The Next Gen Customer Experience 2012 Speaker Faculty Included…

Michelle Adorjan Chila has headed the Marketing & Publicity department and acted as Fashion Director for TACORI for more than six years. A lifelong jewelry lover, Michelle has been involved with celebrity and style for almost a decade, and has appeared as an expert commentator on a variety of television shows and networks including – the E! Red Carpet at the Oscars Show, The Dr. Phil Show, Extra!, The Style Network, The TV Guide Network, CNN and more.

Today, as Senior Vice President of Marketing & PR for TACORI, Michelle oversees more than $5M in all media advertising, manages all partner marketing efforts, the publicity department, branded events, as well as supervising new and developing media opportunities such as digital, social and online marketing.

Acting as the head of corporate communication, Michelle’s formative training as a publicist and copywriter have instructed the TACORI consumer experience across all platforms, especially the critically transformative and ever-evolving Social Media landscape; such as launching the “Tacori Concierge” program, growing TACORI’s Facebook presence to almost 250,000 in under two years, and Twitter fanbase to more than 15,000 in less than a year.

Prior to her tenure at TACORI, Michelle was Director of Publicity for Norm Marshall & Associates, overseeing projects such as the Cadillac trendsetter program. Previously, she hailed from the Publicity department for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Michelle is originally from Illinois, where she graduated from Murphysboro High School in an accelerated program, and, in her final semester as a Senior, moved to Springfield, IL (the state Capital) to become an intern for the Governor of Illinois as part of the prestigious “Illinois Governmental Internship Program.”

At the University of Illinois at Chicago, Michelle earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, with a minor in French. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Honors College, and was inducted into the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa society.

Neeraj Arora is Assistant VP of Customer Experience at Farmers Insurance. He has been instrumental in shaping the path of data-driven decision making at Farmers and is helping transform the organization’s thinking on customer centricity.

Neeraj leads a team of actuaries, statisticians and business managers who act as internal consultants to a variety of business groups within Farmers, including Product Management, Underwriting, Claims, Customer Service, and Marketing. The team proactively and reactively identifies opportunities to leverage data to gain actionable insight on consumer behavior, and instigates change by influencing action.

Prior to joining Farmers in September 2007, Neeraj was a Business Manager at Capital One, responsible for creating and implementing strategies for maximizing value from current customers. Neeraj holds a Bachelor of Architecture from School of Planning and Architecture, India; and a MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.

Mike Ashe, Vice President with Mattersight, is focused on helping customers implement and leverage predictive and behavioral analytics to improve customer experience and reduce costs. He has over 25 years experience in the CRM technology and operations consulting space and has worked with dozens of clients across multiple industries to create business value. Prior to becoming a co-founder of Mattersight, Mr. Ashe was a partner in the CRM Practice at Deloitte and also led the CRM Practice within CapGemini’s (formerly Ernst & Young’s) Consumer Products division. Key enterprise clients include Bank of America, CVS Caremark, E*Trade Financial, Health Net, Hewlett-Packard, Kaiser Permanente, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Safeway, Vision Service Plan, Wells Fargo & Company and Williams-Sonoma.

A lifelong Las Vegan, Kevin Bagger grew up immersed in tourism and has administered Marketing programs for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) since the mid 1990’s. Dating back to his teen years working as a lifeguard at the Las Vegas Hilton, Kevin has been fascinated by the diversity of the travelers visiting his hometown and has devoted his career to tourism at both the resort and destination level. Doing his part to help keep the tourism engine running in his hometown, Kevin monitors market trends of the tourism and convention industries, implements the LVCVA’s digital marketing programs and oversees the organization’s advertising efforts, including its award-winning “What Happens Here Stays Here® campaign. Before joining the LVCVA, Kevin consulted on gaming company clients with Nevada’s largest ad agency, R&R Partners, and performed financial and operational analysis for Mirage Resorts prior to their merger with MGM Resorts International. A graduate of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas with a Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Kevin has served on the U.S. Travel Association’s (formerly TIA) DiscoverAmerica.com Advisory Council, the US Travel Association Research Committee and the Board of Directors of the Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA).

Helen Baynes is head of sales for THE NET-A-PORTER GROUP,　whose brands include NET-A-PORTER.COM, the world’s premier online luxury fashion retailer, THEOUTNET.COM, the most fashionable fashion outlet and MRPORTER.COM, the first global online menswear destination.　　She began her career at Harrods before joining NET-A-PORTER in 2002 in customer care.　Promoted to head of sales for THE NET-A-PORTER GROUP in 2010, this move has seen Helen tasked with revolutionizing NET-A-PORTER’s approach to customer service and aligning its brand values and standards. Helen has developed a dedicated in-house training team to instil and maintain standards of excellence. this move has seen Helen heading up both the　sales and customer care team and the personal shopping team across the group. Since then, Helen has gone on to build and lead customer care, personal shopping and fashion advisor teams.

Curtis N. Bingham is the founder & executive director of the Chief Customer Officer Council™, the first peer-led advisory group for CCOs. He was the first to promote the CCO role as catalyst for customer centricity and is the recognized authority on CCOs, having worked with more than 70 CCOs to create customer-centric cultures and drive profitable customer loyalty.

With the help of Council members, Curtis has created the CCO Roadmap, a groundbreaking work containing more than 100 prioritized, critical strategies essential for the success of customer-centric initiatives. Most recently chairperson of the 2010 North American Conference on Customer Management (NACCM), Curtis is a sought-after speaker and author of the forthcoming book, “The Key to Customer Strategy: The Rise of the Chief Customer Officer” that describes how CCOs can create a consistent, unified customer strategy to grow revenue, profit and loyalty.

