CX Network names its 20 CX Leaders to Watch 2022
Profiling 20 top leaders from Alaska Airlines, DHL, FIFA, Ounass, NFL, Walgreens and more
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The 20 CX Leaders to Watch 2022 profiles 20 leading CX professionals from around the world who have brought an innovative and visionary approach to their role over the last 12 months.
Nominations were open from July to August 2022, allowing senior-level CX managers to share their success stories for consideration.
The team here at CX Network has assessed all applications and conducted additional research to compile our final line-up of 20 leaders to watch. The 2022 list features leaders from retail, entertainment, healthcare, aviation, government and other industries and sectors, which cover the customer, fan, patient and even citizen experience.
Of course, there are many more leaders around the world who do not feature on this list, which is why CX Leaders to Watch will return in mid-2023.
For now, on behalf of the entire team here at CX Network, thank you to everybody who took the time to submit a nomination and a heartfelt congratulations to all who made this year’s final list.
Here is the full list of CX leaders to watch - in alphabetical order by company name - and you can read about each leader's CX career highlights below.
Travis Gelbrich
Managing director, guest experience and loyalty, Alaska Airlines
Promoted in the regional US airline’s ongoing management reshuffle, Gelbrich has been in his current role since December 2021, however, it was his success as VP of inflight that caught the attention of CX Network. Appointed to this role in early 2021 he provided strategic and operational leadership to the inflight division and oversaw 5,600 flight attendants as the award-winning airline re-scaled post-pandemic. He is credited by the airline’s EVP and COO, Gary Beck, with “creating a culture where employees feel valued, heard and empowered to do the right thing”.
Joshua Tye
Senior customer operations lead, Cash App
Heading customer operations for the payment platform for a little over a year, Tye is a team and brand-builder specializing in strategy, operations, cultural change, multi-channel consumer interfaces and CX. He also specializes in M&A reorganizations, a skill that is coming in handy as Cash App closes in on its high-profile competition. Cash App saw annual revenue more than double between 2020 and 2021 and counted 44 million active monthly users as of year-end. Last year, the business acquired Australian fintech Afterpay in a move that parent company Block hopes will transform mobile payment service into a super app.
Nicole Cable
Chief experience officer, CareMax
In her first year at CareMax Cable led employee engagement through an IPO and major growth, which saw healthcare locations increase from 13 to 48, with the numbers still growing. Cable tailored her Office of Human Experience model, developed and deployed in a previous role, to CareMax. Two months after joining, she pitched it to the C-suite, following which the company’s Office of Human Experience launched, with Cable at the helm. Her EX and PX initiatives permeate dozens of locations and guide hundreds of patients, providers, and employees across the network. Cable holds a Masters of Science in Healthcare Sciences and is certified as a Patient Experience Professional.
Julian Neo
Managing director, DHL Express Malaysia and Brunei
As Neo told CX Network in 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic brought new challenges for DHL as customer businesses closed, export bans were imposed and demand for rapid and cold-chain solutions for the pharmaceutical and medical industries soared overnight. Rising to the challenges, Neo implemented many changes, from reshaping sales-based conversations into business advice for customers, to a dedicated service for Malaysian durian farmers, Durian Express – guaranteed next-day fruit deliveries to Hong Kong and Singapore. In addition to responding to the new trading environment, DHL Express Malaysia and Brunei kept ahead on industry trends, such as the demand for personalization, introducing new digital tools and solutions for SMEs.
Gian Paolo Franzoni
Director customer experience management at Etisalat
Appointed to his current role at the UAE-headquartered telco five years ago, Franzoni’s achievements to date have included the revamp of operations for billing and payments and the introduction of business data marts to rationalize data and facilitate data-driven decision-making. At present, the latter project is being replicated in the digital space and Franzoni is also rolling out the “full E2E Phygital Journey” he developed, which combines physical and virtual touchpoints. With a new corporate brand identity unveiled this year to highlight the multinational’s focus on supporting digitalization, this work is set to take on a new lease of life.
Arthur Zhuravsky
Global senior head of VOC at Farfetch
The leader of a data revolution at Farfetch, Zhuravsky’s team created the Customer Experience Index to help the luxury fashion e-commerce marketplace refine performance and drive satisfaction. For example, data now compares churn rates with dispatch times creating a business case for partners to ship faster. The index can also track how sellers performed over a month and the income lost to churn and returns. In a previous role as a service leader for Microsoft, Zhuravsky’s work increased CSAT from 45 percent to 84 percent in five years, which was the top result in the Central and Eastern European region at that time.
