As Vice President of Customer Value, Sven Gerhard will be responsible for strategic customer relationship management, customer experience, and long-term customer success at USU.
USU appointed Sven Gerhard in response to a strategic realignment the company initiated last year. As part of a comprehensive rebranding initiative, USU will consolidate its IT and Enterprise Service Management, Cloud Management, and Customer Service Management solutions under a newly positioned brand in 2025. The guiding principle, “Empowered by Understanding,” is more than just a marketing promise; it is embedded in the corporate structure. The new role of Vice President of Customer Value is a visible sign of this commitment.
Gerhard brings to this role a profile based on more than 25 years of leadership experience in customer success, customer support, and customer experience. Most recently, he led global technical support at CloudBees, where he increased customer satisfaction to 99.5 percent while making operations more efficient. Previously, he held leadership roles at DoiT International as Head of Customer Support & Success and at Tableau Software as Director of Global Strategic Customer Support.
He has always focused on scaling customer service organizations by building high-performing teams, designing customer-oriented processes, and implementing AI-supported service strategies. He will now put this combination of operational experience and technological understanding to use at USU.
Transparency and Trust as a Foundation
When asked about his goals, Gerhard cites communication as a decisive factor. When customers are understood across all contact points and genuine transparency in support is established with clear standards and short turnaround times, trust grows — as does real value for both parties. Gerhard wants to ensure not only service quality, but also actively shape how USU solutions can support customers further.
Customer centricity is a strategic factor.
USU CEO Dr. Benjamin Strehl emphasizes that the company has had a comparatively low customer churn rate for years. He sees this as a foundation, not an endpoint. The goal is to increase customer benefit through cross-product support and transparency across the entire portfolio. Positive feedback from analysts and customers regarding support and service confirms the chosen direction.
With the creation of the VP position, customer centricity will be further embedded in the corporate strategy, aiming to make measurable customer benefit the standard in all corporate decisions.
Dr. Jakob Jung is Editor-in-Chief of Security Storage and Channel Germany. He has been working in IT journalism for more than 20 years. His career includes Computer Reseller News, Heise Resale, Informationweek, Techtarget (storage and data center) and ChannelBiz. He also freelances for numerous IT publications, including Computerwoche, Channelpartner, IT-Business, Storage-Insider and ZDnet. His main topics are channel, storage, security, data center, ERP and CRM.
Contact via Mail: jakob.jung@security-storage-und-channel-germany.de