Visionary Headliners, Rockstars
and Fab Facilitators
Interested in Becoming or Nominating a Speaker?
Rockstar Insights
Hari Abburi
Global Director
Caltech Executive Education
Hari Abburi is a well known thinker, author and consultant in the area of agility for strategy, leadership and organization. He has over 26 years of global industry experience, helping CEOs and organizations change faster than their industry curve. He defines agility as ‘Being At The Speed Of The Customer’.
Dr. Debra Bentson
Senior Workforce Manager
Kaiser Permanente
Dr. Debra Bentson is a Workforce Management Humanitarian who engages continuous learning and positive psychology to craft and implement Workforce Management strategies and tactics that actively prioritize the well-being of the people they affect.
Nate Brown
Chief Experience Officer
Officium Labs
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
Nate Brown is a perpetual student of the world’s greatest experiences and the people who create them. Having spent the first decade of this career managing a complex technical support environment for Occupational Health and eLearning software, Nate transitioned to Customer Experience 2015. He was dubbed the “CX Influencer of the Year” by CloudCherry in 2019, as well as being named a top CX thought leader by TruRating, Qminder, ProcedureFlow, LifeHelpNow, ICMI, and Exceeders. As a passion project, Nate recently created CX Accelerator, a first-class virtual community for Customer Experience professionals. Nate currently serves as the Chief Experience Officer for Officium Labs and can be found at a variety of conferences speaking and training on the CX topics he loves.
Michael O. “Coop” Cooper
Founder
Innovators + Influencers
Ever since he was a little child, Michael “Coop” Cooper has been fascinated with changing people’s minds – it began by trying to change the tiffs his parents were having at home and emerged into a full-blown business where he helps leaders at companies around the world sell their ideas and strategies. If you can recognize the underlying NeuroEfficiencies that people have, you can speak directly to what is important to them. Changing minds can be difficult, but often it’s much easier and simpler than we might think.
Aarde Cosseboom
AuthorEnable Better Service
Aarde has built his career on designing and implementing Contact Center technology for the last couple of decades. In recent years he has won multiple awards for his ingenuity and bleeding edge designs of new emerging technologies. In 2019 he wrote a book that captures the basics behind ‘customer experienced focused design’ called Enable Better Service available on Amazon.
Michael DeSalles
Principal Analyst
Frost & Sullivan
Michael has over 15 years of research and analytical expertise in contact center and customer experience with expertise in emerging trends, convergence, collapse and disruptive technologies in the contact center industry; insight into site management, supervision and agent development; and outsourcer vendor selection for end-users. He has also worked on numerous research reports, written several industry white papers and is a frequent speaker at domestic and international industry events.
Alexia Downs
Director of Customer Service Operations
GoodRx
Alexia Downs founded and scaled the Patient Advocacy team at GoodRx from 5 to 200+ representatives while maintaining 99% satisfaction for the past four years. The Patient Advocacy organization has built a loyal and engaged customer base by providing a personalized, informed and empathetic experience while helping patients access affordable healthcare.
Robert Gofourth
Former Vice President of Operational Strategy & Performance
BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina
Author, Hack the Corporate Ladder
Robert has more than 25 years of operations, customer experience and risk management across a variety of industries including insurance, mortgage banking, government enterprise, and outsourcing. He is the best-selling author of Hack the Corporate Ladder: Move Your Career to the Next Level.
Bassem Hanna
Associate Director of National Contact Centers
Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company
Bassem moved from being an agent on the phones to a customer champion change agent. Bassem has over 15+ years of experience in contact centers. He has managed contact centers in both in-house, outsourcing, on-shore, and off-shore. Bassem is an ex-PayPal, Discover, Teletech and Chase Alumni. He is currently the Associate Director of National Contact Centers for Janssen a Johnson and Johnson company where he is responsible for 6 outsourced contact centers with 1500 agents total.
Ebrahim Hyder
Vice President, Customer Service
Michael Kors
Ebrahim has built award winning contact centers that continuously deliver stellar business results. He is an advocate for Diversity and Inclusion with strong belief in equality and equity. Skilled in Six Sigma, his twin passions for customer service and technology allow him to find creative ways to elevate customer experiences and remove customer friction.
Christopher Keenan
Executive Director, Worldwide Medical Customer Engagement, Medical Capabilities
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
Chris is a senior business leader with a solid record of leading top performing business units and producing results that have positive impact on the bottom line and customer experience. He is a sought-after presenter on topics such as striving for operational excellence, customer engagement and the power of unified data and analytics.
Joel Kell
Senior Director, Operations
Elevate
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 (spotlighting processes, bugs and issues that cause customer friction) 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.
Jim LeMere
Vice President, Servicing Capabilities & Enablement
Northwestern Mutual
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
Known for his thought leadership in the service industry, Jim LeMere has over 25 years of experience in service operations and contact center re-engineering, with a specialization in leading cultures to outcomes that drive employee engagement and operational efficiency to boost client experience and business results to new levels. A servant-leader, Jim believes the secret sauce to transformation is having laser focus on enabling the success of the front line by creating customer-focused cultures driven by ownership and accountability. His focus on organizational development is rooted in a specific value chain that sparks cultural evolution.
Carol Marshall
Chief Operations Officer
ActivEngage, Inc.
Carol Marshall helped build and currently leads the most successful messaging company in the automotive industry. She ensures that high standards are consistently met, ActivEngage associates and customers are happy, and everyone grows along the way!