For more than 15 years, he has helped companies dramatically increase customer acquisition, retention and customer profitability. He's uncovered millions of dollars in hidden profits for companies like Intuit, Microsoft, Standard & Poor's, Cardinal Health and smaller businesses.

Bingham also has published the annual Executive-Level Customer Champions report, covering firms such as Cisco, HP, Sun, Monster.com and Disney that includes the roles, responsibilities and best practices of CCOs worldwide to increase customer loyalty and profitability

He has worked with a variety of industries, including enterprise software, telecom, semiconductor, marketing automation, publishing, corporate gift and Internet advertising in addition to various non-profit organizations. He is a contributing editor for Sales & Marketing Excellence and a regular contributor to the Handbook of Business Strategy. Holding both an MBA from Lehigh University and a Master’s in Computer Science from Brigham Young University, Bingham has taught Demand Chain Management at Bentley College in Massachusetts, plus he is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants.

Nancy Camarota serves as the Director of Customer Experience at La-Z-Boy Incorporated. Before joining La-Z-Boy, Nancy worked in high tech companies such as HP, Covad and Time Warner Telecom in roles including sales, service, marketing and operations. She has worked across industries including service and consumer goods. Nancy began specializing in customer transformation as more companies indicated a desire to leverage their customer base as an asset. Transformation experience includes applying process methodology to service organizations, as well as engaging teams in the difficult work of changing behaviors and creating new possibilities. Her education and training is in science and engineering.

Mr. Carty is the Vice President of Culture, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Experience Officer for Vanguard Health Systems. Vanguard Health Systems owns & operates 28 hospitals, 2 health plans and a nursing school across San Antonio, Phoenix, Chicago, Detroit, South Texas, and New England, with over 40,000 employees committed to driving both health and health care.

As chief experience officer, Mr. Carty’s responsibilities include building an emotionally engaging, innovative, and collaborative culture for Vanguard’s employees and physicians, while creating a high reliability patient & family experience that emotionally engages & creates life-long relationships, focused around both health and health care. He drives organizational growth and consumer loyalty through patient satisfaction, consumer relationship management (CRM) & human factors engineering.

As chief marketing officer, Mr. Carty’s responsibilities include developing and executing on an internal communications platform to communicate the right message, in the right methodology, to the right people (employees & physicians), any time. Developing and executing on an internal recognition platform, a two-way communications platform, an affiliated physician communication platform, and partnering with the Vanguard systems to drive marketing, branding, a retail strategy, public relations, and media relations.

As Vice President of Culture, Mr. Carty’s responsibilities included leading Vanguard’s organizational development, organizational effectiveness, learning, succession planning, performance management, talent-based hiring, and leadership development, including founding Vanguard’s multidisciplinary corporate university.

Mr. Carty serves on the Advisory Board of Berly Institute and Advisory Board for the BluePrint Healthcare IT innovation exchange.

Prior to joining Vanguard Health Systems, Mr. Carty was a partner with Gallup Consulting, where he was responsible for leading the health care consulting for the Midwest, Texas, and Pacific Northwest divisions. Mr. Carty has extensive consulting experience with clients in the health care & hospitality industry on issues such as culture improvement, human capital management, operations process improvement, succession planning, physician partnership, organizational restructuring, mergers & acquisitions, and the employee-patient encounter. His consulting insights have helped his health care & hospitality clients from around the globe improve their bottom-line profit through organic growth, by improving their culture & consumer experience, based on human factors engineering & behavioral economics.

Prior to Gallup, Mr. Carty was part of the consulting & business development team for a leading PR and marketing firm. He was brought in to build & lead a service line focused on predictive modeling. The service line drove business development through advising around the effectiveness of company’s PR & marketing practices. He was also recruited by NASA to work on their space research team, where he determined different growth rates of E. coli in an oxygenated environment compared with a deoxygenated environment. Prior to joining NASA he founded a successful internet sales company selling goods for a top-branded retail organization. The company was purchased by one of the nation’s top internet companies four years after it was founded. Mr. Carty also serves as a medical missionary in Congo, Africa where he travels around the jungles giving medical attention to those who could not walk to a clinic to receive care.

Mr. Carty graduated top of his class in three years from Benedictine University, with duel bachelor degrees in biology and biochemistry. He then started to focus on medical school, but decided to get his MBA in Global Executive Leadership from the University of Nebraska instead. He has also advanced his learning with certifications in Lean Process Improvement from Toyota University, Information Technology from SUNY-Binghamton School of Management, as a Strengths Coach from Gallup University and in Corporate Restructuring, Mergers and Acquisitions from Harvard Business School.

Jason admires the kind of athletes who can lead while being part of a team. "Walter Payton, Joe Montana and Michael Jordan—I was lucky to grow up in such an era of great role models," he says. It’s not surprising, then, that his priorities as leader of Siegel+Gale’s West Coast operations reflect those of his boyhood heroes: energy, focus and clarity of purpose, along with a dose of humility. "If you take yourself too seriously," he points out, "you can’t be a great team player."

Among the Siegel+Gale client relationships Jason has managed are Baylor Health Care, Capital Research, Demand Media, Experian, Lexus, Lifescan, Microsoft, Nestlé, Qualcomm, Shell, Sony PlayStation, Southern California Edison, and Yahoo!

In his previous role of Executive Director, Interactive Media, Jason led Siegel+Gale’s Interactive Media practice worldwide, helping clients to maximize their brand presence in emerging digital media.

