HEADLINERS+

Tiffany Anderson

Session: Integrating Conversational AI into the Call Center Environment

What inspires you? Customer driven operational optimization

Graduating from McMurry University with a BS in Mathematics, Tiffany began her career and Customer focus at Toys R Us.  She recognized early on her passion for making things easy for both the Customer and the Sales associates.  Transitioning from the Store to the Corporate level, Tiffany had the opportunity to streamline and optimize at the Global level processes and procedures.  It was within this time Tiffany’s introduction to various Customer Service technologies; IVR, Live Chat, etc.  With a new challenge came projects and features to implement.  It was during this new challenge, Tiffany identified yet another passion, project implementations.

After 15 years at Toys R Us, Tiffany made the decision to seek a new company to work to optimize and improve the Customer Experience.  Joining Purchasing Power in August of 2017, Tiffany dove into various project implementations relative to streamlining and improving the Customer Experience.  Various implementations within her short time at Purchasing Power include; IVR, Live Chat, Customer Ticketing systems.  The importance of Customer Service remains a top focus and strategy in Tiffany’s day to day and annual planning.

Tiffany continues to strive to create a Low Level of Effort experience for both the Customer and Sales Associates has she has since the beginning of her career.

TS BALAJI

Session: Socializing CX Across the Organization

Bio is forthcoming.

Anthony Banks

Session: Omni Challenge – Overcoming Legacy Mishmash for Agent Experience and Productivity

What inspires you? Impactful and Transformational Activities

Operations Service Delivery Optimization professional, with 12+ years of experience in workforce management, reporting/analytics, service delivery optimization, and financial planning in support of Operations Management objectives. My professional focus has centered around collaborating with senior leaders to evaluate complex business problems, creative solutioning, and strategy fulfillment. I enjoy involvement in transformational Operations activities designed to drive my organizations market share and meet our stakeholder’s expectations. No challenge is too immense for a tenacious, scrappy, problem-solver.

MATT BECKWITH

Session: Socializing CX Across the Organization

What inspires you?
Positively impacting others.

Matt Beckwith is proud to be a Contact Center Geek. Since putting on the headset for the first time as a directory assistance operator nearly 25 years ago, he has spent his career leading customer service and sales call centers in many different industries.

His passion for customer experience, technology, leadership, and professional development has led him to his current role leading customer contact operations for Clark Pest Control, one of the largest and most successful pest control companies in the US, headquartered in Lodi, California. In 2018, Matt was named an ICMI top 50 Thought Leader and featured contributor, and served as a judge for the ICMI Global Contact Center Awards. Matt also serves as a steering committee member for the Northern California Contact Center Association. Matt lives in Stockton, California with his lovely wife and two dogs. They have two adult daughters and two adorable grandchildren.

NATE BROWN

Session: Building Out Your Tool Set
Session: Socializing CX Across the Organization

Nate is the Co-founder of CX Accelerator. While Customer Service is his primary expertise, Nate is able to leverage experience in professional services, marketing, and sales to connect dots and solve the big problems.

From authoring and leading a Customer Experience program, to journey mapping, to managing a complex contact center, Nate is always learning new things and sharing with the CX community. Follow him on twitter using @CustomerIsFirst.

TEDDI BURRESS

Session: Socializing CX Across the Organization
Session: Creating a CX Task Force

What inspires you? Empathy, Action, Purpose, Resilience, and Vision

With strategic vision, Teddi Burress connects the experience customers expect with the business results and efficiency organizations demand. Teddi is a Senior Consultant at Nationwide Financial within the Internal Sales and Service organization – an organization of over 700 associates who provide solutions and consultative support to members and advisors. Teddi joined Nationwide in July of 2018 bringing over 20 years of experience in the Insurance and Financial Services industry.

Teddi is responsible for developing and driving the Effortless Experience Strategy, focusing on realizing improved and simplified experiences for the customer, and efficiency for an organization that handles over three million calls and one million emails each year. Teddi works with cross-functional teams to drive results. She understands that the experience is just as important as the product – especially when the product is helping customers prepare for and live in retirement or leaving a legacy behind.

Teddi is focused on delivering high quality interactions when members need to call, offering more self-service capabilities so members have more servicing options and providing hassle free, simple ways to do business with us. Her work and passion have already honored her with an executive leadership award in Q1 2019.

Teddi is a graduate of the University of Illinois – Champaign Urbana, with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and a Master of Business Administration in Finance.

DEREK CARDER

INSIGHTS AND IDEAS ROUNDUP – The Great Take-Away: Implementing the Best, Brightest and Boldest Ideas from the Program

Favorite Quote: Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best. – St. Jerome

Professional Summary: Executive technical operations leader with over 10 years of experience in the creation of organization infrastructure that drives efficiency, security, and impeccable customer experience for internal and external users.

Talent for identifying weaknesses in current support and technology application suites and implementing sustainable solutions in the support of the organizational goals. Proven success in the consolidation of application platforms to reduce program redundancies, improve customer performance, create resiliency and to eliminate single points of failures. Track record of working with a coalition of resources to implement a more data secure and redundant infrastructure across expanding multi-datacenter environments. Known for global team-building, IT solutions development, and leading world-class teams to the delivery of organizational key performance indicators.Areas of expertise: Customer Contact Strategy & Operations, Customer Interaction and Customer Experience, Customer Contact Technology, Agent Engagement, Outsourcing,

Additional area expertise: Salesforce, Zendesk, JIRA, call center management, KCS certification.

