CX Network is proud to unveil our 2026 guide to the top 30 contact center leaders you need to follow this year!
From executives running global operations of thousands of agents to practitioners reimagining what a single contact center can be, this year's list shines a spotlight on the individuals proving that the contact center is no longer a cost center - it's where customer loyalty is won or lost. At a time of artificial intelligence (AI) disruption, rising customer expectations and intense pressure on frontline teams, these are the leaders finding the balance between automation and empathy, and doing the real work of turning every customer contact into business value.
To curate this year's list, the CX Network editorial team considered a range of factors, including social media influence, industry experience, areas of expertise, recent achievements, and thought leadership. We also opened a nomination form for individuals to nominate either themselves, a member of their team, or someone they find inspiring. As ever, our selection reflects the diverse range of voices, roles, regions and industries that make up today's global contact center community - from Canada to Nigeria, France to Australia, and everywhere in between. Many of those featured also shared their views on what a truly great contact center looks like in 2026, and the biggest challenges facing leaders today - you'll find their answers throughout.
Arranged in alphabetical order by surname, each profile explains why the individual stands out. Scroll through to discover who's making waves, or click a name in the table below to jump straight to their profile.
table
BRYCE ACKERMAN
Roche | USA
Bryce Ackerman is an internal workforce management consultant at Roche, where he acts as a strategic planning consultant across the company's Customer Support Center in Indianapolis. He is the department forecaster for ten multi-skilled teams spanning voice, email, chat and portal ticketing, and his advanced capacity planning and staffing models support service delivery to more than 500,000 customers annually. His work tracking scheduling effectiveness earned him the global 2023 Calabrio Innovator Award.
For Ackerman, the fundamentals of a great contact center are human. "Even with the expectations and challenges of AI and WFH making it harder to coach and develop their teams, a truly great contact center doesn't lose sight of connecting with their people. Humans need connection, and we thrive when there's an outlet to brainstorm, be creative, and feel needed. The World Cup has been special for many reasons, but seeing all of the players talk, hug, laugh, and genuinely enjoy the company of their opponents after a game has been amazing! That human connection is important for all of us, and a great contact center recognizes it," he told CX Network.
Ackerman is speaking at All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026 – registration is free and open now.
Find out what Bryce Ackerman is talking about on LinkedIn.
FAITH ALIGA
Credlanche Limited | Nigeria
Faith Aliga is head of customer experience (CX) at Lagos-based Credlanche Limited, where she develops and executes the company's CX strategy, leads its CX team and maps the customer journey to identify pain points and opportunities for enhancement. Her remit spans quality assurance, KPI tracking and voice of the customer programs, turning customer insights into product and service improvements.
"A truly great contact center in 2026 is one that's evolved into a strategic experience platform, driving loyalty and revenue growth," Aliga told CX Network, pointing to seamless omnichannel experiences – where customers can switch between channels without repeating themselves – and AI-powered efficiency as its defining characteristics. The biggest challenge facing leaders today, she says, "is balancing efficiency with empathy and customer satisfaction." Her answer is a focus on human-AI collaboration, "leveraging AI for routine tasks, while ensuring agents are empowered to provide empathetic support," alongside investment in agent training and close monitoring of metrics like first call resolution to ensure AI adoption aligns with customer needs.
Find out what Faith Aliga is talking about on LinkedIn.
HEATHER ARTHUR
Scotiabank | Canada
Heather Arthur is vice president of global client experience centres at Scotiabank, where she leads more than 3,000 employees across six global sites. Responsible for revenue generation, client experience transformation, operational excellence and client loyalty across business banking, lending, credit and fraud, her leadership has delivered more than $50 million in revenue growth, upwards of $40 million in cost savings and industry-low attrition. Beyond the bank, Arthur is the founder of executive coaching practice More Good Humans, host of The Say YES Movement Podcast and a sought-after keynote speaker on courageous leadership, empathy and future-ready teams.