Prior to joining Siegel+Gale, Jason was the Marketing Director for Lee & Associates, one of the country’s premiere commercial real estate firms, where he established a full-service marketing department including regional advertising, marketing collateral, standardized business development systems, and implemented a company wide database management system.

Jason attended the University of California, Riverside, where he received a BS in Business Administration, and is a graduate of Omnicom’s Senior Management Program. He’s a frequent speaker and panelist at marketing and new media conferences and has been featured at American Marketing Association, CES, The Conference Board, CTI Expo, Internet World, KMWorld, PCIA GlobalXchange, Silicon Valley Brand Forum, Southern California Software Association, and Digital Hollywood.

A proven innovator, Trae focuses on the integration of analytics, technology, and customer experience. As a senior strategist and analytical leader for Targetbase, he has been a key contributor to the customer engagement agency’s No. 1 ranking in analytics in the last three Forrester Wave market reports.

Trae’s experience is international and comes from a variety of fields, including packaged goods, durable goods, pharmaceutical, travel, health care, automotive, financial services, and retail. He has delivered measurable results for Fortune 500 companies for 15+ years. Trae is passionate about developing evidence-based approaches to drive more effective, relevant digital marketing.

His most recent areas of concentration include:

Trae is a recognized leader in analytics, digital marketing technology, and relationship marketing. He has been a featured speaker at industry conferences including OMMA, ad:tech, and eTail. Recent publications include: Quantitative assessment of purchase impact attributable to consumer patterns of engagement with online relationship marketing content, Journal of Analytics; and Using marketing analytics to drive innovation, Journal of Digital Asset Management.

Linda DeArmond Young has more than 20 years of experience in marketing strategies and technologies, and is currently the Director of Acxiom’s Addressable Advertising product team. Under Linda’s leadership, the team is focused on audience targeted advertising across online, mobile and TV channels, as well as Acxiom’s expansion into the Data Management Platform (DMP) space.

While Linda currently works with key advertisers, agencies, and partners in the digital eco-system, her career has spanned the data and marketing spectrum. She has held numerous leadership roles at Acxiom from solutions architecture to research analyst, and also served as the product leader of Acxiom’s AbiliTec product, the premier customer data recognition technology.

Linda is passionate about new data capabilities, especially in the digital world, and the opportunities they offer marketers to engage their customers like never before. She has presented at Ad:Tech, NCDM, DMA, and OMMA, among others, and has published a variety of marketing articles.

Linda received her bachelor’s of computer science from the University of Arkansas. A native of Little Rock, Linda currently resides in Costa Rica.

Brian Dennis is the Director of Customer Service, Events and Recognition for Kohl’s Department Stores. In his current role, Dennis’s team creates and implements strategies that drive an exceptional customer experience.

Kohl’s recently placed #1 for the third year in a row as the nation’s favorite fashion retail chain, according to a survey conducted by Market Force Information, a leading customer intelligence solutions firm.

Matt Driscoll is an Executive Vice President for West Business Solutions, responsible for operations and client services within our Service Lifecycle service line. Matt’s team is responsible for 18 contact centers located domestically, near-shore and offshore, as well as, thousands of home-based associates located across the United States. Matt’s team is focused on creating customized care solutions that help our clients achieve their desired outcomes and more effectively connect with their customers.

Matt has been with West for 16 years serving in different client service roles. In that time, Matt and his team has helped various clients earn numerous J.D. Power awards for Customer Satisfaction within their respective industries.

BJ Emerson is an award winning social technology executive who has a long and consistent track record of innovation and leadership within the organizations he serves. BJ's unique perspective comes in part from spearheading the integration of the Tasti D-Lite brand experience with online communities and was largely responsible for taking the brand from a place of social negligence to social prominence in just a few short years. He has appeared on CNBC, has been quoted in The New York Times, Reuters, Inc magazine, Entrepreneur, and AdAge as well as numerous other publications including the cover Hospitality Technology magazine. His revolutionary use of mobile coupons on Twitter in 2009 earned Tasti D-Lite a spot in Twitter’s Business 101 Case Studies which ultimately led to invitations for Tasti D-Lite to be launch partners with business products for companies such as Foursquare and Google.

Considered a social loyalty pioneer in the industry, in 2010 he led the deployment of the first ever loyalty platform to feature an integration with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare which has been recognized with a variety of industry awards. BJ was once named in Mashable’s Top 40 Brands on Twitter and the People Behind Them and his projects have been featured as case studies in 6 different books due out in 2011. BJ also provided the foreward to Location Based Marketing for Dummies.

BJ currently sits on the board of SNAP Services, LLC which is the first Social Network Appreciation Platform to enable businesses to bring together point-of-sale transactions and the digital word-of-mouth customer rewards.

As President and CEO of ForeSee Results, Larry is responsible for managing the company's strategy and growth. Since the company's founding in 2001, he has overseen significant growth in its client base, revenues and staff. Larry brings more than 20 years experience in senior management and in directing e-commerce and technology initiatives to ForeSee Results.

An expert on the cross-channel customer experience and author of Managing Forward: How to Move From Measuring the Past to Managing the Future, Larry speaks extensively on the topic at private and public sector industry events and has been quoted in numerous publications and media, including CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Investor's Business Weekly, Internet Retailer, Multichannel Merchant, DM News, Computerworld, Federal Computer Week and Government Executive, among many others.

Previously, Larry held several senior executive positions at Compuware Corporation, leading a variety of e-commerce and professional services programs. Most recently, he served as Vice President of e-Business, where he was responsible for directing the national e-Business practice and for the design, development and implementation of e-Business strategies for numerous companies.

Before joining Compuware, Larry held various positions including Chief Technology Officer at Bank One (formerly First Chicago NBD and NBD Bank).

