The Customer Catalyst Conference 2020

Strategic thinker focused on putting customers at the heart of Virgin Media and serving them better in a digital world. Connector of dots who is able to take a step back and consider the holistic view. Enabler of significant changes in business performance through the delivery of complex transformational programmes.

Meets complicated challenges head on, creating solutions which deliver both for the customer and for Virgin Media. Driver of change and firm believer in making a difference for internal and external customers alike.

“Amelia’s signature strength is her ability to create an easily understandable direction for her teams irrespective of the underlying complexity, and to thoroughly engage them with that vision.” Jo Dutton, Executive General Manager, Systems Engineering

Passionate about people development and creating diverse, high performing teams brimming with talent. Creator of people opportunities, mentor and talent nurturer. Founder of ‘Return to Work’ initiative and champion of a diverse workforce.

“An exceptional decision maker who empowers her organisation to achieve success through creative thinking, Amelia’s management capability is held in the highest regard by those that have had the opportunity to work under her leadership” Atif Farooq, Head of Insight

Customer led, data driven, interested in learning from other sectors about the wider process and infrastructure around becoming a truly digital organisation.

Happy to connect with people who have a great track record in leading digital transformation or those who want to have a conversation about building a better digital tomorrow.

Throughout her career, Claire has focused on driving customer-led growth by inspiring change and ensuring a tangible link to measurable business improvement.

With a background in psychology and systemic management, Claire has over 20 years’ experience helping organizations distil a set of focused priorities. She guides companies to bring together customer, employee, and partner perspectives and enrich them with financial, operational, and behavioral data. As both a consultant and CX practitioner across a range of industries, Claire has enabled leading companies to empower accountability for improvement, motivate changes in individual action, and predict and monitor business impact.

A regular speaker at conferences globally, Claire has become well known for her pragmatic and engaging twist on experience management. In recent years, Claire has turned her focus to innovation in CX and BI, using technology, AI and behavioral economics to drive ownership and management of risk out to the people who can make a difference.

Claire is based just outside London in Kent – enjoys a good walk with the dog, particularly if there is a cozy pub with a roaring fire at the end of it.

Emma Roffey is Cisco’s VP Marketing for EMEAR. Emma has been with Cisco for over 15 years and has always been in the IT industry, starting her career in IT Publishing. Emma left publishing in 2000 having won IT Publisher of the Year for the launch of the weekly newspaper IT Week. Emma is known for her creativity, energy and passion for analysing great leaders. Her personal mantra is fit body, fit mind. Emma is married with two daughters and at the weekend you will find her cycling across the countryside come rain or shine.

Cristina joined Cisco 5 years ago to lead Customer Advocacy in EMEAR. She began her career at Hewlett Packard and has spent 16 years working in the IT industry. Over the past 10 years, Cristina has focused her career on customer marketing. Having spent some time in the film industry at Pinewood Studios (think Bond), she realised there was an opportunity to tell customer stories in a much better way. Not only that, she knew there was a better way to mobilize customers as advocates, at scale. After the rapid success of The Gateway program in EMEAR, and with the guidance and support of a great leader, Emma Roffey, Cristina has taken the Cisco Gateway program global as part of Cisco’s Growth Marketing organisation. When she’s not busy leading a team of passionate customer marketeers, you’ll find Cristina riding her horses and spending time with her family on their beautiful farm in southern Spain.

Richard Owen has a singular professional focus: Delivering financial value through CX. He co-founded OCX Cognition to combine technology and programmatic consulting in pursuit of that goal, and now leads the company’s coordinated efforts to deliver the right solutions for its clients.

Richard’s 30-year career has centered on transforming business operations with technology, and he is one of the best-known CX thought leaders. While CEO at Satmetrix, his team led the development of the Net Promoter Score® methodology with Fred Reichheld, creating the world’s most widely used CX measurement approach. With Laura Brooks, he co-authored Answering the Ultimate Question, the best-selling “how to” guide for NPS practitioners.

Richard transformed the supply chain and built what was then the world’s largest e-commerce business at Dell, and has led two software companies, AvantGo and Satmetrix, to successful exits. With an MBA from MIT Sloan Management School, he has served on several boards and committees at public and private companies and is an active venture investor and international business thinker. Richard has lived on three continents; he and his family now divide their time between Arizona and London.

A customer advocacy professional with over 20 years’ experience in this field.