"The best contact centres won't be defined by the AI they deploy; they will be defined by the culture they build around it," Arthur told CX Network. "Technology is moving fast, human expectations are moving even faster, that is why culture matters more than ever."
Want to hear more from Arthur? She's speaking at All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026 - a free webinar series you can register for here.
Find out what Heather Arthur is talking about on LinkedIn.
CHRISTINA BELL
BCD Travel | USA
Christina Bell is vice president of contact center solutions at BCD Travel, capping a 16-year career at the global travel management company that has taken her from workforce management to strategic leadership of its contact center solutions team.
As senior director she collaborated with key stakeholders on a strategic redesign of the operational service model that delivered $5.3 million in savings, and she previously directed a 57-member workforce management team responsible for capacity planning, forecasting, scheduling and resource management across BCD's global operations.
Speaking to CX Network, Bell said: "Everyone's chasing AI adoption. The leaders I respect are chasing AI readiness - clean data, shared standards for human and AI performance, and orchestration that doesn't leave 7 percent of contact centers as the only ones delivering a truly seamless customer journey. A great contact center in 2026 and beyond isn't the one with the most bots. It's the one that did the unglamorous work first - so when a customer needs a human, that human is fully equipped, and when they don't, the AI actually earns their trust."
Catch Bell live on stage at CCW Europe 2026 – view the agenda and book your place here.
Find out what Christina Bell is talking about on LinkedIn.
KIRK BRADLEY
Bupa | UK
Kirk Bradley is director of operations at healthcare company Bupa, a role he stepped into in December 2025 after four years as its director of customer service. Over more than eight years with the organization – which spans clinics, call centres and care homes – Bradley has led commercial operations and customer service functions through a period in which health and care providers have faced some of the most emotionally charged customer conversations in any industry.
Find out what Kirk Bradley is talking about on LinkedIn.
ANTHONY CASHEL
PayByPhone | UK
Anthony Cashel is chief operating officer at cashless parking platform PayByPhone, where he is responsible for reshaping the global operating model, improving execution discipline and reducing structural cost. His route to the COO seat ran directly through the customer organization: as chief client officer, he held full P&L ownership of the global commercial function, including sales, marketing, operations, customer support and partnerships.
In almost nine years at the company, he has also served as managing director for UK & Ireland and created the multi-award-winning Meters for Trees environmental programme, the first carbon reduction initiative of its kind in the UK!
Don't miss Cashel at All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026 – claim your free place today.
Find out what Anthony Cashel is talking about on LinkedIn.
VALENTINA CESANI
Rail Europe | France
Valentina Cesani is chief operating officer and chief customer officer at Rail Europe, where she has harmonized operations spanning five continents and 18 centers – with teams from Paris and London to Mumbai, Shanghai, Melbourne and New York. With more than 20 years of experience, she describes her specialty as "operational resilience": bridging strategic digital transformation and human-centric leadership, including a restructure that drove a 30 percent increase in customer satisfaction.
Speaking with CX Network, Cesani explained: "in 2026, a truly great contact centre uses AI to raise the baseline for everyone, blurring the line between standard and premium support. Customers now expect every exchange to be instant, personal, and effortless and AI gives us the operational efficiency to meet that demand. But its real value lies in the human connection it unlocks: by letting AI handle the routine, we free our upskilled teams to step in as empathetic problem-solvers.
"That shift is also the biggest challenge we face today. It isn't about resisting AI. It's managing the Complexity Paradox it creates: as AI takes on the timely, efficient side of service, the interactions reaching our teams become almost exclusively high-stakes and emotional. My approach is to lean into that evolution, upskilling our people in advanced emotional intelligence while protecting their mental workload through rotation and well-being strategies. When you pair powerful AI efficiency with a resilient, premium human support team, you create the ultimate competitive advantage: happy customers, driven by empowered employees."
To hear Cesani's take live, join her at All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026, free to attend – register here.
Find out what Valentina Cesani is talking about on LinkedIn.