Larry is currently on the Board of Directors and the executive committee of the Ann Arbor IT Zone, and previously held leadership positions at ASC X12, a national EDI standards group, and various other industry groups.

Larry holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Wayne State University.

Roei Ganzarski is Chief Customer Officer for Boeing Flight Services (BFS). BFS provides aircraft operators worldwide with the required products and services to safely and efficiently operate their airplanes. Services range from navigation and mission planning, to real-time flight optimization tools, to airplane manuals and onboard software, through flight simulation and pilot training to the provision of pilots to airlines all the way to air traffic management solutions. Customers include the world’s airlines, governments, militaries and private operators, in addition to some maritime and rail customers (unique services offered by our subsidiary Jeppesen).

Roei’s responsibilities include leading all customer and market facing activity worldwide including: business development, communications, customer service, marketing, sales, sales operations, and strategy. Additionally Roei leads the customer engagement culture transformation for the business. Roei’s other key positions with Boeing (including former Alteon and FlightSafetyBoeing) have included Chief Customer Officer Training, Vice President of Sales, Director of Marketing, Director of New Ventures, and Director of Sales and Business Development for Asia-Pacific.

Prior to joining BT&FS in 1999 (then named FlightSafetyBoeing and renamed Alteon in 2003), Roei’s experiences included: private investment banking; corporate finance; advertising; public relations; security; and the military as an officer in combat and training units.

Roei is a graduate of Wharton’s Advanced Management Program; earned an MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business; and a BA in Economics from the University of Haifa.

On the personal side, Roei’s passions are archery, skydiving, scuba diving and snowboarding. He also loves to travel and explore our world’s various cultures. He has served on various community boards and is currently a member of the University of Washington Foster School of Business Global Business Advisory Board. He resides with his wife and three children in Issaquah, Washington.

Larry oversees marketing and strategic initiatives as the Executive Vice President at Robbins Brothers, The Engagement Ring Store with a dozen destination stores in Southern California, Dallas and Houston. Finding the elusive 1% of couples who plan to get engaged is a challenge, especially given the fact that this milestone event is a huge secret kept from everyone but the proposer’s closest family members and friends. Consistent brand messaging to the target demographic, across all touch points and across all media channels, in addition to an organic public relations and social media push 365 days a year, ensures that the majority of men and women in the market for a diamond engagement ring make Robbins Brothers a “must visit” website and retail store when they decide to start shopping for their symbol of love.

Prior to joining Robbins Brothers in 2003, Larry worked at the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company and at U.K. retail giant Marks & Spencer. Larry holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is a CPA. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife, two sons and labradoodle.

David Gudai heads up the marketing initiatives at Storkie, a leading online source for custom-printed invitations and cards. His expertise comes from hands-on experience building and optimizing both SEM and SEO initiatives, in addition to SMM and brand development. From game theory to stochastic modeling, David leverages multiple disciplines to successfully position and grow market share. He holds a Bachelor of Science and two Master of Science degrees from Stanford University.

Paul serves Customer Experience Professionals who are working on enterprise-wide efforts that cross channels and business segments. His research focuses on defining a customer experience strategy (B2C and B2B), building organizational culture, and appointing a chief customer officer. Secondary areas of research include CRM, voice of the customer, and customer experience measurement. Paul returned to Forrester after eight years of running his own consulting business, which provided business, marketing, environmental sustainability, and technology planning services to executives at a broad range of organizations. Formerly at Forrester for five years, Paul led research efforts on customer relationship management, personalization, customer experience, self-service tools, search and intelligent agents, online education, and knowledge management strategies. Prior to his first stint at Forrester, Paul was the strategy and marketing manager at Accenture, where he helped launch and market one of the early software-as-a-service offerings. He has also worked as a business development manager at BBN Technologies. Paul has a soft spot for education, having worked as a high school math teacher in Malawi with the Peace Corps and as the national placement director for Teach For America in its startup years. Paul holds an M.Ed. from Harvard University, where his area of concentration was educational technology and online learning. He also holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Stanford University.

Norman Hajjar is the Chief Customer Officer at Guitar Center, Inc., the world's biggest retailer of musical instruments and gear, online and offline. Having served as the CMO for over 3 years, his new role is to implement the Voice of the Customer initiative within the Guitar Center brands, as well as driving brand strategy, customer loyalty, segment marketing, and customer insights.

He plays a dozen or so instruments, which comes in handy. In his past life, he worked in senior management positions in agencies that include Young & Rubicam, Grey, DDB, Saatchi and Saatchi, with clients that included Sony, Procter and Gamble, Hasbro, Canon and many others. He also created his own agency, Hajjar & Partners, where he established one of the first new media operations in 1994, pioneering the first full-time Internet only radio station, Radio HK.

A 33-year veteran of the gaming industry, Bill Hornbuckle serves as Chief Marketing Officer for MGM Resorts International. In this role, he provides corporate oversight for all marketing functions throughout the company, in addition to oversight for the MGM Grand Macau property. His responsibilities focus entirely on positioning the MGM Resorts portfolio of properties, driving profitability, strengthening loyalty programs, synergizing efforts and leveraging our company’s incredible assets. Bill also serves as President and Chief Operating Officer for MAC Corp., an MGM Resorts Atlantic City Development subsidiary.

From 2005 until August of 2009, Bill served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. He had previously served as President and COO of MGM MIRAGE-Europe, where he worked on the development of the company’s gaming operations in the United Kingdom. He also served as President and Chief Operating Officer of MGM Grand Hotel & Casino.