Telling our customers’​ stories and sharing the positive impact their vision and strategy has for their own employees and customers, is just one aspect to customer advocacy and storytelling. With a focus on business value, I create mutually beneficial propositions to build true, measurable, customer advocacy. As part of the Global Customer Advocacy team at ServiceNow, with a particular focus on EMEA, my priorities are to build stories that connect and amplify them in ways that benefit our customers own comms/business goals.

If you want to find out more about how this approach adds value to customers, the commercial impact to your business, swap best practice learning etc., feel free to contact me.

Focus & Specialties:
Storytelling, Customer Marketing, Customer Reference, Customer Advocacy, Customer Experience, Success Stories, Content Marketing, Communications, Social Media, Strategy, B2B, Technology, Cloud Computing, SaaS

A legend and leader in the hotel world, Horst Schulze’s teachings and vision have reshaped the concepts of service and hospitality across industries.

Mr. Schulze’s professional life began more than 65 years ago as a server’s assistant in a German resort town. Throughout the years he worked for both Hilton Hotels and Hyatt Hotels Corporation before becoming one of the founding members of The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company in 1983. There Mr. Schulze created the operating and service standards that have become world famous.

During his tenure at The Ritz Carlton, Mr. Schulze served as President and COO responsible for the $2 billion operations worldwide. It was under his leadership that The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company became the first service-based company to be awarded the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award — twice.

In 1991, Mr. Schulze was recognized as “corporate hotelier of the world” by HOTELS magazine. In 1995, he was awarded the Ishikawa Medal for his personal contributions to the quality movement. In 1999, Johnson & Wales University gave him an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree in Hospitality Management.

Most recently, Mr. Schulze has been honored as a “Leader in Luxury” by Travel Agent magazine and its sister publication Luxury Travel Advisor.

After leaving The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, Mr. Schulze went on to found The Capella Hotel Group. This luxury hotel company managed some of the most elite properties worldwide, and gave Mr. Schulze the opportunity to further define the luxury hotel industry, receiving countless awards and recognitions.

Today, Mr. Schulze serves on various boards and acts as a consultant across industries. He recently completed his seminal book on creating excellence.

Signify, formerly PHILIPS Lighting, is a world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Maarten is a catalyst of Value-creating Innovation in the Industry 4.0. As an innovation manager with an emphasis on co-creation and collaborative eco- systems, he guides and inspires the organisation to mature its co-creative capability and strengthen its innovation power.

Daily tasks include, but are not limited to, leading co-creation and UX research competency, strategic design, innovation projects, value proposition creation, change management, business transformation, organizational development, training, and coaching. He is also an innovation partner to the Ventures.

Maarten is co-author of ‘The 7 Principles Of Complete Co-creation’, a comprehensive how-to co- create handbook, offering a useful perspective on how to partner with consumers/end users for optimal marketplace success.

Passionate about innovation with an emphasis on co-creation, Maarten can often be found sharing his experience at various events as a keynote speaker or leading workshops all over the world. Please get in touch for more information or inquiries.

Nick is responsible for Zoom’s global customer support and services organization. Prior to that he was Zoom’s Head of Global Services, responsible for global professional services and Zoom Rooms evangelism, and Head of Product Marketing. Nick has an extensive background in technology, market development, product strategy, and pursuit of customer satisfaction.

Prior to Zoom, Nick was the founder of the first Emerging Technology business unit at Cisco Systems in India. He led business incubation, technology acquisition and go-to-market strategy. Nick also held senior leadership roles as Director of Product Management at Perfigo (acquired by Cisco) and Director of Global Support at Intruvert (acquired by McAfee). Both network security solutions (NAC and IPS) attained the #1 market leadership positions and evolved to become critical stakes of the $3Bn network security market. In addition, Nick spent over 7 years with Cisco Global Support and Services in San Jose and Brussels.

Nick holds a Master of Business Administration from Santa Clara University and Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from Kansas State University.

Investor and former software executive, with particular experience building & leading startups and business units that drive net revenue retention (Customer Success, Consulting, Professional Services, Support & Education).

Built Slack’s presence in the UK, founded the Global Customer Success team and lead its EMEA arm. Previously built & led both Zendesk & Yammer’s European Customer organisations, creating, leading and developing strong teams dedicated to helping some of the world’s largest organisations drive user adoption & business value from Enterprise SaaS software.

I have played a major leadership role in accelerating the growth of a number of early stage companies, leading to a $1.2 billion acquisition by Microsoft and two public exits. This included representing the businesses publicly in the press with media, analyst interviews, public speaking and publishing of industry articles.