DANIEL COHEN
Nespresso UK | UK
Daniel Cohen is customer care and services director for UK & Ireland at Nespresso, a role he took on in January 2026 after more than seven years with the coffee brand. His path there is unusually well-rounded: he previously ran the company's customer relationship centre in York before spending two and a half years as head of supply chain for UK & Ireland – experience that gives him a rare end-to-end view of the operations behind every customer promise.
Now back at the helm of customer care, Cohen combines deep contact center expertise, including CCaaS and contact center technology, with the supply chain fluency to ensure the service experience delivers.
Find out what Daniel Cohen is talking about on LinkedIn.
JOSHUA CURTIS
Super Retail Group | Australia
Joshua Curtis is customer care centre manager at Super Retail Group, bringing more than a decade of operations and customer care leadership across transportation, insurance and retail, including roles as national fulfilment manager at 13cabs and operations manager at Allianz Partners.
As one of the most active voices in the APAC contact center community, he chairs the Auscontact Queensland State Committee, sits on the CX Network Advisory Board and the Contact Centre Symposium Advisory Board, has judged the Auscontact Association Awards and Customer Contact Week Digital Awards, and returns to this list after featuring in CX Network's Top 30 Contact Centre Leaders to Follow in 2025.
"A great contact centre in 2026 is one that makes it easy for customers to get the help they need, while giving team members the tools and support to focus on the conversations that matter most. Technology should simplify the experience, not replace the human connection," Curtis told CX Network.
On the biggest challenge facing leaders, he added: "The biggest challenge today is keeping pace with the rapid integration of AI and the shift in customer expectations, while bringing our people on the journey. By involving frontline teams in the design and adoption of AI solutions, we're using technology to reduce effort, improve confidence and free our people to focus on the complex, meaningful interactions where they create the greatest value for customers."
Find out what Joshua Curtis is talking about on LinkedIn.
SUZIE DIETH
NRG | USA
Suzie Dieth is vice president and chief experience officer for NRG Consumer, where she is responsible for NRG's CX and insights program across its smart home and multi-brand competitive retail business, spanning electricity, natural gas, solar, batteries and smart home solutions.
With a background in marketing and more than 25 years of experience – including two decades at NRG – Dieth has led and empowered teams to understand, adopt and advance a customer-focused culture, helping NRG earn consistent recognition as a CX leader through industry awards from organizations including CXPA, Forrester and InMoment.
Find out what Suzie Dieth is talking about on LinkedIn.
CHRISTINA DIVINEY
Hertz | Ireland
Christina Diviney is vice president of global customer care at Hertz, where she has spent almost a decade shaping customer strategies and service delivery for one of the world's best-known car rental brands. A senior executive with 24 years of experience navigating fast-paced, global environments, her strengths span turnaround solutions, technology deployment and relationship building – underpinned by a belief in the power of teamwork and a passion for creating positive, inclusive workplaces. Diviney credits her approach to challenges to a favorite Henry Ford maxim: "Whether you believe you can or can't, you're right."
Find out what Christina Diviney is talking about on LinkedIn.
MIKE EGLI
RingCentral | USA
Mike Egli is transformation leader for CX and AI at RingCentral, where he aligns AI innovation with enterprise business value – architecting strategic frameworks that turn technical capabilities into measurable financial results. He is the visionary and lead developer of Horizon, a proprietary ROI modeling platform operating across the full customer lifecycle, and led RingCentral's global shift from feature-based selling to outcome-based engineering. A principal brand voice for the company, he speaks regularly at analyst summits and industry events, translating AI potential into practical strategies.
Egli is refreshingly direct about the industry's automation fever. "The current rush to automate everything forgets that a brand's most critical customer relationships are forged during complex interactions that AI simply cannot replicate. The real leadership test today is navigating this tech hype to appropriately leverage automation while continuing to heavily invest in the human agents who protect customer loyalty," he told CX Network.
Find out what Mike Egli is talking about on LinkedIn.
