How To Become A Senior Client Executive: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior client executive and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Senior client executives are at the helm of achieving sales targets from new clients and accounts. These professionals are responsible for finding new business opportunities, engaging new clients or prospects, developing proposals, and handling the contract process. In essence, they help the company grow by finding, acquiring, and managing clients of the company.

Most of a senior client executive's time is spent on finding new clients and communicating with existing ones. Moreover, their responsibilities include delivering sales presentations, making recommendations for new products and improvements, and providing solutions to issues in sales or delivery.

The role of a senior client executive demands top-notch skills in sales, marketing, communication, and customer relations. They must also be great negotiators, able to close deals with even the most difficult clients, and come up with agreements that satisfy both parties.

Many companies prefer someone with an MBA for this role or at least a bachelor's degree in a relevant field. An aspiring senior client executive must also be willing to travel frequently, as the job usually entails meeting with clients in different cities, states, and even countries. Furthermore, five or more years of relevant experience in sales or marketing is also a common requirement.

ScoreSenior Client ExecutiveUS Average

Salary

7.9

Avg. Salary $112,598

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.4

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

2.7

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.24%

Asian 4.07%

Black or African American 3.24%

Hispanic or Latino 9.82%

Unknown 4.41%

White 78.23%

Gender

female 30.00%

male 70.00%

Age - 46

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 46

Stress level

6.4

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.7

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.4

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior client executive

Explore senior client executive education requirements

Most common senior client executive degrees

Bachelor's

75.3 %

Master's

13.2 %

Associate

7.9 %

Start to develop specific senior client executive skills

Skills	Percentages
Cycle Management	11.24%
Cloud	10.72%
Client Relationships	7.83%
CRM	6.65%
Professional Services	6.29%

Complete relevant senior client executive training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior client executives learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior client executive based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior client executive resumes.

Research senior client executive duties and responsibilities

Manage client accounts and contact information in CRM.
Lead sale of Verizon contact center applications to CMS for rollout and ongoing support of healthcare.gov.
Manage inbound client requests on sustain development of an enterprise SaaS analytics reporting suite.
Key focus areas include intelligent networking, cloud computing, mobility, connect machines and information security.

Get senior client executive experience

Generally, it takes 6-8 years to become a senior client executive. The most common roles before becoming a senior client executive include account executive, senior account executive team lead and account manager.

Apply for senior client executive jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a senior client executive job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams