Katalin Fritz, Chief Customer & People Officer at Marley Spoon, reveals how pairing rock-solid reliability with well-timed surprises secures weekly reorders. She shares why proactive outbound calls transform contact centers from cost drains to revenue engines and shares how to connect empathy, data, and empowered teams for sustainable retention and scaling surprise without sacrificing consistency.

“Reliability, empathy, and the courage to listen, combined with enabling our coworkers to act and create surprises, are absolutely crucial, not only in our business but increasingly in every business.” - Katalin Fritz

Katalin Fritz highlights why pairing rock-solid reliability with well-timed surprises keeps meal-kit subscribers coming back week after week. She explains how proactive outbound calls transform cost-heavy contact centers into revenue engines by connecting data, empowering teams, and fostering empathy for sustainable growth.

Mark Bernardo, VP of Customer Success at IP Fabric, unpacks the Champion Growth Model from naming outcomes and navigating with empathy to building trust through consistency and showing up in emotionally charged moments. He illustrates how every touchpoint can forge champions who drive upsell, renewal, and advocacy. His real-world examples reveal why emotions matter more than data alone.

“The Champion Growth Model is about prioritizing outcomes and learning to synthesize them effectively. Let’s clearly name what we’re trying to achieve, and then use empathy as our guide. It’s a navigational tool to help us find our way forward.” – Mark Bernardo

Mark Bernardo leverages his martial arts experience and cross-functional leadership to emphasize empathy-first coaching and proactive communication that transform routine interactions into shared accountability. He demonstrates how asking more profound questions and co-creating solutions reveal hidden obstacles and foster mutual ownership. By leading from the front in high-pressure situations, he galvanizes advocates and demonstrates that weaving human connection throughout the customer journey drives strategic impact beyond any dashboard.

Senthamizh Selvan Pandian, Head of Customer Success at SAP South-East Asia, explains how a people-first mindset transforms customer experience. He connects employee engagement to retention and revenue growth. Selvan details customer-centric innovation and proactive success practices. His insights deliver a complete blueprint for modern CX leadership.

“Focus on both the customers’ needs and your own employees' skills development. If you can take care of both together, you will be solving the customers’ problems while keeping people at the core. That becomes your people-first customer experience strategy.” - Senthamizh Selvan Pandian

Senthamizh Selvan Pandian advocates a balanced approach that puts people at the heart of customer experience. He outlines why modern leaders must pair deep customer insight with committed employee upskilling to drive retention and revenue. Listeners gain actionable guidance on adopting customer-centric innovation, building learning cultures, and turning success teams into growth engines.

Sanjeet Kaur Bali, SVP of Global Customer Support, outlines why organizational dysfunction quietly erodes scale, service, and innovation across every function. She explains how support leaders can surface root causes through data and constructive confrontation. She also describes the power of transforming support into a strategic growth engine.

“We need to reassess and thoroughly evaluate what’s ailing our business, then create a culture that encourages critical conversations. Empower problem solvers and constructive critics, and embrace brutal self-assessment. It’s essential for an organization’s survival.” – Sanjeet Kaur Bali

By realigning support from a reactive cost center into a proactive, insight-driven partner, companies unlock both retention and expansion opportunities. When support sits at the table with product, sales, and operations, its frontline perspective becomes a catalyst for innovation. Building these cross-functional bridges ensures that customer feedback drives strategic decisions, turning every support interaction into a step toward sustainable growth.

Kel Kurekgi, Director of Support at Zapier, delves into the transformation of customer support teams, focusing on how to drop the victim mentality and gain a seat at the table. Kel discusses his journey from media to customer experience, sharing insights on overcoming challenges in the customer support sector. He emphasizes collaboration, empathy, and strategic storytelling as key elements in transforming customer support into a recognized business asset.

“We need to stop focusing on why we can’t do things and start focusing on what we can do. When people start realizing that the power is in their hands, to be able to tell the right story, their seat at the table, get their voice heard, that whole victim mentality in support will shift.” - Kel Kurekgi

Kel expands on how internal barriers, such as outdated mindsets or a lack of advocacy, can hinder support teams. By embracing strategic collaboration and owning their narrative, support leaders can redefine their value and influence company-wide impact.

Ken Mogensen, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Sneed Coding Solutions, discusses why treating BPO partners as direct reports transforms customer support into a sales engine. He explains vetting criteria, training approaches, and KPI alignment to ensure partners reflect the company’s values. Throughout the discussion, Ken shares lessons learned from scaling globally.

“Our partners should be committed to customer success because our success as a company and our growth are entirely contingent upon our customers growing and being successful. Our business partner should definitely have that same belief.” – Ken Mogensen

Ken highlights how applying core values, rigorous training alignment, and shared ownership transforms outsourced teams into trusted business growth partners. He explains how this approach supports global scalability, fosters deeper customer relationships, and cultivates a performance culture centered on results, not just transactions.

Peter Mullen, Strategic Brand and Growth Leader at Simply Systems LLC, discusses how customer experience can pivot from a cost center into a growth driver. He highlights a $3.7 trillion opportunity resulting from poor customer experience (CX) and explains why AI-driven personalization is now the new baseline. Peter outlines how immersive brand storytelling and C-suite alignment fuel BPO success.

“You want zero daylight between you and the brand you're supporting. You want a contact center that looks and feels like it's part of the company itself. You want your BPO partners to understand the brand storytelling, and you want the BPO team and everyone involved to fully buy into it.” – Peter Mullen

In this in-depth discussion, Peter Mullen illuminates how transformative leadership, rooted in resilience and personal adversity, reframes customer experience from a cost center to a strategic growth driver. He explores the $3.7 trillion opportunity lost to poor CX, details how AI-driven personalization is rapidly becoming a baseline expectation, and outlines pragmatic steps to align the C-suite's vision with business process outsourcing (BPO) partnerships for sustainable, revenue-focused outcomes.

Tim Wilbourn, SVP Support and Customer Success at Crexendo® Business Solutions, unpacks the challenge of linking CX metrics to revenue in a Wall Street-driven world. He outlines strategies for establishing clear expectations and promoting long-term initiatives. He also explains why short tenures hurt CX leaders and how to build sustained success.

“The first thing investors look at is revenue, then free cash flow. But customers are what drive all of that. So, think about it differently. Focus on how many customers have been implemented, the revenue generated from those implementations, and the outcomes that define success.” – Tim Wilbourn

Tim Wilbourn highlights how aligning customer success metrics with revenue KPIs drives sustained growth. He shows why embedding customer-focused OKRs across every department prevents short-term thinking and empowers leaders to advocate for long-term investments. With his “press release exercise,” Tim offers a straightforward method to unify teams around multi-year goals.