open to new currents of learning. 

Good news: You can join Amir and his fellow Xurtains. We have openings!