Most recent customer contact/customer experience initiatives: Performance dashboard for new hires. Implementation of KCS across the organization.

STEVEN CARLETON

Session: The Fix on Making B2B CX Personal

What inspires you? Learning, problem-solving, socializing

Steven Carleton is Vice President of Customer Experience for Premera Blue Cross. Much of his career can be summed up as “making things work better.” He has been a leader in nearly every business function across a variety of industries. Prior to joining Premera in April 2019, Steven spent 15+ years in Silicon Valley building and leading teams at eBay, Apple, Genentech, and Sun Microsystems.

Carleton’s passion for creating meaningful and memorable experiences is equaled by his commitment to letting the data guide decision making. Finding the right story in a sea of information while honoring the human side of business have been key differentiators in his career. Striking this balance has allowed him to bridge the gap between technologists, sales, marketing, finance, and product teams to best serve customers.

Carleton is a graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. Following his first shipboard assignment in Seattle, he spent the remainder of his Coast Guard career as a rescue helicopter pilot. He dreams of mastering the seaplane so he and his wife can explore the inside passage of Vancouver Island.

AARDE COSSEBOOM

Session: The Fix on Migrating to the Cloud
Session: Executive Presentation – AI-Powered Automation for Voice and Chat Bots: Use Cases in the Contact Center

For the last decade, Aarde’s professional experience has been focused around Contact Center technology, servicing businesses and consumers through cloud-based SaaS products. He enjoys working with large Global Customer Service teams to increase and leverage the following areas of business; leadership, customer experience, customer success, operations, technology, customer service, recruiting, and people development. He has won multiple awards in the Cloud Technology field that include Best Use of Cloud Technology and Best Voice of the Customer Product.

Lisa Diehl

Session: Transitioning from Chat Bot to Live Chat

What inspires you? Relationships and Travel are my passions.

Lisa Diehl heads Consumer Advocacy for Blue Diamond Growers in Sacramento, California.

Lisa oversees all aspects of the North America Retail Consumer Advocacy Division.  She currently manages four consumer facing agent teams; an in-house team in Sacramento, California; and three out-sourced teams located in Bogota, Colombia; Rothesay, New Brunswick, Canada; and New Providence, NJ.

Within Blue Diamond, Lisa is also a member of Blue Diamond’s Corporate Communications Council, along with being a lead member of Blue Diamond’s Crises Management Team.

Lisa has over 35 years of experience in Consumer Affairs and has held a variety of managerial positions. Originally from Chicago, Lisa relocated to California in 2016 to join the Blue Diamond Team.

Lisa is the current Board Chair of SOCAP, International, serving a two-year term.

Michelle Dysangco

Bio is forthcoming.

REGAN HECKETHORN

Session: Success Story: Hiring for Staying Power and Brand Fit
Session: The Fix on Preparing for Catastrophic Events

Regan Heckethorn has been a hands-on leader in the evolution of Customer Experience and Operations with over three decades of experience in the hospitality, medical, banking and airline industries. Most recently she was named VP of Operations for Allegiant Nonstop, a wholly owned family entertainment center line of business for Allegiant Travel.

Over the past four and a half years with Allegiant Travel, she successfully led the transformation from a simple call center model into a full service Customer Care Service Center which is a 24/7 one-stop shop housing phone, chat, social media service, baggage, World MasterCard member services and customer relations.

Throughout her career, Regan has held numerous operational management roles including Director of Hotel Operations, Director of Call Center Operations and Human Resources Manager.  After 23 years in the Hotel Hospitality space, she was a key contributor on the opening teams for five (5) mega resorts; Wynn, Encore, Encore-Macau, Cosmopolitan and SLS. As the Director of Hotel Operations for Wynn/Encore, Regan led the divisional efforts in the quest to successfully achieve the elusive Forbes Five Star rating accreditation in the first year of operation – and they did!

She is currently a founding member of the Customer Experience Leadership Team (CELT) for Allegiant where she will continue to cross-pollinate the service culture of the airline into the family entertainment sector. She leads with the philosophy that your culture is defined by your people and continues to coach and lead others that the value of the “heart” can make or break your business.

Residing for over 30+ years now in Las Vegas with her husband and recent empty-nester of 2 children, this is her fifth year in attendance for this conference where she previously has served as a Thought Leader and Advisory Board member.  She finds joy in sharing best practices by publicly speaking 2-3 times a year in various business forums and consortiums. Regan was honored and humbled as a recipient of the Most Valuable Thought Leader award by Frost & Sullivan in 2018.

Dominique Jaritz

Session: Best Practice: Six Sigma: Process Improvement in the Contact Center

Proven principal consultant and project manager in AI driven digital transformation. Over twelve years of professional experience in creating customer success, leading agile teams and introducing solutions for cross-industry customers using artificial intelligence. Currently in charge of customer success in the US and APAC region.

SYLVAIN JETTE

Session: The Fix on Revitalizing Surveys

Bio is forthcoming.

Joel Kell

Session: Implementing the Best, Brightest and Boldest Ideas from the Program

Joel is an employee empowerment enthusiast and a self-described data-geek. As an outspoken advocate for the customer, he has been telling the ugly truth and delivering positive experiences for more than 20 years.  Joel currently leads Customer Service Operations for Elevate, an industry leader in online tech-enabled credit solutions.

