Member Spotlight: Marie-Louise Gaughan
“Every experience, setback, and moment of being underestimated and choosing to rise anyway has shaped how I show up for the people I lead and the clients I serve.”
From starting out in law to leading global AI strategy and digital transformation in customer experience, Marie-Louise Gaughan has built a career defined by curiosity, resilience, and human-centred leadership.
Across BPO, financial services and insurance, she’s worked in senior CX and digital transformation roles across global organisations, navigating complex international environments while shaping customer strategy and CX transformation at scale.
In this inspiring conversation, she shares her non-linear career journey, the realities of being a woman in CX and her perspective on AI-driven customer experience, leadership, and why inclusive, human-centred transformation is critical to the future of the industry.
To begin, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
As Global Vice President of Digital Solutions at Alorica, I lead the Advisory & Consulting function - a team I've built to sit at the intersection of AI strategy, digital transformation, and real human outcomes.
Alorica is a global CX organisation, and my role sits within the Customer & Digital Experience practice. In simple terms, we help some of the world's biggest brands reimagine how they connect with their customers - designing journeys powered by technology but anchored in people.
From AI-driven self-service to intelligent contact centre solutions, our work spans industries including healthcare, travel, utilities, financial services, and telecom, and touches clients across the US, UK, LATAM, India, South Africa and Europe.
What I love most about what I do is that it sits at a genuinely exciting crossroads. AI is reshaping customer experience at pace, but the organisations winning right now aren't just the ones deploying the most technology – they're the ones doing it with intention, with trust at the centre, and with a real understanding of what their customers actually need.
That's the work I get to lead every day, and it never gets old.
How did you get where you are today?
Honestly? It was anything but a straight line, and I think that's what makes it interesting.
I started my career in law, building a foundation in rigorous thinking, structured argumentation – and a refusal to accept the surface answer – before moving into financial services, where I spent 14 years as a Chartered Banker. I then moved into insurance, always gravitating towards customer strategy, contact centre design, and the human side of how organisations communicate with the people they serve.
In 2014, I made the leap into BPO, and that's where everything accelerated. I led digital consultancy at Teleperformance across the UK and South Africa for 6 years, then moved to Webhelp/Concentrix Solutions as Director across the UK, South Africa and India, before joining Alorica almost 3 years ago to build what is now the Global AIQ Advisory function.
Along the way, there was a lot of career gymnastics. I was often the youngest in the room and one of very few women at the table. There was no blueprint for navigating that, whilst also raising 2 amazing kids. But every twist, stretch, role and moment of having to prove yourself twice over - it all shapes you. I genuinely wouldn't change it.
What were the main challenges you faced as a woman in CX?
The biggest challenge, and I think many women in this industry will recognise this, was navigating environments that simply weren't designed with us in mind.
Not necessarily through malice, but through default. From meeting times that clashed with school pick-ups to assumptions that ambition and family were somehow in tension, and the expectation that you kept the juggle invisible while still showing up fully present.
For a significant stretch of my career, you didn't talk about the 8am conference call with kids in the back of the car, or the mental load of holding a complex global role whilst also being the person everyone at home needed. That era didn't celebrate the juggle - it expected you to hide it. That invisibility has a cost, because it means you're expending enormous energy managing perception on top of everything else.
What’s shifted in the last few years is encouraging. The conversation has changed, the language has evolved, and there’s far more celebration of the whole person in professional spaces now. I'm genuinely delighted to see it - even if I'll admit, with a smile, that I navigated most of my career before that shift happened. Those of us who did know something important, though: the juggle doesn't diminish you. It builds something in you that no leadership programme can replicate.
“You didn't talk about…the mental load of holding a complex global role whilst also being the person everyone at home needed. That era didn't celebrate the juggle - it expected you to hide it. That invisibility has a cost, because it means you're expending enormous energy managing perception on top of everything else.”
Tell us about a moment that shaped you into the woman you are today.
It wasn't one moment – it was a lifetime of them – and almost all of them happened at home before they happened at work.
I was raised by parents who instilled in me something I didn't fully appreciate until much later: that how you treat people is everything. Not your title, your achievements or the accolades on the wall - but the quality of your character in the everyday moments. The way you show up for others, the way you listen and the way you lead with warmth without ever losing your backbone. Those lessons from the kitchen table in Scotland have guided every client relationship, every team I've built, and every decision I've made across twenty years of a complex, demanding, deeply rewarding career.
What makes it even more profound is that life has come full circle. The parents who poured so much into raising me now need me in ways they never did before - and stepping into that role, being their support and advocate, has taught me more about what it means to truly show up for someone more than any leadership programme ever could.
My husband and my children do that too – they are my anchor. When the weight of a global role feels heavy, when the calendar is relentless, and the demands come from every direction, they keep me grounded and remind me that the most important leadership I do doesn't happen in a boardroom but at home.
And then there is everything I have absorbed from others along the way. The women who shared their wisdom generously, the leaders who challenged me to think bigger and the colleagues who taught me that true delivery comes not from what you know but from how well you connect, listen and bring others with you.
Every experience, setback, and moment of being underestimated and choosing to rise anyway has shaped how I show up for the people I lead and the clients I serve.
What makes a woman courageous / collaborative / inclusive / authentic?
These are deeply interconnected; you can't really have one without the others.
Courageous is taking up space even when every signal in the room tells you to make yourself smaller. It's speaking the uncomfortable truth in the boardroom, advocating for someone who doesn't yet have the platform to advocate for themselves, and being willing to build something from scratch with no guarantee it will work.
Collaborative is understanding that competition between women is a trap, and a costly one. The most powerful moments in my career have come from women who generously shared their knowledge and time, opened doors without being asked, and created space at the table rather than guarding it.
Inclusive means designing your leadership, noticing who isn't in the room and asking why. It means recognising that diversity doesn't just make teams more equitable, it makes them sharper.
For me, authenticity means bringing my Scottish directness (and accent), my genuine warmth, and my lived experience as a working mother and career builder into the rooms I walk into. Not despite the professional context, but as part of it.
“The most powerful moments in my career have come from women who generously shared their knowledge and time, opened doors without being asked, and created space at the table rather than guarding it.”
Keep the Conversation Going
Marie-Louise’s journey highlights a key reality for CX leaders: transformation is never just about technology – it’s about people, context, and how we lead change in complex global environments. From AI strategy to customer experience transformation, her insights reflect the importance of balancing innovation with human-centred leadership.
Inside the WiCX Inner Circle, we create space for exactly these kinds of conversations.
From member-led discussions and expert sessions to webinars and live podcasts, our community brings together women shaping the future of customer experience, leadership, and transformation.
If you’d like to continue exploring topics like AI-driven transformation, inclusive leadership, and the evolving role of CX leaders, you can join the WiCX Inner Circle waitlist today.
