Welcome to The People Behind the Programs, a blog series celebrating the voices, stories, and impact of the community professionals powering connection and belonging across the globe.

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Today, we meet Sahra Kahim, a Senior Community Manager at Supermetrics in Helsinki, Finland. My journey into community building has been a natural evolution driven by a desire for scale and deeper impact within the Customer Success field.

After transitioning from Customer Success to community management, I embraced the challenge of scaling personalized support and engagement. Let me share my journey and insights in my own words.

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How It Started

My path into the community industry was a natural evolution driven by a desire for scale and deeper impact. After spending over four years in Customer Success (CS), I realized that the core challenge was scaling personalized support and engagement. While I loved working with customers, one-to-one account management had its limits. As I sought a way to deliver high-touch support and knowledge sharing to our entire user base simultaneously, I discovered the powerful concept of community building—Customer Success at scale.

I dedicated myself to understanding the field, enrolled in a Master’s program, and conducted intensive research on best practices for building, scaling, and measuring a modern digital community. Making the official jump into community building in early 2024 was a transformative step. It moved me beyond the focus on customer tech stacks and account renewals to working with humans who genuinely want to connect, share knowledge, and succeed together. This blend of advocating for the customer while facilitating meaningful connections laid the groundwork for my current role as the Community Lead.

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A Day in the Life

In my role as the Community Lead, I serve as both the leader and the entire team, owning the full lifecycle of our community initiatives. My work ranges from crafting high-level strategies to executing day-to-day operations, all while fostering strong cross-functional partnerships. My days are dynamic, continuously shifting between high-level planning, like managing major virtual events and coordinating product releases, and deep analytical work to measure results for both the community and our partner teams. Collaboration is key, as aligning community efforts with our broader business goals ensures we capture and effectively use valuable user insights.

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The Tools that Power My Work

As the leader responsible for the entire community function, I own the full lifecycle of our initiatives. This end-to-end ownership means I can't afford the inefficiencies of fragmented tools. Gainsight platform acts as a central nervous system, powering our strategy with precision and allowing me to focus on high-impact work.

Gainsight offers true end-to-end control, allowing me to manage everything from one place—external features like the Q&A forums and user group management are seamlessly integrated. It provides internal intelligence critical for moderation and governance with immediate access to behavioral data, enabling me to spot emerging leaders and resolve issues quickly. Moreover, Gainsight's actionable reporting connects community health metrics directly to our business outcomes, such as reducing support costs and enhancing feature adoption.

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Advice for Newcomers

The most critical advice I can provide to someone entering the community industry revolves around patience and partnership. First, understand that community building cannot be a solo endeavor. Master the art of internal stakeholder management by dedicating time to research and engaging in frequent discussions with teams across your organization—from Product to Support to Marketing. Community success should be a communal effort, jointly owned across the organization. If you don't secure that buy-in, scaling will be an uphill battle.

Embrace the uniqueness of your community. Draw inspiration from others but avoid replication. Your community is defined by your specific audience, products, and cultural context. Focus on what makes yours unique and cater to those needs. The journey requires patience; expect setbacks but see them as opportunities to learn and grow. Remember, the human element is at the heart of community. Listen to your members to understand their needs and to your internal teams to showcase how the community can serve as a solution.

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Resources I Suggest

I highly recommend these resources to enrich your community-building journey:

• The podcast In Before The Lock by Erica Kuhl and Brian Oblinger.
• FeverBee's Community Academy by Richard Millington.

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💬 Let’s connect on LinkedIn — I’d love to hear from fellow community builders.

💡 The People Behind the Programs is a blog series that shines a light on the community professionals powering impactful programs around the world. Want to share your story or nominate someone doing incredible community work? Submit your spotlight here.

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Are you passionate about building communities?

‍Join the movement, start a CMX Connect chapter in your city or virtually and become a local leader in the global community industry. 👉 Apply to become a chapter director

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