Prior to MGM Grand, Bill served as President and Chief Operating Officer for Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. He spent the majority of his career with Mirage Resorts in various senior management positions, including President and Chief Operating Officer of the Golden Nugget Laughlin, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Treasure Island, and Vice President of Hotel Operations for The Mirage, opening the hotel in 1989.

Bonita Inza recently joined Limited Brands in the newly created role of Senior Vice President, Associate and Customer Engagement for the Bath & Body Works division. In this role, she is responsible for developing and executing strategies and initiatives that deepen and enrich the associate and customer relationship.

Prior to joining Bath & Body Works, Bonita held several senior executive roles at T-Mobile USA, including Vice President of their multi-billion dollar retail organization. There, Bonita also started an internal skunk-works team that delivered a portfolio of future-oriented distribution concepts and service model offerings. She later integrated her skunk-works team with the company’s internal product design group to create and lead ID2, an in-house agency of over 90 inter-disciplinary professionals focused on the innovation, design and delivery of mobile communications products and services.

With 25 years of retail leadership experience prior to T-Mobile, Bonita honed her ability to deliver business results and build strong customer experiences at some of the top specialty retail brands in the world serving in senior executive roles at Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and GUESS?.

Bonita, a California native, graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in San Francisco with a degree in Fashion Merchandising & Management. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with her chef-husband and their two beloved (and spoiled) German Short-Haired Pointers. In her spare time, she enjoys yoga, travel, and twittering.

Eric Jagher is Senior Director, Strategic Guidance, Insights, and Planning　for　U.S. Cellular, which　is the nation's sixth-largest wireless carrier. U.S. Cellular provides a comprehensive range of wireless products and services, unmatched customer service and a high-speed nationwide network to approximately 5.9 million customers in 26 states.　

Eric played a leadership role in the strategic development behind The Belief Project, which builds customer loyalty by replacing recurring contracts with incentives from the industry's only points-based rewards program.　This unique value proposition was launched in October 2010 and has drawn accolades from J.D. Power and Associates, which named U.S. Cellular a Customer Service Champion two years in a row, and the readers of PC Magazine selected U.S. Cellular as their top wireless carrier in 2011.

Eric leads all customer experience strategy, insights, strategic planning, and forecasting functions for the Marketing organization including competitive, industry, and consumer insights, business results analysis and strategic long-range forecasting.　Eric received his　bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Margaret I. Kędziora is the Director of Customer Care & Quality for Philips Lighting North America. In this role Margaret is responsible for effectively managing post-purchase quality Complaints, driving business process improvement activities throughout the commercial organization and actively managing the company’s NPS program. The NPS activities include managing the strategic NPS process and improvement activities as well as transactional NPS for the complaint activity.

In her prior roles with Siemens Building Technologies Margaret was responsible for implementing and managing NPS across the North America Organization. This implementation included development of the survey & data collection plans, reporting and infrastructure for identifying & driving the appropriate improvement activities.

My name is Scott and I'm a Bay Area kid, born in San Francisco, CA. Go SF Giants! I attended Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, and moved to Las Vegas in 1999. After five years of working at poor service, typical Vegas call center jobs, I luckily found Zappos. I've been with Zappos CLT Inc since May 2004 and it has been hands down the best place to work. I started out on the phones, ground level, assisting our customers, then moved over to our email team, later shifting to our Resource Desk, and soon after became a Lead. After a few years, I became a Supervisor, and eventually a Manager. Zappos CLT is one of the only places I've ever worked at where opportunity for growth is available. I simply had to work hard and contribute to the culture and the rewards followed. My primary role with Zappos CLT now is to live and deliver Wow. I'm very passionate about the level of service we provide our customers, whether external and internal, so Wow is always something in the forefront of each decision made. We live and breathe our 10 Core Values at Zappos, so please feel free to take a look: http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values

I enjoy spreading the word about our Zappos culture and service, speaking with college students at Purdue University, and sharing tips and tricks with other companies when they visit us through our Zappos Insights Team. Check them out: http://www.zapposinsights.com/main/

I look forward to sharing my experiences with you!

Mohamed Latib is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of PeriscopeIQ. He leads the company's practice in employee and customer engagement. In this role, his task is to explore innovations to assure that the outcome of projects are grounded in scientific methods so that executives are confident making decisions to drive business performance.

He was formerly the Dean of Gwynedd-Mercy College's School of Business and Center for Lifelong Learning. Prior to that, he was Vice-President for Program and Strategic Development at DeSales University where he headed the MBA Program and led the University's international initiatives that resulted in the implementation of programs in Romania, Italy, Peru and India.

Dr. Latib was among the pioneers of the 360-degree performance system and has served as a consultant to some of the country's leading business organizations, including Air Products, Pennsylvania Power and Light, Unisys, Siemens, Smithfield Beef and the World Bank. He has received over $4 million in grants to support businesses to develop employees and create employment in Pennsylvania. He has also received multiple federal grants to prepare students for a global reality.

Dr. Latib has conducted senior executive and middle management development programs in the U.S. and Canada. He has also been an invited key note speaker at numerous US professional and international organizations, including the Club of Rome, Buenos Aires Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club of Kolkatta, to name a few.

He is an active member of numerous professional organizations and serves on several boards. He served as President of the International Management Development Association, and currently serves as President of the Pennsylvania Council on International Education. He holds an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from The Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University.

John joined American Express in 2010 and is responsible for front- and back-office service delivery across the Americas.　John is responsible for voice of the customer process, including research, analytics, and change management. He is also responsible for quality assurance and customer issue analytics. John’s teams oversee programs to improve the customer experience for all service channels.