LEON GANT
The Guitar Center Company | USA
Leon Gant is vice president of contact center and sales at The Guitar Center Company, where he is leading the transformation of the musical instrument retailer's contact centers into a world-class omnichannel sales, service and customer engagement organization – in support of the company's mission of filling the world with music. A veteran Army officer, Gant brings deep entertainment industry expertise to the role, having previously served as vice president of contact center at United Parks & Resorts (home of the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens theme parks), with earlier experience at The Walt Disney Company. His specialties span P&L leadership, LEAN process improvement and building highly effective teams within large-scale, complex Fortune 500 organizations.
Find out what Leon Gant is talking about on LinkedIn.
ABBY HUGGLESTONE
Norwegian Cruise Line | UK
Abby Hugglestone is director of contact centre at Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, where she has spent more than eight years supporting guests of one of the world's leading cruise operators – and more than four leading its UK contact centre operation. Cruise customer service is a distinctive discipline: bookings are high-value, itineraries complex and expectations elevated, making the contact centre a genuine driver of lifetime value rather than a transactional touchpoint. Hugglestone's tenure through the industry's post-pandemic rebound and record demand for cruising speaks to a leader trusted to deliver in one of travel's most demanding service environments.
Find out what Abby Hugglestone is talking about on LinkedIn.
ANDREA L HUGHES
TruGreen | USA
Andrea L Hughes is vice president of client experience and retention at TruGreen, the largest lawn care company in the United States, where she has built her career over more than 22 years with the organization. A client experience leader with over two decades of experience, she is passionate about building customer-centric cultures that drive exceptional satisfaction, leveraging customer feedback to inform strategies that enhance customer success and deliver lasting lifetime value. In her current role she has led initiatives that elevated customer satisfaction scores while enhancing the associate experience through comprehensive onboarding and empowerment – a reminder that in subscription-style service businesses, retention is won or lost in every interaction.
Find out what Andrea L Hughes is talking about on LinkedIn.
RUFUS KAHLER
Back Market | UK
Rufus Kahler is head of product design, content and research at Back Market, the marketplace for refurbished technology, where he brings a design leader's lens to customer care. With over 20 years in diverse design roles – seven of them leading design in cross-functional product teams – and deep experience across multi-sided platforms, B2B products and ecommerce, Kahler represents an important evolution in this list: the recognition that great contact center experiences are designed, not just operated. His remit at the London-based team spans the product, content and research decisions that determine whether customers need to contact support at all – and how effortless the experience is when they do.
One more reason to follow Kahler: he's speaking at our free webinar, All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026 – register here.
Find out what Rufus Kahler is talking about on LinkedIn.
TRACY KELLAWAY
The Estée Lauder Companies | UK
Tracy Kellaway is executive director of global consumer care operations at The Estée Lauder Companies, where she has spent almost 12 years and now leads consumer care, customer service and contact centre operations, along with digital transformation, for the beauty giant's portfolio of brands. Beyond her day job, she is head judge at the UK National Contact Centre Awards, giving her a uniquely broad view of what excellence looks like across the industry.
That vantage point shows in how she defines greatness. "Truly great contact centres are not defined by traditional performance metrics; they are defined by the value they bring to their business. They focus on effective first time or expedited resolution for their customers, creating an employee experience that recognises the pivotal role the contact centre plays, and in adding value back to the business through insights and customer loyalty," Kellaway told CX Network.
Find out what Tracy Kellaway is talking about on LinkedIn.
AMBER KRUEGER
Ultimus Fund Solutions | USA
Amber Krueger is vice president of shareholder services at Ultimus Fund Solutions, where she oversees contact center operations serving mutual fund and 529 clients – a corner of the industry where accuracy, compliance and trust are non-negotiable. She has sponsored technology enhancements including skill-based routing and agent assist, while driving improvements in quality and operational efficiency across the department. Named a 2026 ICMI Top 25 Thought Leader, Krueger pairs deep mutual fund operations and transfer agency knowledge with strengths in people leadership, staff development and strategic planning – proof that contact center excellence in financial services demands mastery of both the human and the highly regulated.