KAL KUCHIMANCHI

Session: Continuous Improvement of the Customer Experience

What inspires you? Uber’s mission

Kal Kuchimanchi serves as the Global Head of Strategy and Central Operations for Uber’s Customer Support organization. In his current role, Kal is responsible for Uber’s customer service strategy, business planning, agent success platforms (learning & development, content management, quality assurance), and product insight generation (VoC). Prior to Uber, Kal held a variety of leadership roles at Charles Schwab, Barclays and Bank of America. Kal holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, as well as other advanced degrees in Computer Science and Engineering.

FRED LEE

Session: 3 Things I Hate About My CRM

Fred Lee Chief Technology Officer Fred Lee serves as chief technology officer for Cars.com. In this position, Fred manages the technical and data engineering teams and is responsible for the product, data, and operational platforms.

Prior to Cars.com, Lee was the Vice President of Digital Architecture at Grainger and Chief Technology Officer at Gamut, a fully-owned subsidiary of Grainger. Previously, Lee was the Chief Technology Officer at Belly, a six-year-old Chicago startup with top-tier investors, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Lightbank.

Before his time at Belly, Lee was the chief information officer and chief technology officer of Enova International, Inc. (NYSE: ENVA). During his time at Enova, he helped launch eight businesses in six different countries while managing a team of 250 engineers, five data centers, and multiple systems.

Fred served as the Director of Web Strategy at Vail Systems prior to joining Enova, where he was responsible for the creation and development of the company’s web-based services and products.

Lee received a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University and a Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

JERRY LEISURE

Session: Socializing CX Across the Organization

What inspires you? The ability to make an impact

Jerry is a passionate, high-energy, collaborative, and innovative customer success executive and consultant with 20+ years’ experience in leading and guiding “Best in Class” organizations. His leadership and consultant ethos is built upon 5 key business principles: people do business with people, loyal and engaged customers build the company, communication makes things happen, adoption and usage deliver real value, and increasing customers success is a company’s lifeblood. These Ethos principles have been formed while working at Microsoft, Symantec, Autodesk, Postmates, Kabam, and now Forte Labs, Inc.

He believes the key to all true customer success starts with the user experience, personal engagement, followed by an amazing set of technology capabilities.  As well as lifetime of learning from other great CX craft builders and creators.

Jim LeMere

Session: The Fix on Regulated Industries

Bio is forthcoming…

RAQUEL MACARTHY

Session: Implementing the Best, Brightest and Boldest Ideas from the Program

Favorite Quote: A day is not wasted if a memory is made.

Professional Summary: High energy leader with over twenty years in the Customer Service Industry. A progressive career within diverse business environments including Operations, Sales, Quality and Training. Broad based experience encompasses business restructuring, strategic planning, domestic and offshore vendor management including client management.

A highly developed sense of business acumen for excelling in planning, conceptualizing, problem-solving and tackling real challenges. People-oriented, success-driven team builder who believes in collaborative management and accountability. Specific areas of strength include: Budget Management – Tactical Implementation – Team Building – Strategic Planning – Process Improvement – Performance Management – Business Analysis – Cost Reductions – Project Execution Professional Experience Replacements, LTD, Manager, Customer Experience October 2017 – Present Greensboro, NC Percepta, LLC, Regional Manager, North America Quality June 2016 – October 2017 Melbourne, FL Optum Health, Sr. Director, Client Services and Operational Performance March 2012 – February 2016 Orlando, FL United Health Care, Sr. Director, Learning & Development, Quality Strategy December 2007 – October 2011 Minneapolis, MN Washington Mutual, Vice President, Call Center Operations September 2003 – December 2007 Melbourne, FL JPMorgan Chase, Officer, Communications & Vendor Relations August 1996 – September 2003 Columbus, OH

Areas of expertise: Customer Contact Strategy & Operations, Customer Interaction and Customer Experience, Customer Contact Technology, Agent Engagement, Outsourcing,

Additional area expertise: Quality, Training

Most recent customer contact/customer experience initiatives: Revamping hours of operations, schedules, cross training, quality

GARY MAGENTA

Session: Leadership for the Digital Future
Session: Gaining Top Down Support for the Digital Future of Customer Care

Gary Magenta is passionate about helping leaders and organizations change their business, transform how they engage their people, and deliver exceptional results.

He is the Chief Change Architect of Root Inc., a consulting company that helps the world’s most influential organizations master disruption, activate change, and realize positive results. During his 18 years at Root, Gary has partnered with CEOs and executive teams at Fortune 500 and Global 2000 organizations throughout North America and Europe, bringing a holistic view of their businesses, their people, and the customers they serve.

With more than 30 years of business experience, Gary brings a realistic outlook, a focus on results, and a sense of humor that puts things into perspective.

Gary is the author of 720 Haircuts — Creating Customer Loyalty that Lasts a Lifetime and The Un-Bossy Boss, as well as the host of the talk show series, The Pot Stirrer. He is a highly sought after international speaker that has been recognized with a Stevie American Business Award for Executive of the Year.

He lives in Chicago, Illinois, and Fort Myers Beach, Florida, with his wife and has two grown sons. Gary is a Google fanatic and an unapologetic reality show junkie.

BRIAN MARTIN

Session: Socializing CX Across the Organization

Brian Martin, Director of Call Center Operations at Resortcom is a Los Angeles Native, with over 25 years of leadership and consulting experience in the Contact Center industry. Martin is a Six Sigma Green Belt, has held leadership roles with IBM, Sprint, Nextel, Citibank, American Express, Merck and McKesson.