Prior to joining American Express, John spent 14 years in financial services, focusing on operations, operational quality controls, process improvement, and quantitative research and analysis. John holds a B.A. in criminal justice from Fairmont State University and is currently working on his MBA.

Gael Lundeen is Vice President of Customer Experience for Pitney Bowes Inc., the $6.1 billion global mailstream technology firm. In her role, she is a change agent for transforming the customer experience across a multitude of customer interactions across the company’s products and services.

Ms. Lundeen has more than 25 years of experience at several Fortune 100 companies. She has actively led several business transformations to adapt to changing market dynamics and deliver higher customer value.

Prior to joining Pitney Bowes, Ms. Lundeen was General Manager of Photofinishing and Web Services at Fujifilm where she managed the commercial photo finishing business. Prior to that, she was Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, E-business at Xerox Engineering Systems. From 1994 to1998, Ms. Lundeen was Vice President of Marketing at IBM. There, she created a new sector for home PCs, and tripled the business in four years. As General Manager of the Cooking and Beverage Business at Black and Decker, Ms. Lundeen managed P&L for a $130 million business unit. Her career began at General Electric where she was a product manager for healthcare appliances.

Ms. Lundeen holds an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. She also earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard University. She has been published in both the Journal of Ethics and the Design Management Journal.

Jack Mackey is Vice President and "Chief Evangelist" for SMG, a leading customer experience research firm that assists companies in driving top line growth worldwide. Jack has personally consulted with organizations such as MasterCard, Disney, the International Customer Service Association and many others.　

He is a founding member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association and Past President of the American Society for Training and Development in Kansas City. He’s also the author of regular columns in Franchise Update Magazine on measuring the customer experience and earning customer loyalty.

Jack is passionate about action - helping companies energize their people to create loyalty-inspiring customer experiences. He teaches performance improvement strategies nationwide and is legendary for instilling a spirit of "creative discontent" in his audiences.

Mark McCormick is Senior Vice President Internet Services Group Customer Experience for Wells Fargo. An 8-year veteran of the company, Mark is responsible for the overarching vision, strategy and design of customer experience within the interface for the Wells Fargo Online and Mobile Banking channels.

Mark began his career in content and strategy development in 1986 as an acquisitions editor and developmental editor for Addison Wesley Publishing in Palo Alto. He then went on to spend six years with Ikonic in San Francisco negotiating all client contracts, securing Ikonic’s intellectual property, with clients such as Microsoft and Disney. Mark also developed the discipline of content strategy emphasizing the primacy of content in the digital economy. At the same time, he was leading a team that articulated and codified a user-centered design approach to digital customer experience.

He went on to serve as managing director of Scient, overseeing a 360 person Internet design and content strategy practice. Mark became a team member of Wells Fargo’s Internet Services group (ISG) in July of 2003.

Currently, Mark’s multi-functional team of 60 information architects, developers, user-interface designers, content strategists and visual designers are responsible for creating world-class, multi-channel customer experiences for nearly 20 million online banking customers and more than 6 million mobile customers. Beyond managing this team and their responsibility for customer experience design, Mark has been a thought leader or sponsor on several initiatives at Wells Fargo that examine and model the future of online banking.

Mark graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Idaho State University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He has done graduate work in writing and painting at Colorado State University and UC Berkeley Extension respectively.

Following being awarded the Wells Fargo Volunteer Leave Award in 2009, Mark spent three months in India, working to help found the HIV Medicine Association of India. His interest in philanthropy and service extends to community board work and active involvement and leadership in Wells Fargo’s Community Support Campaigns.

Andrew McInnes directs product marketing at Allegiance, helping to communicate the value of current solutions and guide solutions of the future. He also contributes to industry thought leadership through blog posts, papers, webinars, and speeches.

Andrew joins Allegiance from Forrester Research, where he spent five years in the firm’s customer experience research practice. As an analyst, Andrew led Forrester’s research and consulting in key areas like voice of the customer, voice of the employee, and customer journey mapping. He also published the first in-depth evaluation of the VOC software market.

Candy is a customer loyalty and feedback executive with over 20 years of financial services and individual life insurance operations experience. In 2006, Candy joined the Customer Feedback Office to raise customer experience to a best in class level and create a new standard of feedback collection for the American General Life Companies. Her specialties are providing design, deployment and analytical support across American General Life Companies business segments to enable deeper insights and smarter, faster decisions, working as a liaison between businesses and feedback vendors.

Candy has managed all aspects of Life Insurance Operations for multiple American General Businesses during her career including New Business, Customer Service, Premium Services, and Consumer Affairs, as well as corporate assignments in Strategic Projects and Reengineering.

Tracey Mustacchio brings more than 20 years of marketing, business development and product management experience to Vivisimo. In her current role at Vivisimo, Tracey is responsible for the company¹s global marketing initiatives, including its go-to-market and product strategies.

Prior to joining Vivisimo, Tracey served as Chief Marketing Officer for TraceSecurity, an innovative SaaS-based security compliance provider.

Previous to TraceSecurity, Tracey held senior level marketing and product management positions at McAfee, Verisign, Secure Software (acquired by Fortify Software), and Business Evolution (acquired by Kana). During her tenure at McAfee, she led product marketing and product management for all product lines which played a pivotal role in growing revenue from $25 million to more than $900 million. At Business Evolution, she successfully positioned the company as a strategic eCRM provider and was instrumental in the company¹s sale to Kana Communication for $140 million. Tracey also operated her own strategic marketing consultancy which specialized in providing marketing and product management consulting to fast growing companies. Tracey earned B.A. degrees in Math/Computer Science and Philosophy from Virginia Wesleyan College where she graduated as 1 of 10 Wesleyan Scholars.