Find out what Amber Krueger is talking about on LinkedIn.
MAX MAGNI
Macy's | USA
Max Magni is executive vice president and chief customer and digital officer at Macy's, Inc., responsible for the strategic long-term vision and growth of the retailer's digital commerce and customer programs – spanning its e-commerce sites, mobile apps, marketplace, loyalty and gift registry across Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury. He joined in 2023 after more than 20 years at McKinsey & Company, where he was a senior partner co-leading the firm's NeXT Commerce group and global leader of its Consumer Growth Practices.
Since his arrival, Macy's has reported record Net Promoter Scores across its nameplates, reflecting a customer-led approach to digital transformation at one of retail's most iconic names. Magni holds a BS in international economics from Bocconi University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Find out what Max Magni is talking about on LinkedIn.
JOHN SAMUEL McCAHAN
Fellers | USA
John Samuel McCahan is chief CX officer at Fellers, the world's largest wholesale supplier of vinyl wrap and supplies, where he is spearheading the evolution of the company's CX strategy – modernizing service models through data-driven insights and transforming contact center operations from a cost-containment approach to one centered on value creation.
An Army veteran with more than two decades of experience leading operations and strategy across e-commerce, automotive, finance, manufacturing and retail, McCahan is recognized for rejuvenating organizations that are not performing to their potential, strengthening customer loyalty and employee engagement to drive sustainable growth. His military background, he says, fostered a disciplined yet empathetic approach to leadership.
Speaking with CX Network, "A great contact center in 2026 seamlessly combines AI and human expertise to deliver effortless customer experiences while keeping empathy and trust at the core. The biggest challenge is balancing AI adoption with authentic customer relationships and measurable business value - leaders who get this right will define the next generation of customer loyalty."
Want to put your questions to McCahan directly? He's speaking at All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026 – register for free.
Find out what John Samuel McCahan is talking about on LinkedIn.
KEVIN McDORMAN
Southwest Airlines | USA
Kevin McDorman is vice president of customer CARE at Southwest Airlines, where he leads a hybrid workforce of more than 3,500 employees across the continental US, overseeing all customer-initiated service channels – phone, email and social – as well as proactive customer communications, travel disruption strategy and Southwest's partnership with the US Department of Transportation. His organization supports more than 140 million customers traveling through 117 airports across 11 countries, managing over 20 million customer contacts annually and delivering the legendary hospitality that defines the Southwest brand.
McDorman joined Southwest in May 2025 after a 22-year career at AT&T, where he led organizations supporting more than $100 billion in revenue, oversaw international operations in 16 countries across 12 global outsourcing partners, and delivered a call-center transformation that generated $700 million in operating-expense savings while reducing customer contacts by 32 percent. He is now focused on modernizing Southwest's end-to-end customer journey by integrating digital, operational and voice-of-customer insights.
Speaking to CX Network, he said: "The biggest challenge is modernizing at the pace Customers expect while preserving the human connection that drives loyalty. We're approaching that by investing in AI and automation that support - not replace - our people, while using customer and employee insights to continuously improve the experience. The goal is simple: make it easier for Employees to deliver exceptional service and easier for Customers to do business with us."
Find out what Kevin McDorman is talking about on LinkedIn.
SUJIT MOHANTY
TikTok | USA
Sujit Mohanty is senior program manager for CX and marketplace at TikTok, where he owns product and program strategy across customer experience, fulfillment and marketplace – a remit that shapes how commerce feels for buyers and more than 500,000 US sellers on one of the world's fastest-growing platforms. He has driven more than 15 launches from strategy through scaled deployment, including an ML-based delivery prediction program that improved carrier-level delivery estimate accuracy by nearly 20 percent and reduced "where is my order" contacts through proactive notifications, and a refund-eligibility and compensation program that standardized the post-purchase experience across global markets while recovering more than $15 million in platform losses. His CXmeasurement framework uses LLM-based classification to tag order-level issues – a glimpse of where CX measurement is heading.