Brian is well versed in the contact center industry having led various departments including; Operations, Workforce, Quality Assurance, Level I & II Technical Support, Human Resources, Training, Labor Relations, Process Improvement and Recruiting.

Brian has also facilitated platform training and focus groups in the areas of Professional Development, Diversity & Inclusion, Unconscious Bias and Supplier Diversity. Brian has led business engagements throughout the U.S. and internationally, having worked in Mexico, Trinidad, Jamaica, Costa Rica, the Philippines, and multiple Canadian locations, including Halifax, Quebec, Montreal and Newfoundland. Brian is also a motivational speaker, career coach and professional business mentor who is known for openly sharing nuggets of insight learned from his experiences in navigating both the corporate and professional landscapes. Brian sits on professional and social justice discussion groups and Q&A panels and he contributes written and audio content to various publications and media outlets.

Brian does advocacy work and fights to ensure that social and professional equality exists for people of color, those in marginalized areas and for members of the LGBTQ community. Martin is a member of The Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Nevada Steering Committee and serves as the Chair for HRC Nevada’s Federal Club. In his spare time Brian enjoys spending time with family and friends, international travels, cooking exotic dishes, entertaining at home and attending live music and theater productions. Brian has been an avid Tennis player since childhood and he can often be seen playing singles and doubles Tennis at various parks around the Las Vegas Valley.

GABRIELE MASILI

Session: Getting Ahead of the Game: Early Adopter vs. Fast Follower
Session: Socializing CX Across the Organization

Gabriele “G” Masili is the Chief Technology Officer and he leads the Digital and Data Support Business Unit in Customer Service & Support. He is responsible for the Digital Customer Support, business intelligence and data insights, and engineer/advocate support technologies across CSS, and the Commercial AI Support workstream across Microsoft.

Prior to taking on his latest role, G led Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group Support Business Unit. Accountable for the end-to-end customer support experience and worldwide technical support delivery for Windows, Xbox and Surface, the organization included 10,000 support engineers and advocates across 40 geographies, supporting 30 languages.

G joined Microsoft in 2017 with more than 20 years of experience in software engineering, customer service and technical support. A passionate technology leader, he has a proven track record designing, building and delivering world-class customer experiences serving millions of customers in more than 200 countries. More recently, he built Amazon’s Customer Support organizations for Italy, Spain and The Netherlands before moving to the U.S. to run Amazon’s Worldwide Customer Service and Technical Support business for their devices and digital services. He owned the end-to-end customer support experience, including the global technical support operations, as well as the design and product development of digital and web applications like Mayday Screen Sharing and Alexa’s ability to autonomously answer customer service queries.

Throughout his career, G has been an innovator and change agent, focusing on continuously improving customer satisfaction and digitally transforming the customer experience. He is on the advisory board of two of the major customer service industry organizations, IQPC Customer Contact Week and Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange, and has a deep understanding of AI, voice, mobile and web support technologies.

SPEAKING TOPICS

AI and Digital Transformation to Evolve the Customer Support Experience

Leveraging AI to Transform the Customer Support Experience

Using AI to Augment Human Customer Service and Support Capabilities

The Future of Customer Support

Diversity and Inclusion in Digital Customer Support

RECENT SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

2019
Chatbots Project Analysis, Technology & Innovation Focus Day, CCW Vegas 2019

Artificial Intelligence Augments Human Expertise to Deliver World Class Customer Support, Customer Experience Exchange USA, IQPC

Embracing Artificial Intelligence to Transform the Customer Support Experience, TaskUs CX Summit

Mapping and Reengineering Processes for Greater Effectiveness and Enhanced Experiences, Customer Contact East, Executive MindXchange

2018
AI for Customer Service: Lowering Entry Barriers,
Compete Through Service Symposium

AI: Preparing for Big Disruption as Entry Barriers Come Down, Customer Contact West, Executive MindXchange

Leveraging AI to Transform the Customer Experience,  
Execs In The Know, Intelligent Automation for CX Briefing

The Future of Support – Microsoft’s Journey Digitally Transforming Support Experience, Customer Contact Week Fall

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

“He was so transparent and willing to share insights directly from what he is doing at the ground floor.”

“Loved Gabriele Masili and how Microsoft is dealing with Chat Bot.”

“Very knowledgeable.”

“Clear and concise examples.”

“Awesome ideas, appreciate his openness.”

“Great, insightful, wonderful, loved it!”

“Appreciated the transparency about early failures.”

“Excellent + relatable.”

“Gave me much to think about.”

“Great blend of technology & people.”

Jake Petersen

Session: Integrating Mobile App Support in the Customer Journey

Bio is forthcoming.

AISHA PONDS

Session: Mapping Root Cause for Proactive Solutions

Aisha currently leads the Stakeholder Escalations organization at Blue Cross NC.  This team of analysts is responsible for handling all member escalations and complaints about the organization.

This includes complaints from all channels, from Social Media to Regulatory Entities, including the White House.  These important engagements with members are tracked and analyzed to elicit process improvement initiatives to Blue Cross NC’s operations and corporate business processes that improve the member experience and strengthen internal knowledge. Aisha is a Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, a certified Customer Experience and Analytics Professional, and a SCRUM MASTER, experienced in Change Management, Business Analysis, Process Improvement, Training and Development, Strategic Planning and Vendor Management.  With over fifteen years of experience as a Lead Business Systems/Process Improvement Professional for enterprise-wide process improvement initiatives, she has performed fit/gap analyses to develop effective scalable best practices for organizations of all sizes and types.  She has proven expertise in rearticulating technical data and regulatory requirements into Executive Presentations, end-user documentation, SOPs, desktop procedures, and process models.