Baochi Nguyen has recently joined RingCentral, the #1 cloud-based phone system for businesses. At RingCentral, Baochi oversees the social strategy and community management. She is currently implementing a superfan and loyalty program, a social CRM platform, and a community curation experience. Previous to RingCentral, Baochi led the social strategy at Boingo Wireless, where her work earned recognition from Mashable, Entrepreneur Magazine, and various book publications. As a communicator and technophile, Baochi aims to convey technology's uses and benefits in ways that are easily accessible and understood by everyday consumers and business users. Baochi holds Bachelor and Master’s degrees from Stanford University, CA.

Hilary Noon began her career working in the Office of Product Development and Licensing at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. where her work focused on taking physical elements of the organizations’ mission and turning them into products that would meet the needs and interests of the consuming public. Since then she has continued to build on that initial experience by holding a variety of roles where listening to and understanding the customer were central to her responsibilities.

Hilary began her tenure with the American Cancer Society as a research analyst, followed by a variety of roles in fundraising and Marketing. Having been at ACS since the organizations’ decision to adopt a CRM strategy, Hilary has experienced its evolution from an organization that focuses on technology and data to one that uses data to develop insight and create impact, to the organization it is today which is striving to put the customer and patient experience front and center. Hilary has 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector having consulted on projects nationally and internationally with National Geographic, the Nature Conservancy, the National Park Service and the US Agency for International Development.

Hilary has a bachelor degree in Anthropology from UC Santa Barbara and masters degrees from both San Francisco State and the George Washington University School of Business.

Marc Parrish is vice president, retention & loyalty marketing, Barnes & Noble.com. In this role, Mr. Parrish oversees all aspects of our Membership program, manages our various marketing initiatives (e.g., direct, e-mail, community), and executes programs to retain and grow our customers’ loyalty to the Barnes & Noble brands.

Mr. Parrish is a 20-year veteran of e-commerce and has been on the cutting edge of e-marketing since its inception, building large, direct marketing-driven e-commerce sites and online communities, as well as executing multi-channel retailing strategies. Before joining Barnes & Noble, he held senior marketing and management roles at Jigsaw (acquired by Salesforce.com), Capcom Entertainment, where he helped launch the online entertainment business; Palm Inc., where he helped initiate the e-commerce business; and Egghead.com (acquired by Amazon).

Mr. Parrish has an MBA from UCLA and an engineering degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Milton F. Pedraza is the CEO of the Luxury Institute, LLC. Through the use of proprietary surveying techniques with high net worth consumers, Mr. Pedraza has established the New York-based Luxury Institute as the trusted and impartial luxury brand ratings and research and Luxury CRM consulting institution that is the voice of high net-worth consumers. Today, luxury goods and services firms, luxury professionals, high net worth consumers, and the international press, all rely on the Institute for its impartial ratings and best practices insights on to how to better serve high net-worth clients globally.

Luxury Institute has intimate working relationships with the world’s top luxury brands. Mr. Pedraza combines research, with unique and proprietary knowledge of Luxury CRM Culture, to assist brands in significantly enhancing CRM practices in order to measurably increase financial results. Using techniques that have been proven to deliver measurable customer loyalty and financial results by companies such as Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Nordstrom, Tiffany & Co., Lexus, Apple, and even Zappos, Mr. Pedraza customizes best practices to each client’s unique DNA. The Luxury Institute helps to create a self-reinforcing customer-centric culture that consistently delivers extraordinary customer experiences that make customers and associates feel special. The implementation of this culture helps luxury brands to not only Outperform its competitors, but also to dramatically and measurably Outbehave them while increasing sales and profits. Mr. Pedraza is a world-class authority on Customer Relationship Management with an expertise in understanding Customer Experience directly from the voice of the luxury consumer. Prior to founding the Luxury Institute, Milton served in Finance, Marketing, Sales and Senior Management positions at Fortune 100 companies Altria, Pepsico, Colgate, Citigroup and Wyndham Worldwide. Today, Mr. Pedraza is an author and speaker at the world's foremost Financial Services, Travel and Leisure, Real Estate and Luxury Conferences. As an executive and private investor, Milton has conducted business in over ninety countries and speaks several languages. He is the most quoted expert on luxury around the globe.

Eric Petersen leads the New Media program for Caesars Entertainment. In this role, Eric is responsible for developing social media and mobile marketing strategies for over forty casino resorts nationwide. Eric has been in the digital marketing space for the past six years and studied at the University of Southern California.

As the CEO of CFI Group, Sheri manages offices across 4 continents from its world headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Sheri joined CFI Group in 2000, where she integrated Customer Satisfaction Metrics into client organizations at strategic and tactical levels. She soon became the director of U.S. Government and financial client projects. In 2006, CFI Group appointed Sheri to Partner. In 2008, she was chosen by the international board of directors to be the new CEO and worldwide managing partner.

Sheri’s 25 years of experience began at the University of Michigan, where she graduated at the top of her class. She completed her MBA, with Honors, at the University of Chicago. Over the next 11 years, Sheri worked for Kraft Foods, Quaker Oats, and eventually became the head of the Kolcraft Enterprises Marketing department as　Director of market analysis, new product research, package development, and advertising.

As Executive Director, Mary Linda is responsible for the strategic oversight and operations for the Office of Patient Experience at the Cleveland Clinic. Her leadership responsibilities include defining tactics and initiatives to improve the patient experience throughout the Cleveland Clinic Health System across various aspects of the continuum of care. As part of her role, Mary Linda is also responsible for creating partnerships with system leaders to assure coordination and support of all initiatives related to patient experience. Under her leadership, several programs have been developed and implemented that have been proven to positively impact the patient experience and related patient experience measures.