Anish Bhatia
Customer experience and services, host country accommodations at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 LLC
Bhatia works for the FIFA-Qatar joint venture established to organize the 2022 FIFA World Cup which begins on November 20. He has been tasked with delivering an end-to-end “amazing experience” to the expected 1.5 million fans who will visit the country during the competition. Qatar has more than 150 official World Cup accommodation options for fans and Bhatia’s remit covers hotels, apartments, villas, cruise ships and fan villages from booking until departure from Qatar. The pressure is truly on – this tournament is the first World Cup to be held in the Arab world and Qatar prides itself on lavish hospitality and outstanding guest experiences.
Aino-Kaisa Pekonen
MP for the Left Alliance Parliamentary Group, Finland
Topping the UN’s World Happiness report for the fifth consecutive year in 2022, Finland is often praised for its citizen experience, built on the values of trust, transparency, equality and social mobility. A key driver of the country’s citizen experience, Pekonen was the Minister of Health and Social Affairs when Finland introduced equal parental leave in 2020 and played an instrumental role in preventing social crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic – Finland has been praised for its low infection rates and minimal lockdowns. Pekonen’s ministerial role has since been split and she now influences Finland’s overall happiness through her roles on several committees.
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Richard George
Global head of integrated marketing at London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG)
The architect of LSEG’s digital CX program, George led the reimagination of LSEG.com and its migration to the Adobe Platform; the replacement of a 12-year-old customer training site; and standardization of customer campaign execution across all three divisions of the business. The work involved 150 people across 30 countries and followed LSEG’s acquisition of Refinitiv in early 2021. It resulted in a doubling in marketing contribution revenue; the 72 to 87 percent increase in NPS; and 10 percent increase in offsite digital interactions. George’s program is credited with providing foundational, reusable capability, which is now being extended across the group.
Lisa Swearingen
Vice-president of CX design and innovation at Marriott International
Bringing her passion for omnichannel to the world’s largest hotel chain, Swearingen focuses on strategy, CX design, innovation, operational improvement and change management. As a hotelier, Marriott excels at personalized guest experiences and has successfully built on this reputation through its Bonvoy loyalty program, which this year reached 164 million members while reducing the chain’s reliance on third-party bookings. Following on from the “hotel room of the future”, earlier this year the Marriott Design Lab was unveiled to further evolve the tech-powered CX that are now synonymous with Marriott’s brands.
Tarv Nijjar
Global senior director, data analytics and AI at McDonald's
In 2019, McDonald’s acquired big data analytics platform Dynamic Yield to better personalize CX for digital and drive-through orders. In 2021 it created a new CX team, and this year launched its first loyalty program in the UK. Joining this work in late 2021 after 12 years at Mars, Nijjar heads up data analytics and AI, providing the global fast-food chain with the key ingredient to optimize CX and better compete in the fast-changing global F&B franchise industry. You can hear him talking more about that, here. However, this is not the only reason why McDonald’s describes Nijjar’s life story as “incredible”, however, as he has also had five number one singles in the BBC Asian World Charts as a DJ.
Nicki Phillips-Lord
Customer experience manager at M&G
Currently leading global investment manager M&G’s customer vulnerability program, Phillips-Lord is also heading a 14-month project to refine the customer-focused aspects of M&G’s culture. Phillips-Lord analyzed data gathered from 1,000 colleagues to design interventions that generated a five percent increase in customer centricity scores only six months into the project. She established a cross-functional and international working group, with representation from across M&G, which identified 10 improvement activities to be delivered this year. The improvements impact the working lives of more than 6,000 employees in 28 markets. Outside of M&G Phillips-Lord is a founding member of online community Women in CX.
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Harry Ashbridge
Head of writing and customer experience at Monzo Bank
An advocate for the power of the written word, as legend has it Ashbridge pitched his job to UK-based neo bank Monzo after hearing about its focus on language and tone. Originally heading Monzo’s writing team – which he built from scratch – Ashbridge’s literary skills brough a human touch to a bank that “lives on your phone”. He was promoted to head writing and CX at the customer-centric online bank in December 2021 and bring a holistic customer experience to all Monzo’s customer touch points. In FY21, Monzo increased customers by 23 percent to reach five million and was recognized by market researcher YouGov as the second-most recommended brand in the UK with an NPS averaging +72.