She is a native New Yorker who relocated to Raleigh, NC in 2007 to pursue her Master’s Degree in Technical Communication and Organizational Information Systems from North Carolina State University.  She also holds a BS in Technical Communication from Rochester Institute of Technology.  Aisha and her husband live in Cary, NC and enjoy movies, Asian Cuisine, and pushing their adult son to do better!

KATRINA SCHIEDEMEYER

Session: Customer Experience Measurement and add speaker

Katrina Schiedemeyer is an innovative leader in designing and executing strategic initiatives in numerous disciplines. Her expertise includes Customer Experience Design, Ethnographic Research, Six Sigma Data Analytics, Lean, and Employee Engagement. Katrina is an engaging and energetic speaker who thrives on transforming complex processes into digestible knowledge.

Katrina’s professional career includes leading the Customer Experience & Voice of Customer strategic initiatives at a Fortune 500 company and providing consultant guidance to inspire innovation across numerous organizations. In addition to her professional career, Katrina serves as a Board of Director member for numerous international organizations where she utilizes her deep business knowledge to find innovative problem-solving solutions.

Katrina is a prominent public speaker and published researcher certified in project management (PMI), quality engineering (ASQ), predictive and descriptive analytics (Wharton), and continuous improvement (LLC).

Katrina is a proud alumna from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh holding a degree in Supply Chain Management and is currently studying Negotiation Strategy at Yale.

Alpa Shah

Session: Implementing the Best, Brightest and Boldest Ideas from the Program
Session: Why People Must be a Critical Aspect of Every Digital Transformation

What inspires you? Unlocking the Possibilities of a Happy Future for ALL!

This May marked my 23rd year with Frost & Sullivan. Being part of a fast-growing company, a dynamic industry, an entrepreneurial culture, and a fun environment is invigorating and worth every moment.

My professional and volunteer experience includes business and strategy planning, product and vertical market analysis, growth consulting, event planning and execution, sales and marketing, web design, and most importantly, creating and inspiring teams to be best in class. Consulting projects have ranged from strategy development to white papers to end user analyses.
My current focus is to develop content that guides visionary CXOs and IT leaders through the next era of digital transformation with the help of IT experts and vertical industry analysts as well as extensive IT end user surveys.

Prior to joining Frost and Sullivan, I worked for Smith Barney for 5 years in its accounting division handling incentive compensation plans. Thereafter, I worked as an account executive at Edward Jones for approximately one year. In these positions, I learned much about the operations of a financial company, financial instruments, and sales techniques.

In my personal and professional life, I have served as the VP of Communications on the boards of PAMP (Parent’s club of 2,000 plus members) and the PTA, as well as within Frost & Sullivan’s GLOW (Growth & Leadership of Women) team.

JEN STABEN

Session: The Fix on Small Contact Centers

What inspires you? People, Challenges, and Flow-Charts

For the past ten years, I have been deep in the heart of “Start-Up” customer experience teams. Beginning as a frontline representative at Groupon, I have built a personal playbook from some of the best Customer Experience Teams around (Groupon, Bonobos, Squarespace).

In 2016 I took on the role of Head of Customer Experience at Rockets of Awesome and developed the Experience Team, as well as the personal stylist fulfillment team from the ground up. In 2018, I took on leading Customer Success for Shift Operations, which provided the interesting challenge of delivering great customer experience in the car buying industry. My focus for the teams I manage is to maintain an authentic human connection with our customers, and find alternatives to automation when applicable through reliable reporting, working cross-functionally to address upstream root cause issues, building strong tools and processes for workflow efficiencies, and putting in place a strong organization structure. In addition to developing Customer Experience organizations, I have developed or led strategy and implementation on Social Media and Reputation management, customer journey maps, customer satisfaction data collection, cross-department implementation of process and product, and training and development.

BRIDGET STALLKAMP

As co-originator and leader of the Insights group at Root Inc., Bridget leads initiatives with clients to identify opportunities for accelerated growth, an improved customer experience and effective engagement of their people in strategy. Bridget is the developer of much of Root’s proprietary research methodologies which are across a range of industries to isolate and scale drivers of high-performance so that organizations may yield better results without adding costs. Her clients in this area include University Hospitals, Zurich NA, Gap Inc., and Hilton Worldwide.

Bridget is also a facilitator and speaker in leadership development within industries including finance, consumer products and tech. Co-author of “Six Approaches for Strategy Success and Results”, her focus is on what high-performing leaders do to establish clarity, accountability and trust within their teams.

Bridget joined Root in 2006 after completing her MBA at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. She also holds a behavioral science degree from Tulane University and previously worked in non-profit development and fundraising. Bridget lives in Chicago with her husband and two daughters.

MARI URREA

Session: The Fix on Small Contact Centers

Bio is forthcoming.

MICHAEL ZURAT

Session: Measuring the Cross Channel Customer Experience

Bio is forthcoming.

Sharon Bradbury

Session: Employee Experience (EX) – Unlocking a Better Customer Experience

Bio is forthcoming.