Louis is a Director of Product Management for Packaged Analytics within Acxiom’s Global Data and Data Technologies group. He has over 25 years of experience in the use of both customer and external data to optimize targeting and maximize marketing effectiveness.

Louis began his career applying statistical data processing to problems in underwater acoustics for the U.S. Navy at the University of Texas. After joining Acxiom in 1986 he held various leadership positions in Acxiom’s Research & Development group and later headed up the development teams responsible for early versions of Acxiom’s Consumer Data Integration technologies. Since 2004 Louis has led the Packaged Analytics group responsible for developing and commercializing syndicated predictive analytics and segmentation systems, including the Personicx product lines

He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and a graduate of Hendrix College with a B.A. in physics.

Michael Sachs has been at the forefront of redefining customer-centric communications for over 20 years. Michael began his career at Lohmeyer-Simpson Communications and Automatic Data Processing (ADP) before moving to Jaguar Cars/Ford Motor Company where he served as the Global CRM and eBusiness Manager. Michael then moved to BMW of North America where he served as Customer Experience Manager. During his time at BMW, he developed programs and training initiatives that enabled dealers to deliver on the customer experience. In 2006, Michael became Director, CRM & Digital Marketing at Diageo, North America. In 2009, Michael returned to the automotive industry and is currently the General Manager, CRM & Loyalty for Volkswagen of America. Michael leads the organization to create a more relevant and personalized experience for each prospect and owner. Throughout Michael’s career he has won many awards, including being named a 1to1 Media Customer Champion for 2010.

As chief executive officer, Tim Searcy brings 25 years of direct marketing and teleservices experience to ACCENT where he is responsible for leading and growing the company's engagement management business unit.

Prior to joining ACCENT in 2011, Searcy served as CEO of the American Teleservices Association (ATA), the only non-profit trade organization dedicated exclusively to the advancement of companies that utilize contact centers as an integral channel of operations. During his tenure, Searcy fought to preserve the balance of business operations and industry-wide regulation on behalf of more than 4,000 contact centers and over 1.8 million teleservices professionals worldwide. Additionally, his vision for self regulation led to the creation of the association's self regulatory organization (ATA SRO), a standard setting and auditing organization that has received support from the Federal Trade Commission.

Before assuming his leadership role with the ATA in 2003, Searcy served as a senior executive for some of the world's largest and fastest growing direct marketing companies, including West Teleservices, APAC Teleservices, Transcom Worldwide and Rapp Collins. Additionally, he has worked throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean to encourage growth, regulatory compliance and the establishment of best practices throughout the teleservices industry. In these roles, Searcy drove the development of over $2 billion in outsourced teleservices and direct marketing solutions worldwide.

Searcy's professional accomplishments include being inducted into the Teleservices Hall of Fame and receiving Customer Inter@ction Solutions' Lifetime Achievement Award. He is an American Teleservices Association board member as well as a member of the Board of Directors for the University of Akron's Taylor Institute for Direct Marketing. Tim is also an accomplished speaker, industry spokesperson and author on topics such as CEO leadership, sales and marketing.

Jonathan Storey is VP Global Guest Experience, Disney Store Worldwide, a role to which he was promoted in 2011. In this position, he is responsible for leading the strategy to make the Disney Store more than just a place to buy great Disney products, but a place to have ‘a magical Disney experience’. Bringing retail and entertainment together, along with Disney’s world-class customer service, his role touches every aspect of the business.

A Disney veteran from Europe, Storey’s career with the company spans over 20 years and started as an Assistant Manager in a Disney Store in the UK in 1992. He quickly progressed through various roles within Europe. Prior to relocating to the US, Storey held the position of Marketing & Experience Director, Disney Store Europe with responsibility for delivering multiple initiatives to advance the experiences offered within the Disney Stores across the European territory.

Storey has more than 25 years retail experience and prior to his time with The Walt Disney Company, he worked for a number of UK-based retailers.

Shari Storm has been with the credit union industry since 1998.

Under Shari's leadership, her company’s use of social media has earned them a Net.Banker Innovator of the Decade. Shari has been asked to speak around the country on various topics related to innovation. She was a member of Filene's prestigious i3 team and recently won a CUES Rising 100 Award.

Shari has an undergraduate degree in speech communications from the University of Washington and earned her MBA from Seattle University. In 2009, she published the book Motherhood is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to be a Better Boss (St. Martin’s Press). Her book has been featured in Costco Connection, Redbook, Time Magazine and Martha Stewart’s radio program to name a few. It is being published in Brazil and China.

She lives with her family near Seattle Washington.

Peter Whalen has worked in technology and software industries for more than 23 years, most recently as EVP, Americas at Confirmit.

Previously, Peter was Vice President North America at Sand Technology, Vice President / GM of the Telecommunications Division at HNC Software, Vice President of Global Sales at HNC Software, and Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Product Development at Systems/Link Corporation. Prior to joining Systems/Link, he held various management positions in finance, marketing, and operations at Verizon Wireless.

As Vice President of Strategy, Dave is responsible for driving thought leadership, vision and direction across each of Cynergy's divisions. An avid and engaging speaker, Dave frequently presents at industry-leading conferences worldwide, as well as to key press and analysts.

In earlier lives, Dave held senior engineering and marketing management positions at major software corporations including Microsoft and Sybase. Officially based in Cynergy's headquarters in DC, he is often on the road more than he is in the District, espousing Cynergy's work, research and experience in designing and creating incredible software experiences.