Mohanty is also speaking at All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026 – secure your free place here.
Find out what Sujit Mohanty is talking about on LinkedIn.
CHARLIE MOORE
Community Health Systems | USA
Charlie Moore is vice president of contact center operations at Community Health Systems, where he holds executive leadership over the contact center, serving as the primary point of interaction with the business and its national employee population. He designed and built the foundation for a multi-disciplinary contact center that went live within three months, delivering first call resolution rates of 84 percent (exceeding industry benchmarks), quality scores above 94 percent through speech and text analytics, and service levels above 85 percent. A Certified CX Professional and total quality black belt, Moore describes himself as a servant leader – and it shows in how he defines success.
"What makes a great contact center in 2026 is where leaders at all levels focus on enabling an engaging environment for the front-line. An engaged team creates a plethora of benefits for an organization and the customers they serve!" he told CX Network. As for the biggest challenge facing leaders: "navigating through the AI jungle. Focus on AI that enables your team to excel as a first priority, then focus on tasks that create a favorable customer experience!"
Find out what Charlie Moore is talking about on LinkedIn.
RHIAN O'HARE
M&S | UK
Rhian O'Hare is head of customer services at Marks & Spencer, where she has spent more than 11 years and now leads customer service for what she proudly calls "the British institution that is M&S, inspiring and innovating since 1884." A highly self-motivated customer service professional with a background spanning contact centre management, CX and insight in the retail sector, O'Hare stepped into the top customer service role in August 2025 – at a time when M&S's omnichannel transformation has made the customer service operation more central than ever to protecting one of the UK's most trusted brands.
Find out what Rhian O'Hare is talking about on LinkedIn.
LISA OSWALD
Travelzoo | USA
Lisa Oswald is senior vice president and global head of member services at Travelzoo, where she built the customer care and client services operation from scratch and maintains world-class satisfaction scores while working upstream with product, sales and tech teams to fix the failures that create customer need. Working in travel since 1999, she previously spent 12 years as vice president of operations and customer service at Priceline, leading through the growth that took the company from startup to a $2.3 billion enterprise – keeping service unit costs flat while the business grew 40-50 percent annually. She is co-chair of the Execs In The Know Corporate Advisory Board, a founding advisory board member of Skift's Women Leading Travel (which has honored her twice), and founded Travelzoo's first employee resource group, the Women's Inspirit Network.
Having led service teams through the dot-com crash, 9/11, the financial crisis and a global pandemic, Oswald has a hard-won definition of greatness: "You can't judge a contact center on an ordinary Tuesday. You judge it on its worst day," she told CX Network. "A truly great service team keeps its promises when keeping them is hardest."
And on the challenge ahead: "The biggest challenge facing contact center leaders isn't AI, it's identity. In the rush to automate, leaders risk letting the technology decide what their service organization stands for, instead of the other way around. If we look at AI purely as a way to reduce costs, it can be a race to the bottom. Start by asking what actually serves the customer best."
Find out what Lisa Oswald is talking about on LinkedIn.
TRISTAN RAYROLES
Orange | France
Tristan Rayroles is head of CXfor Orange's international wholesale market, where he sets CX strategy, advises the executive committee on transformation and conducts voice of the customer studies across marketing, sales, customer services and operations. A self-described data obsessive, he creates connections between operational KPIs and voice of customer KPIs – because, as he puts it, there's no better pitch than a relatable customer story backed by verified data.
"A great contact center in 2026 strikes the right balance between intuitive self-service and real-time human conversations when it matters: no hide-and-seek behind forms, complex menus, or email ping-pong, but reachable, consistent, and accountable," Rayroles told CX Network – adding, with a wink, "sometimes I even go as far as 'it is the one you don't need to contact.'"