JACOB BRITT

Session: Employee Experience (EX) – Unlocking a Better Customer Experience

Jacob Britt brings a holistic perspective to understanding the customer journey, having worked for nearly 20 years with front-line customer-facing organizations, applications and technologies that deliver and create industry-leading customer experiences.

He specializes in working with large companies that employ a vast number of disparate systems, helping them to make sense of their data by summarizing it and making it available to the right people. As a Senior Manager in Business Development with Aceyus, Jacob has a passion for finding the latest in customer experience improvements along with strategic partners that help to bring innovative ideas to the world of Contact Center Analytics.

Nina Brown

Session: Best Practice: Six Sigma: Process Improvement in the Contact Center

As an 18-year veteran of the company, Nina Brown began her career with DATAMARK in 2000 as Software Developer. Within her first year, she helped to close new business with a major financial institution and created a new state-of-the-art system for processing their work.

She proceeded to undertake an active role in leading software development projects for clients in the financial services, insurance and healthcare sectors, helping achieve new levels of process efficiency and cost savings. Brown later became a Project Manager, leading large-scale BPO transitions to include mailroom services for a prominent leader in the banking industry in 2005.

In 2012, Brown established DATAMARK’s Business Engineering Department, successfully leading a team of Lean Six Sigma trained experts. In 2013, she was promoted to the Senior Management Team as Director of Engineering, overseeing both Software Development and Business Engineering departments.

Throughout her career at DATAMARK, she has worked closely with the Sales and Marketing team, applying her process redesign expertise to RFP responses and business process improvement solutions for clients. Consequently, she was promoted to Vice President of Client Solutions.

Brown has also represented DATAMARK in numerous webinar presentations, marketing videos, and at industry tradeshows and exchanges.

Brown is certified in Action Selling, in an ASQ-certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

Troy Buck

Troy Buck has worked for technology companies in sales and operations for over 25 years. The last four years have been focused on the cloud contact center space helping innovative enterprises create brilliant customer experiences for their customers and employees. Empowering businesses with the right tools to help them achieve their business goals and successful outcomes provide him with great gratification. He is passionate about his clients and leverages his technical knowledge as the key to his success. Outside of the office, Troy enjoys spending time with his family and running a fantasy football league.

Sandy Ellis

Session: Connecting VOC with Operational Drivers

Bio is forthcoming.

Mark Hertel

Session: Measuring the Cross Channel Customer Experience

Mark Hertel, Regional Vice-President of Talkdesk, has worked for technology companies in sales for over 30 years. The last 6 years have been exclusively focused on the cloud contact center space helping innovative enterprises create brilliant customer experiences for their clients and employees. Empowering businesses with the right tools to assist them achieve their business goals and successful outcomes has always been a goal. He is passionate about building and enabling a sales team that understands their clients business needs. Outside the office Mark enjoys golfing and doing boot camp classes.

PARIKSHIT (PK) KALRA

Session: Data Driven Customer Experience

What inspires you? Challenge, teamwork and creativity

Parikshit is a Six Sigma master black belt from Indian Statistical Institute Bangalore, having a rich experience of over 18 years in the Business Process Outsourcing Industry. Servicing several geographies including North America, India, China, Mexico and Canada, Parikshit manages consulting clients across multiple industries. He is responsible for strategizing, planning and execution of business excellence and innovation practices across all pyramids including technology services, business services and enterprise functions. During the past decade of work, Parikshit has managed or coordinated several global client processes where he has designed and successfully implemented transformation and improvement end to end frameworks. His rich practical experience in project management, financial modeling, business process reengineering, and business analytics enables him to work closely with business leaders to achieve their strategic goals. Building a culture of thought leadership and critical thinking across the organization Parikshit has trained, coached and mentored across the HGS organization. Facilitating change management performance evaluation, diverse learning, and building productive relationships to enhance effectiveness.

COREY KOTLARZ

Session: Global BPO Pricing Trends and Models

What inspires you? My Parents, My Family, My Company, Hard Work, Entrepreneurship & Roger Federer.

Corey Kotlarz is the Founder and President of Outsource Consultants, an outsource call center referral and advisory firm. He has over 25 years of experience in the call center industry with a track record of leading companies and driving rapid growth.

Kotlarz founded Outsource Consultants in 2013 after watching a rapidly expanding landscape create a growing need for objective BPO industry guidance, and for assisting companies with their outsource call center partner selection process. Outsource Consultants has grown rapidly by utilizing its proprietary database of over 300 heavily vetted call centers to help clients – from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies – find a BPO partner that matches their exact requirements for location, service, culture, experience, and cost.

Prior to founding Outsource Consultants, Kotlarz served as Vice President for an award-winning outsource call center where he was responsible for new business development and marketing initiatives while driving significant growth to help achieve industry awards such as Rising Star, MVP of Quality, and a “Top 50” outsource call center.

For 19 years, he was instrumental in driving the company’s strategic vision while overseeing and managing all aspects of the company’s business development, marketing, and strategic vendor partnerships. He worked with leading clients such as StubHub, American Express, Pizza Hut, Cricket Wireless, Clearwire, United Healthcare and Quest Diagnostics to assist them with their contact center and business process outsourcing strategy.

Outside of work, Mr. Kotlarz is married with two children and enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, listening to music and playing competitive tennis. He’s also an avid NFL enthusiast and fantasy football veteran of 30+ years.

Michael Kropidlowski

Session: Delivering Personalized Care Across Channels

Bio is forthcoming.

