Abstract:

CX leaders are challenged to move beyond symptom-fixing by using clarity, disciplined “why-solving,” and outcome-driven OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to align teams, eliminate friction, and deliver measurable customer and business impact. Leaders will learn how organizational health, accountability, and focus unlock sustainable CX results.

Action Items:

• Implement quarterly “Why Reviews” that require every CX initiative and OKR to clearly define the root problem being solved and the outcome that proves success.
• Evaluate and eliminate CX metrics, dashboards, and OKRs that track activity instead of customer behavior change or economic impact.
• Empower cross-functional leaders to reimagine one priority customer journey per quarter, assigning a single accountable owner for outcomes—not tasks.

Headliner:

Bobby Thompson
Director of Construction
Schaefer Homes

Why You Should Listen to Bobby:
An Army combat veteran and construction professional with over 25 years of leadership experience, Bobby has invested his entire career in sharpening his technical and leadership skills. With a career spanning various roles in the building industry, he brings deep expertise in process improvement, innovation, leadership, workforce development, and team building.

In an environment of rising costs and rapid technology evolution, CX leaders must make disciplined, outcome-driven investment decisions. This case history illustrates how a multi-market telecom organization prioritized business objectives by aligning technology investments with customer satisfaction top of mind, while outlining the governance, measurable impact and people-centered execution required to track ROI.

Action Items:

• Identify high-friction customer journeys and cost-intensive contact drivers where AI-enabled CX solutions can deliver the greatest customer and financial impact
• Evaluate AI technology options using a structured decision framework that links customer satisfaction, automation potential, cost-to-serve and adoption readiness before implementation
• Integrate AI solutions through strong governance, change management and performance metrics to ensure value realization, responsible scaling and sustained ROI

Rockstar Insight:

Daven Govender
Group Chief Customer Officer
Digicel Group
 
Why You Should Listen to Daven:
With over 20 years of experience leading customer experience and contact center operations globally, including BPO environments, Daven is a senior CX leader focused on helping organizations make disciplined, ROI-led technology decisions. He has led large-scale, multi-market CX transformations by balancing AI adoption, operational efficiency and customer outcomes, backed by strong people leadership and execution discipline to deliver measurable business impact.

Hosted By:

Takia Butler
Director, Care Operations
Grubhub
 

Why You Should Listen to Takia:
Bio is forthcoming.

Hosted By:

Shri Nandan
Vice President, AI Products & Experiences
Comcast

Why You Should Listen to Shri:
Shri is a customer-obsessed CX professional who has dedicated her career to “meeting the customers where they want to be met”. Her leadership and advisory roles across diverse industries spanning insurance, fintech, pharmaceutical and telecom have honed her expertise in digital transformation and product strategy, enabling her to contribute significantly to customer-centric product and technology advancements. Using data driven approaches and high-performing teams, Shri has elevated the AI and digital product landscape enhancing customer experiences, and embedding strategic technological innovations across the business.

Hosted By:

Andrea Hughes
Senior Director, Customer Service
TruGreen
 
Why You Should Listen to Andrea:
Andrea is a seasoned customer experience leader with over 20 years of transforming service organizations and strengthening the partner relationships that drive exceptional customer outcomes. She is known for turning external partnerships into strategic extensions of her teams, elevating performance, innovation, and operational excellence. As a senior leader and advocate for women in CX, Andrea brings practical insight and authentic leadership to conversations that move the industry forward.

Hosted By:

Francoise Benoit-Betters
Vice President, Merchant Services
First American by Deluxe


Why You Should Listen to Francoise:
With more than 21 years of experience in Merchant Services and Call Center Operations, Francoise brings deep expertise in the credit card processing industry. She has delivered 5-star support to more than 160,000 merchants and helped earn 13 consecutive ATSI Call Center of Distinction Awards, along with five Top Score Customer Service Awards, including four consecutive years. Francoise believes exceptional customer support is the foundation of lasting partnerships. At Deluxe, she leads highly trained, in-house teams across customer support, installation, PCI compliance, and retention, while also overseeing the in-house Deployment facility and facilities operations for three business units.