Ian Campbell
Senior product director product management, direct to consumer (D2C) at National Football League (NFL)
In his near 10-years with the NFL Campbell has led product design, product development and UX teams. As a founding member of the top-secret NFL Labs, he has worked on new voice platforms, UX and content, while collaborating with NFL partners – which includes Intel True View – to create new interactive live game products. NFL is using product and data to advance the fan experience, promoting Campbell to his current role in July 2021 where he is creating new, live game D2C experiences. In July 2022, NFL+ launched, a new subscription-based streaming service with access to live out-of-market pre-season games across all devices via the NFL app.
Jessica Dawson
Associate director of customer sentiment and insights at Optus
As Dawson has told CX Network in the past, she is passionate about using VOC data to drive change. She is a manger and leader with more than a decade of experience across omnichannel contact center operations and complex analytics. In its quest to become Australia's “most loved everyday brand”, in 2020 Optus unveiled CX Vision, which has since enhanced its CX with NPS-boosting messaging channels and the end-to-end reinvention of Optus contact centers as the Australian telco focused on creating “simple and personalized” digital experiences. In calendar year 2021 Optus achieved its highest NPS score to date.
Manuj Gosain
Product design and strategy lead at Ounass.com
In the world of luxury retail and fashion, CX takes on new meanings and, according to Vogue Business, Ounass understands the GCC luxury market inside out by using end-to-end stories to drive a better user experience and customer journey. Part of Al Tayer Insignia, Ounass has tempted shoppers out of the region’s lavish malls, instead creating a luxury retail experience through screens and couriers. A bold business model at launch, Ounass is now five years old and out-running its competitors due to the online buying experience and hours-long, not days-long, delivery lead times. Gosain leads the product team driving this success, designing the native app and dark-mode experiences, and translating VOC feedback into new interfaces.
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Amber Turley
Senior director, omni experience, digital strategy and partnerships at Sephora
Describing herself as an “omni leader, innovation evangelist”, Turley develops, launches and oversees Sephora’s omnichannel experience and new shopping partnerships. Holding her current position for just under two years, Turley’s project portfolio to date includes reserve/buy online and pick-up in store; same day delivery; and on-demand marketplace partnerships. The cosmetics retailer’s omnichannel strategy has been credited with redefining the cosmetics shopping experience through a content-rich app and refined checkout process, among other areas. The next step for Sephora’s omnichannel strategy will see the organization pursue “microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native and headless-based” technology.
Caroline Gazeley
Senior manager CX strategy at Singapore Airlines (SIA)
With 2020 acknowledged as the “toughest year in its history”, SIA saw passenger traffic collapse by 97.9 percent and now has the challenge of scaling back to business as usual. But with the new and updated SingaporeAir app, the new normal is faster, personalized and in the passenger’s pocket. As the CX strategy lead, Gazeley has been instrumental in its implementation and has already hit the conference circuit to share the story. Beyond this, she has also become somewhat of a detective, investigating how non-customer-facing departments impact the passenger experience and sourcing the data to back it up. She has also been recognized as a top female leader and a top 50 brand leader by CMO Asia.
Sally Alejandro Tonel
Director of customer experience at Spotify
Building on her 10 years of experience with AmEx, Tonel is enhancing the human approach to CX at the Swedish music platform. More than two years into her current role she is busy introducing a new strategy and partnerships team to address the pain points of Spotify’s subscribers. Subscriber pain points appear to be rare, however, with Spotify’s customer experience often praised for everything from the tone of social media posts to the use of data and AI in personalization. According to Spotify’s Q2 financial results for 2022, growing competition between streaming providers has been no problem for the company, as active monthly users for the quarter increased 19 percent year on year and premium subscribers rose 14 percent, while revenue increased 22 percent during FY21. You can find out more about Spotify's CX strategy here.
Tracey Brown
President of retail products and chief customer officer at Walgreens Boots Alliance
Appointed to this newly created role in 2021, US store chain Walgreens has granted self-described data nerd Brown a “mandate to transform”. Brown oversees marketing and merchandising bringing new focus to the retailer’s ongoing digitalization, and she plans to use data to create “an unmatched, end-to-end Walgreens customer experience”. Following her work as CEO of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) – where Brown established relationships with large retail pharmacies to deliver community-driven health – Brown is already deeply involved in the US$5.5bn Walgreens Health venture, which sees the retailer leverage its historic interests in pharmacy retail as its “next growth engine”.