ROB MCDOUGALL

Session: Cracking the Nut on Omnichannel CX – A Practical Guide and Key Considerations

What Inspires You? Campfires, guitars and improving the customer experience for everyone.

Rob McDougall is the Chief Executive Officer at Upstream Works Software. Rob has been providing customer care solutions for over 25 years, creating real-world, road-tested solutions that meet the needs of the market, partners, and customers.

His forward-thinking vision of customer experience led him to conceive, develop, and deliver the first true omnichannel solution in 2006, long before the term omnichannel was coined.

Today, Upstream Works is an award-winning company that provides organizations with flexible, innovative customer service solutions across virtually every industry worldwide.

WILL MCLAUGHLIN

Session: Technology Integration: Closing Operational Silos at the Business Level

What inspires you? Seeing people succeed

Professionally I’m passionate about helping companies create meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with their customers. Every person likes to feel like they are having their specific wants and needs addressed and that they matter. My desire is to help every company that I engage with provide this experience to their customers. I have been involved in the Customer Experience business for most of my career with success in both product development and sales. This has allowed me to bring a unique perspective to my customers and guide them on a holistic view of the customer experience journey. I currently lead a team of sales professionals who are considered leaders in the industry in their respective areas of expertise; lead engagement optimization, self and assisted service with bots, collections and workforce engagement. As a team we lead Genesys’s engagements with the largest and most important clients such as American Express, eBay, Paypal, Oracle and United Healthcare. We measure success by how well we enable our clients to enhance their customer experience and optimize the value they receive from our solutions.

Personally, I have a couple areas of great joy. First, I have a wonderful wife and partner, Heidi and two great children, Lars and Hannah. It is one of my great joys to see my children develop as young adults and pursue their education and outside passions. Second, I have been a lifelong lover of the ocean. Diving and windsurfing are what I enjoy doing most with my free time, though just being by the ocean, hearing the waves and taking in the smell bring me a great sense of relaxation and rejuvenation.

Lisa Michaud

Session: Strategic Mapping of an Integrated Self-Serve Journey

What inspires you? The nuance and power of the word.

Dr. Lisa Michaud holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has worked with Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology and research for more than 20 years.  After a first career in academia during which she published in multiple international journals, workshops, and conferences, she transitioned to the software industry and engaged in the challenges of applying NLP to enterprise needs in the contact center space. She was a key contributor to the expansion of a IVR platform to enable fully conversational self-service interactions, has led teams of linguists and software developers working on engines to fully understand the intent of customer utterances, and has established herself as a thought leader in conversational AI challenges, technology, and best practices.  She now holds the position of Senior Product Manager at Interactions LLC, where she leads the Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) platform.

Brian Morin

Session: Integrating Conversational AI into the Call Center Environment

Bio is forthcoming…

LYNN OLSON

Session: 3 Things I Hate About My CRM

Lynn Olson is passionate about delivering great customer experiences.  As Vice President of Sales and Marketing , she has built a team and a culture that puts the customer at the heart of every endeavor.

Lynn has consulted with many fortune 500 clients, developing innovative ways to create and sustain a better experience for their customers with measurable results. Her strategic client and partner relationships have helped companies map their customer journey, reinventing the way they engage their customers. Lynn has worked at companies such as Nuance and Microsoft, where she supported the customer experience from a sales, marketing and technical perspective. She holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Management. Lynn currently lives in San Francisco and loves to travel, cycle and spend time with her family!

ANDREW PAPPARIDES

Session: Equipping Your Agents to Deliver Proactive, End-to-End Service

What inspires you? My children, my dad

Andrew Papparides has been with ServiceNow for 6 years and is the Head of Global Support Strategy, with a focus on scaling out our capabilities, as well as identifying the technologies and working practices that will help ServiceNow Support to continue to deliver a first class service to its customers. Prior to joining ServiceNow, Andrew has held various senior positions at Cisco, CA Technologies, Symantec, Veritas, as well as having a seven-year stint at Accenture earlier in his career. Andrew holds an MBA in Social Sciences from the Durham University in the UK.

CHRIS SAVIO

Session: How AI Is Helping to Create Empowered and Efficient Support Teams

What inspires you? Constant learning (new topics/facts/history)

Christopher is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for LogMeIn’s Bold360 business. Bringing over 12 years of experience, he drives product strategy and the development of go-to-market plans for AI and digital engagement offerings. He’s passionate about using customer centric approach to help push forward strategic decisions and product innovations.

DEB SCHWEIZER

Session: RPA – Efficiency in Operations and Customer Experience

Teleperformance Experience

• Chosen to build new solutions for pursuing challenging new market opportunities particularly for companies being impacted and taking advantage of digital disruption
• Selected to work on new logo and existing client initiatives with special teams to help solve problems, achieve strategic business objectives, and nurture valuable partnerships
• Asked to build business of clients leveraging past experience/expertise centered on driving innovation/transformation, reducing costs, increasing revenues, improving CSAT and NPS levels, enhancing market positions, increasing operational efficiencies, and optimizing the customer experience
• Successful in launching one of TP’s top global clients across 13 sites in 8 countries in industry record-breaking ramping times by leading global teams and focusing on sharing universal best practices to meet/exceed all client goals
• Assigned to some of TP’s priority global accounts to manage cross-geo teams to deliver tangible business results for the accounts while maximizing all operational efforts/results

Relevant Industry Experience

• 15 years of successful global experience in the outsourcing industry across verticals
• Proven expertise in New-Existing Logo Sales, Client Services, and Global Account Strategy/Operations Management, as an individual contributor and leader
• Specialties include utilizing Innovation, Technology, Process Optimization/Automation, Data Analytics, and New Pricing Models to aid clients and their customers
• A builder of creative ecosystems to drive CX excellence and business growth
• Syncing companies with solutions that are strategic and results-oriented
• MBA focused on Economics and International Finance with Business and Marketing majors

Todd Sherin

Session: Leveraging Data to Drive Down Employee Effort

Bio is forthcoming.