Key skills & experience:

• Building & leading world class teams to deliver consistently high revenue growth, customer sat & renewal rates
• Proven commercial focus with extensive sales experience
• Developing strong trusted adviser relationships with founders, C suite and business decision makers
• Talent sourcing, hiring and career development
• Managing complex cloud software deployment and user adoption businesses
• Collaborating internally to improve processes, product and overall customer experience
• Media spokesperson with very strong verbal and written communication skills
• Cross industry experience, including finance, insurance, advertising, pharma, retail, manufacturing, tech, telecommunications & government

Specialities: Sales, customer success, SaaS, consulting, customer experience, people leadership & development, change management and adoption, press & public speaking.

An experienced marketing and business leader with a strong track record in delivering tangible success. I combine the exploitation of marketing process and technology with a strong background in helping people to flourish and achieve their potential.

I am passionate about developing and maintaining market insights and using these to drive successful change across organisations.

Professor Tony Ryan OBE is The Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Sheffield and the founding Director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures.

Tony focuses on the global challenge of the food, water, and energy nexus; feeding a growing world population; reducing the impacts of agriculture and food production that account for 30% of green house gas emissions and 70% of water use; and harnessing the power of the sun for food production and renewable energy.

The Grantham Centre’s projects cover many of the aspects of the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals, and many of the national priorities of the developing world. Tony leads the University of Sheffield’s programme in sustainability research, integrating across traditional boundaries in the pure and applied sciences, engineering, medicine, and social sciences.

Tony is very active in translational research, disseminating evidence- based science to both experts and non-experts, and has been a regular contributor to TV, Radio, National Press and at learned societies from The Royal Society of Chemistry to Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs. He presented evidence at the UNFCCC COP21 in Paris in 2015 and returned to COP22 in Marrakech in 2016.

Tony delivered the televised Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 2002 and was awarded an OBE in 2006 for ‘Services to Science’.

His research covers sustainable synthesis, structure, processing, and applications of polymers using advanced analytical and measurement techniques. Recent research projects included renewable sources for polyurethane synthesis, organic photovoltaics, maximising the properties of polymers and biopolymers through flow-induced crystallisation, formulation of home and personal care products and polymer foams for high intensity urban agriculture. He has co-authored more than 300 papers and patents and 2 books, “Polymer Processing and Structure Development” and “The Solar Revolution: One Planet, 10 Billion People, One Solution.”

Tony holds a BSc and PhD from the University of Manchester and a DSc from UMIST. He held a NATO Research Fellowship at the University of Minnesota, was a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader in Materials Science at The University of Manchester and was seconded to the Synchrotron Radiation Source at Daresbury. In 1997 he moved to Sheffield and served as Head of Chemistry before becoming the Pro Vice Chancellor for the Faculty of Science in 2008, a role which he fulfilled until 2016.

Awards

• The Plastics and Rubber Institute Silver Medal (1990)
• The Akzo Chemical Award (1990)
• Royal Society of Chemistry Thermal Methods Group Award (1992)
• The Morand Lambla Award of the Polymer Processing Society (1999)
• The Beilby Medal and Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry (1999)
• Royal Society of Chemistry Environmentally Friendly Polymers Award (2003)
• Officer of the British Empire, OBE, for “services to science” (2006)
• Ellison-Cliffe Medal & Lecture, Royal Medical Society (2007)
• Maitland Medal & Lecture, Institute of Structural Engineers (2008)
• Gold Medal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists (2008)
• MacroGroup UK Medal, RSC/SCI/IoP (2009)
• RSC Materials Division Schools Lecturer (2011)

Mike Kendall is a recognized global customer experience, design, and innovation expert, coach, author, and speaker. He led world-class customer loyalty, innovation, engagement, and growth transformation in several industries including financial services, tech, and healthcare. In addition to launching The Customer Lab, Mike served as Director of Customer Experience at Capital One where he helped reimagine banking to deliver awesome customer experiences. He co-founded Humana’s award-winning FastStart Lean CX Innovation Lab, led Customer Experience at Intuit, and held several global customer and operations leadership roles at Citigroup.

Mike’s credentials include Net Promoter Certification, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Intuit Innovation Catalyst, Baldrige National Performance Excellence Examiner Board, Adjunct Instructor at Southern Methodist University and Senior Impact Coach and Customer Experience Lead for Moves the Needle. Mike is Managing Director of The Customer Lab, a bespoke consultancy on mission to help organizations thrive through customer-centered design, innovation, delivery, and culture. Mike is also a musician, teaching and performing drumming and percussion worldwide. Mike lives in the Dallas area with his wife and enjoys international travel, cycling, and good food.