Alex McBratney
Partner
Adler Advisors
Self-proclaimed Door Knocking King of Telecom, Alex McBratney began his career advising businesses on technology throughout Los Angeles, one door at a time. Now, twelve years later he’s the host of Another Cloud Podcast and frequent speaker at various telecommunications events. Seeing businesses ditch outdated legacy systems and harness cloud technology brings a smile to his face.
Karen Mitchell
Senior Director – Service Enablement
Marriott International
Karen Mitchell is a senior leader with over 15 years of experience creating strategies that utilize people, process and technology to achieve business objectives. She has a passion for helping people understand how to use their strengths to obtain personal and professional success. Currently Karen works at Marriott International where she serves as the product leader for the largest Salesforce CRM implementation globally.
Vanessa Neurohr
Senior Director, Customer SuccessMuck Rack
While you’ll sometimes find her on standup comedy stages in New York City, Vanessa Neurohr is a frequent speaker on customer success and customer experience and has spent the past five years at Muck Rack, a B2B SaaS company serving the public relations industry. She is also the co-founder of ThriveNetwork, which is a digital community of nearly 1,000 members in customer-facing roles.
Katrina Schiedemeyer
Senior Customer Experience Center of Excellence
Danone
Katrina Schiedemeyer is an innovative leader in designing and executing strategic initiatives in numerous disciplines. Her expertise includes Customer Experience Design, Supplier Experience, Ethnographic Research, Six Sigma Data Analytics, Lean, and Employee Engagement.
Ahmad Shabazz
Head of Global Community Operations
Snapchat
Ahmad is a seasoned Customer Service professional, with a focus on technology and innovative solutions utilizing automation, workflows and proactive capabilities that are inclusive and helpful for the his team and customers.
Jonathan Shroyer
Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Officium Labs
Customer Engagement Leadership Council Member
Jonathan Shroyer, a 20+ year veteran with Microsoft, Symantec, Autodesk, Postmates, and Kabam on his resume saw a services gap in the market and created Officium Labs. Officium Labs help companies deliver incredible experiences for their customers. The strength of Officium comes from their best in class Network of thought leaders that help companies transform from a customer service cost center to profit center based mentality. He finds, it is often small tweaks to a successful operation, can deliver new amazing KPI results.
Kevin Strom
Vice President of Customer Experience
Intellivision
Kevin is responsible for ensuring the customer experience at Intellivision is personalized and builds the brand through transparency and accessibility. He spent 15 years in telecommunications heading the Government, Education and Medical teams for AT&T for Southern California and Hawaii before joining Intellivision.
Steve Taczala
Vice President – Global Service Operations
Sungard Availability Services
As Vice President of Service Operations, Steve’s team has Global responsibility for delivering front line support to hundreds of managed service customers across multiple technologies and platforms. He brings over 3 decades of operational experience to his current role, where his focus is continuously transforming the customer experience through operational excellence.
Tanya Thomas
Director, Customer & Employee Experience
Experian Health
Tanya is a strategic experience management leader driving customer focus and impactful change for over 15 years in roles spanning retail, entertainment, financial services, and now the healthcare industry. She currently leads communications and experience design strategy for both Customer Experience and Employee Experience within Experian’s healthcare business.
Fab Facilitators
Amy Bouthilet
Vice President of Global Talent
Alta Resources
With 15+ years of consumer care experience, Amy has a proven track record of increasing employee engagement and helping global brands maximize customer experiences through applied innovation. Whether in a corporate support role or in direct management of a consumer care team, Amy has a personal passion to deliver results. Currently Amy serves as Vice President of Global Talent for Alta Resources, a customer service and sales contact center provider (BPO) representing some of the most recognizable and fastest-growing brands in the world.
Nina Brown
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
DATAMARK
Nina Brown has over 20 years of experience and expertise in technology and process improvement, and is uniquely poised to identify opportunities for business optimization and business growth.
Crystal Collier
CX Consultant
PTP
Crystal Collier is a catalyst who improves an organization’s results by understanding, designing, and enhancing experiences across the entire customer lifecycle. Before joining PTP, Crystal was the Head of Strategy, Programs and Insights in Worldwide Customer Experience for Electronic Arts. She has also worked with Samsung, Chanel, Cars.com, and Cadillac to improve customer contacts. As a thought leader in the industry, she is a frequent speaker and author on CX trends and innovations.
Phillip Fisher
Senior Director of Sales
SmartAction
Phill is the Senior Director of Sales at SmartAction where their obsession with creating frictionless customer experiences with conversational AI has led to its distinction as “Leader in AI-Enhanced Self-Service” by Frost & Sullivan and operates AI-powered Virtual Agents for 100+ brands including AAA, Siemens, Hyundai, ADT, DSW, Choice Hotels, HomeServe, and more.
Michael Parker
Chief Marketing Officer
Cresta
Michael Parker is a seasoned executive, advisor, and successful entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in high-tech, most recently in helping to lead the AI revolution in Contact Centers.
Steve Seibert
Chief Information Officer
Support Services Group
A true technologist who “eats, sleeps and breathes” technology, Steve has spent 25 years in IT leadership positions across many different industries, from retail to manufacturing to telecommunications before entering the BPO space. He is currently focused on improving the Omnichannel Solutions space, with a focus on BPA (Business Process Automation).
Mark Stanley
Customer Experience Designer
Genesys
Mark Stanley is a Customer Experience Designer and the author of Experience Design for Customer Service: How to go from mediocre to great! He has an extensive background in the relationship and interdependence between business goals, contact center operations and technology used to connect customers to service staff, as well as the supporting systems like workforce management and quality monitoring.