Devinder Singh

Session: RPA – Efficiency in Operations and Customer Experience

What inspires you? Par with an occasional birdie!

• Vice President Customer Experience at Teleperformance
• 24 years of consulting, technology and business development experience with leading BPO and consulting companies
• Focused on driving large transformational outsourcing partnerships resulting in higher customer satisfaction while reducing the total cost of ownership.
• Emphasis on deploying technology enabled solutions that drive growth, profitability and business outcomes
• MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and Bachelor of Computer Science from Punjab University, India

Brent Stevenson

Session: Capture, Analyze, Optimize: Your Employee Analytics Journey from the Call Center Floor to the Boardroom 

As Senior VP of Sales and Marketing, Brent ensures all potential and current clients are offered the best solutions and quality of service to meet both their current and future needs.

Brent began as a customer service professional in 1998 as one of the founding partners at Tell Us About Us, a company focused on the customer experience through surveys, mystery shops and live agent support. He is seen as a thought leader in the customer service industry, and has presented and led key discussions in over a dozen conferences. Brent holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from the University of Manitoba.

Matthew Storm

Session: Omni Challenge – Overcoming Legacy Mishmash for Agent Experience and Productivity

Matthew Storm is the Vice President of Marketing for Jacada and has been evangelizing and promoting customer experience solutions for over 20 years. Previously he was running marketing programs for contact center technology providers such as NICE Systems, OpenText and QPC in the Americas, Europe and Middle East. Before working in the CX technology space, Matthew got his start in the contact center industry back in the 1990s while working for Dell Computer and various startups where he implemented solutions for workforce management, recording, analytics, predictive dialers and CRM. Matthew has been mentioned in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Bloomberg and has presented in over 20 countries on topics such as customer satisfaction, predicting churn, multi-channel communications and employee engagement. Matthew holds a degree from Oklahoma State University and has an MBA from St. Edward’s University.

Neal Topf

Session: Transitioning from Chat Bot to Live Chat

What inspires you? Matching CX supply and demand to solve complex customer care problems.

Neal is the President and Co-Founder of Callzilla. He oversees Callzilla’s operations, marketing and business development, and finance teams. His professional passion is to help clients solve their complex contact center and customer care problems. Neal lives and works in South Florida where he lives with the most important part of his life, his 7 year old son. Neal is a long time suffering Washington Redskins football fan. He’s also a proud graduate of the prestigious HEC Paris MBA program in Paris, France.

Eric Vermillion

Session: Integrating Mobile App Support in the Customer Journey

Eric is the CRO of Helpshift.  Eric has spent his entire career in the world of software and technology. Prior to joining Helpshift, Eric was the CRO of BlueCat, where he helped create the Enterprise DNS market and drive significant growth, which helped lead to the sale of the company to Madison Dearborn Partners.  Eric has also held other global leadership roles at CrossMatch (now part of HID Global) and NICE Systems, where he held many leadership roles during their growth from $200M to over $1B in revenue.

Eric loves to help grow and build teams and drive revenue. He has a passion for creating organizations that operate with curiosity and transparency, both internally and with customers.  He enjoys traveling with his family and lives in Texas with his wife and 2 daughters.

Kandy White

Session: Meeting the Unique Challenges of the Enterprise Contact Center

What inspires you?  Knowing I made a difference.

Kandy White is a recognized leader with experience leading Digital Transformation across multiple disciplines and industries.  Leveraging her 20 years of leadership in Global Fortune 250 companies, she has helped organizations navigate transformation by bringing technology and talented people together to create simple, digital and personalized experiences.  She has led teams in HR, Technology/AI, National Operations, Customer Care, Tech/Product Support, Work Force Management, and Process Engineering.  Through direction of multi-million dollar investments in people, process, and technology, her teams have delivered more than $750M in margin growth over the past decade.

Kandy currently serves as the Senior Vice President and Head of Global Operations at Altisource where she leads an enterprise wide operations organization of 3K+ spanning the Americas and Asia and serving a network of more than 650K vendors.  She provides strategic direction and leads the evolution of the digital service and operational optimization strategy including the integration of next gen tech for predictive AI, intelligent, and guided self-service.  Prior to joining Altisource, Kandy held executive roles at Verizon and ADP where she created and executed emerging technology programs to drive automation and digital customer experience across a variety of departments and functions.

Kandy holds a Master of Science in Experimental Psychology from Southeastern Louisiana University and is ABD for her PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the University of South Florida.  She is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Work Out Facilitator, and Crisis Counselor.

Kandy lives in Canton with her husband of 25 years and her 2 beagles, Benny and Stella.  Their daughter, Zoe, is a senior nursing student at FSU.  Outside the office, she enjoys hiking, kayaking, concerts, and traveling to new places.  She has visited 38 countries and adds to the list every year.

Barbara Wingle

Session: STOP Admiring the Problem – and START Driving Real Value with Analytics

Bio is forthcoming.