Abstract:
Frontline customer service work looks very different now than it did five years ago, and will continue to rapidly evolve. What skills and knowledge can we equip our talent with right now in preparation for the future? This guided discussion will help us to isolate what matters most when it comes to hiring and developing the agents of tomorrow. We will explore the ability to effectively collaborate with AI tools, acting as a proactive guide, and personalizing experiences in a way that drives value and earns loyalty. Join the conversation and let’s shape the future of service together!

Rockstar Insight:

Nate Brown
Head of CX Advisory
Metric Sherpa
 
Why You Should Listen to Nate:
Nate Brown loves two things very much…customer experience and community. Fortunately, these concepts go hand-in-hand! As a community builder, Nate co-founded CX Accelerator in 2018. Quickly growing to well over four thousand members, this vibrant collection of CX leaders is helping one another to maximize their career and accomplish remarkable things in service to others. Nate also heads up Advisory Services for Metric Sherpa, a research firm helping organizations to transform customer interactions.

• Identify the systems, dashboards, and forums leaders already trust—and distinguish where decisions are reviewed versus where they are actually made
• Integrate customer contact data into existing decision infrastructure while tailoring insight for higher-stakes, informal decision moments
• Reframe customer contact signals to support multiple decision types, including self-service investment and long-term value creation—beyond performance tracking

Rockstar Insight:

Tori Signorelli
Director Guest Journey & Insights
Alaska Airlines
 
Why You Should Listen to Tori:
Tori is a senior customer insight and experience leader who helps organizations translate customer contact into decisions leaders actually make. She currently leads Guest Journey & Insights at Alaska Airlines and previously led global Service Design and Voice of the Customer at Farfetch, where she used customer data to inform strategy, enable self-service, and shift how service organizations create value.

Rockstar Insight:

Christina Bell
Vice President, Contact Center Solutions
BCD Travel
 
Why You Should Listen to Christina:
Bio is forthcoming.

• Identify high-effort customer and agent processes to target for AI-driven improvement
• Implement conversational AI to automate simple, high-volume interactions and reduce wait times
• Evaluate and track ROI by measuring reductions in abandonment rates, operational costs, and increases in customer satisfaction

Headliner:

Brian Jeppesen
Director, Contact Center Operations
Fertitta Entertainment
 

Why You Should Listen to Brian:
With over 35 years of experience, Brian is a seasoned leader in contact center operations and 2-time Frost & Sullivan award winner. He specializes in deploying Conversational AI to enhance customer experience and reduce costs, has led teams of up to 2,500 agents across global brands including Landry’s and Golden Nugget and serves on the Board of Directors for the Contact Center AI Association.

In an era of unprecedented artificial intelligence adoption, contact center leaders increasingly confront the critical challenge of reconciling C-Suite enthusiasm with operational feasibility and strategic value creation. This session addresses the imperative need for contact center executives to establish ROI and realistic frameworks that bridge the gap between transformative AI potential and pragmatic implementation.

Action Items:

• Expectation Management: Developing communication frameworks that articulate and socialize realistic expectations while maintaining stakeholder engagement
• Use Case Prioritization: Identifying and validating high-impact, low risk applications that demonstrate measurable return on investment
• Governance Architecture: Implementing robust oversight mechanisms that ensure responsible deployment and risk mitigation
• Value Demonstration: Integrate metrics-driven approaches to quantify business impact and justify continued investment

Through practical frameworks and industry insights, participants will gain actionable strategies to position AI initiatives within realistic parameters while advancing organizational innovation objectives. This session equips leaders with the tools necessary to navigate the complex intersection of technological possibility, executive expectations, and operational constraints—ultimately fostering sustainable AI integration that delivers tangible business value.