Operating under the security and compliance constraints of sovereign telco infrastructure, his approach to transformation is deliberately grounded: "strengthen the fundamentals first (knowledge, processes, consistency), and use AI primarily for agent augmentation – helping teams give the same right answer, faster and with confidence – before we chase deflection as the main goal."
Hear Raryroles speak live at our free online event, All Access: Future of Contact Centers 2026. Register now.
Find out what Tristan Rayroles is talking about on LinkedIn.
MARIE ROGERS
Domestic & General | UK
Marie Rogers is UK contact centre director at Domestic & General, the UK's leading specialist appliance care provider, where she has spent almost seven years and has led the UK contact centre operation since June 2022. With a heritage stretching back to 1912, D&G protects and repairs millions of appliances each year on behalf of partner brands including Whirlpool, Sky and John Lewis – making its contact centres the frontline for millions of UK households at precisely the moments home life breaks down.
A people-first, results-driven leader who has spent her whole career in financial services, Rogers drives transformation and delivers record-breaking results while keeping her people, her customers and the psychological safety of her team as key priorities. The proof is in the silverware: her operation was named contact centre of the year in 2023-24, and she took silver at the 2023 European Contact Centre & Customer Service Awards (ECCCSAs) for UK engagement strategy of the year – recognition of a culture transformation in which she and her team improved attrition, performance and engagement simultaneously, and have continued to surpass records year on year.
"A truly great contact centre in 2026 is built on a solid foundation of well trained, engaged and supported colleagues, who are operating in a digitally enabled way to deliver great customers outcomes withcustomera human approach," she told CX Network.
Want to hear more from Rogers? She's speaking at CCW Europe 2026 – explore the full agenda.
Find out what Marie Rogers is talking about on LinkedIn.
VICTORIA SANTORIELLO
Kate Spade New York | USA
Victoria Santoriello is vice president of global CXand go-to-market strategy at Kate Spade New York, where she leads strategic initiatives in store and online, directs consumer insight studies and defines consumer segmentation to deliver a cohesive, compelling CX– driving acquisition, retention, purchase frequency, lifetime value and conversion. A brand builder and senior executive with 20 years in retail and luxury goods, her career has spanned merchandising, strategy, design, product development, marketing and digital, giving her an unusually complete view of the customer journey. At Kate Spade she directs the brand's market-to-consumer process and has established a robust suite of consumer data sources to ensure the brand experience keeps pace with evolving consumer preferences.
Find out what Victoria Santoriello is talking about on LinkedIn.
CIPPY SEIDLER
Banner Health | USA
Cippy Seidler is director of the consumer care center at Banner Health, one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the United States, where her remit spans CX, technical support, contact center operations and the Banner store. Healthcare contact centers carry a weight few others do – callers are often patients or family members navigating stressful, high-stakes moments – and Seidler brings a rare breadth to the challenge, with specialties spanning multi-site contact center and retail management, systems optimization, quality assurance, change management and social media customer care.
Find out what Cippy Seidler is talking about on LinkedIn.
COLIN SHAW
Beyond Philosophy | USA
Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, the CX consultancy recognized four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy in CX. Named by LinkedIn as one of the world's Top 150 Business Influencers and a LinkedIn Top Voice, Shaw leads global conversations on customer experience, loyalty and behavioral science, followed by more than 284,000 professionals and 88,000 subscribers to his newsletter, Why Customers Buy.
For over 22 years, he has consulted for leading brands including FedEx, Caterpillar and American Express, authored eight best-selling books on CX and human behavior, and co-hosts The Intuitive Customer podcast with Professor Ryan Hamilton – ranked in the top 1.5 percent of all podcasts globally with more than 700,000 downloads. If there is one voice on this list your feed has almost certainly already met, it's his.
"The best contact centers in 2026 won't be judged on speed or cost, but on how the customer feels at the end of the call. AI can handle the transactions - but loyalty is still an emotional game, and that's where your people earn their keep," Shaw told CX Network.
Find out what Colin Shaw is talking about on LinkedIn.