Moderator:

Cippy Seidler
Director, Consumer Care Center
Banner Health

Why You Should Listen to Cippy:
Speaking to and working with many diverse contact groups around the world has inspired and enlightened Cippy. It has brought positivity, new ideas and creativity to an already open mind about the importance and truly critical nature of the contact center environments. She has worked most of her career in Retail and Health Care contact centers helping others appreciate why internal and external customer service and brand loyalty begins in the contact center.

Panelists Include:

Demetrice Bryant
Senior Director, Support Services
Priceline

Why You Should Listen to Demetrice:
Bio is forthcoming.
 
Paul Grubic
Director – Owner Channel Operations
GE Appliances

Why You Should Listen to Paul:
Paul is an accomplished Director of Operations with more than 20 years of experience leading high-performing contact centers. Recognized for driving operational excellence and customer experience innovation, he has led large-scale teams, implemented transformational service strategies, and improved performance through data-driven decision-making. Paul specializes in scaling operations, fostering cultures of accountability, and driving continuous improvement across channels. He has a proven track record of improving key metrics, launching new support models, and aligning service delivery with business goals. A strong advocate for operational agility and customer-centric leadership, Paul brings practical insight to the evolving virtual contact center landscape.
 
Shri Nandan
Vice President, AI Products & Experiences
Comcast

Why You Should Listen to Shri:
Shri is a customer-obsessed CX professional who has dedicated her career to “meeting the customers where they want to be met”. Her leadership and advisory roles across diverse industries spanning insurance, fintech, pharmaceutical and telecom have honed her expertise in digital transformation and product strategy, enabling her to contribute significantly to customer-centric product and technology advancements. Using data driven approaches and high-performing teams, Shri has elevated the AI and digital product landscape enhancing customer experiences, and embedding strategic technological innovations across the business.
 
Damon Spurlock
Director, Global Workforce Management & Command Center
Fabletics

Why You Should Listen to Damon:
Damon has held various workforce management (WFM) leadership and technical consultant roles in the contact center industry for over 15 years. In his current role at Fabletics, he has recently introduced a practical playbook to implement real-time WFM automation guardrails, governance, and metrics that translate AI promises into business outcomes customers and agents actually feel. Damon currently resides in Davao City, Philippines since 2018, where he is also the Co-Founder of WFM Pros organization and a Founding Member on the Philippine AI Business Association (PAIBA).
 
Scott Thomas
Associate Vice President, Client Care
Cox Automotive Inc.
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member

Why You Should Listen to Scott:
Scott brings over 20+ years of experience leading large-scale customer service operations and currently oversees a team of 800+ supporting Cox Automotive’s Retail brands, including Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. His organization manages 1.8 million annual support interactions, API implementations, and 26,000 web domains, consistently achieving a CSAT rate of 90% or higher, low employee attrition, and strong internal promotion rates. These results come from a deep focus on operational excellence, leadership development, and customer-driven innovation. Throughout his career, Scott has transformed high-volume service organizations and coached leaders on scalable, peoplefirst support models
 

Abstract:

As financial services organizations accelerate AI adoption, customer service and experience leaders must move beyond simply “balancing” humans and automation and instead operationalize human centered AI at scale. This session shares practical, real-world lessons on implementing, monitoring, and translating analytics into frontline behaviors that strengthen customer trust, elevate agent performance, and drive measurable operational outcomes.

Action Items:

• Implement targeted training and enablement programs that prepare frontline and support teams for AI powered work, ensuring confidence, adoption, and consistent execution
• Integrate human + AI collaboration into workflows by identifying where automation, analytics, and human judgment must intersect to protect customer trust and elevate outcomes
• Evaluate and evolve performance frameworks to reward AI augmented excellence, using analytics to monitor quality, refine workflows, and continuously improve the customer and agent experience.

Rockstar Insight:

Susan Weaver
Chief Customer Officer
Slavic401k

Why You Should Listen to Susan:
Susan’s career progression over the past 25+ years from a front-line processor and call center representative to Chief Customer Officer has been a profound and rewarding learning experience. Her innovative approach to contact center operations and relationship management has redefined the importance of the customer experience at Slavic401k. By consistently placing the customer at the heart of every decision, Susan has fostered a culture of empathy, accountability, and excellence, achieving outstanding results for both the business and the customers they serve.

Rockstar Insights:

Krista Scott
Vice President of Contact Center Operations
Great American Media
 
Why You Should Listen to Krista:
Bio is forthcoming.
 
Shannon Yeats
Global Vice President, Client Success, Contact Center
Entertainment Partners
 
Why You Should Listen to Shannon:
Shannon is a seasoned, results-driven executive with deep expertise in leading large-scale teams across contact centers, sales, and claims operations. She has a proven track record of driving business growth, improving operational efficiency, and cultivating a culture of high performance and continuous improvement. Known for aligning strategy with execution, Shannon excels at enhancing the customer experience and championing employee engagement. She has led teams of 800+ across diverse environments, with a strong focus on service quality, innovation, and delivering measurable, lasting results.
 

In today’s technology driven environment, almost every project and initiative involves IT resources, while at the same time the capacity of IT teams becomes increasingly limited. In this session we will use real world scenarios to talk through how to build strong partnerships and alignment with IT leaders and across the enterprise to ensure that key customer facing initiatives are given the right level of priority within your organization.

Action Items:

• Build effective partnerships with key leaders in order to understand perspectives and gain buy-in for your top priorities
• Employ frameworks within your organization to increase cross-enterprise alignment and break down silos
• Create the right routines to showcase the impact of partnering around initiatives that impact the customer and employee experience

Rockstar Insight:

Matt Goldsmith
Senior Vice President of Member Experience
MIT Federal Credit Union
 
Why You Should Listen to Matt:
Matt has led customer-facing organizations across a wide variety of businesses over the past 20 years. He has built a strong reputation for building cohesive partnerships across business units and creating enterprise alignment in order to successfully drive large-scale business transformation, resulting in industry leading results in both customer and employee engagement and satisfaction.
 

Retention doesn’t improve by accident; it improves by design. This interactive session challenges leaders with real, fast-paced scenarios drawn from live operations, revealing how purpose, clarity, and growth pathways drive employee retention and sustained performance.

Action Items:

• Connect daily behaviors to outcomes, growth, and retention through clear, purpose-driven performance scorecards
• Pinpoint high-risk attrition moments and apply targeted interventions before disengagement turns into turnover
• Establish visible growth paths and leader accountability to ensure fair, consistent retention at scale

Rockstar Insight:

Rasheeda James
Vice President of Client Services
Americor
 
Why You Should Listen to Rasheeda:
Rasheeda is a senior customer experience and operations executive known for scaling high-performing, people-centered organizations through data, technology, and heart-led leadership. As Vice President of Client Services at Americor, she leads large, multi-site contact center operations across the U.S. and nearshore partners, overseeing hundreds of professionals across voice, chat, and digital channels. Rasheeda is deeply committed to servant leadership, community impact, and developing the next generation of leaders. She believes that the strongest organizations are built where accountability, transparency, and compassion coexist.

Panelists Include:

Andrea Hughes
Senior Director, Customer Service
TruGreen
 

Why You Should Listen to Andrea:
Andrea is a seasoned customer experience leader with over 20 years of transforming service organizations and strengthening the partner relationships that drive exceptional customer outcomes. She is known for turning external partnerships into strategic extensions of her teams, elevating performance, innovation, and operational excellence. As a senior leader and advocate for women in CX, Andrea brings practical insight and authentic leadership to conversations that move the industry forward.

Hosted By:

Gina Marchese
Senior Director, Consumer Connections
LIXIL
 
Why You Should Listen to Gina:
Gina, a dynamic leader with over 20 years in customer service, excels in transforming contact centers into high-performing organizations. Her innovative approach has consistently driven efficiency and elevated customer satisfaction, making her a respected expert in the industry.