Inspiring Women in CX Awards
Meet the Finalists
Winners to be announced at Conference on October 10th!
The Collaboration Award
In recognition of the women who value collaboration over competition and bring people together to achieve great things. These women know it’s not about taking the spotlight but winning as a team. They create opportunities for others and light up those around them to work together toward a common cause.
Julie Isabelle Tano-Lawson | CX Consultant, Cabinet - Conseil CX
Passionate about the customer experience, you can certainly say that like Obelix, Julie fell into the CX pot when she was a little girl. During her career of over a decade, she has set up, led, and managed customer service, customer satisfaction management and inside sales centres.
She has expertise in developing effective strategies and action plans and in implementing performance indicators. As an experienced trainer of employees, she makes them an important pillar in achieving results by developing their sense of commitment and quality customer care.
Her strong analytical skills, results-oriented mindset, and ability to collaborate with all levels of management have earned her credibility and reputation in the business world. Today, as a Senior Consultant at Cabinet-Conseil CX, Julie assists companies in the development and implementation of customer-focused strategies.
Merete Medle | Customer Journey Lead, Peab
Different. Leading by the heart. People first.
Merete has over 20 years of experience as a CX practitioner and possesses strong leadership, commercial, and strategic skills. Merete has a long track record of establishing customer insight programs and working strategically and operatively with CX, Support, Customer Success, and customer journey management.
She’s passionate about diversity and people in general, with a strong commercial, growth and digital mindset. She truly believes that by focusing on people first, both the customer and the employee, fantastic results will present themselves.
Melanie Wright | Global Partnership Lead, Kantar
Melanie is the Global Partnership Leader at Kantar responsible for the Qualtrics relationship. She is a revenue-focused partnership leader who believes in trust, transparency and winning together.
In her previous role, she was an award-winning SaaS CX Sales Director, a mentor for Customer Experience leaders, and an advocate for women working in CX.
As an energetic and values-based leader, Mel is known for her commitment to raising up the CX community. She has been the first Sales Rep on the ground, responsible for delivering rapid revenue growth for several organizations – honing her talent for building a strong ecosystem of collaborators.
Marija Skobe-Pilley | Founder & CEO, Women in Customer Success
Marija Skobe-Pilley is a Customer Success Leader, Community builder, and passionate podcaster.
She’s a founder and host of the Women in Customer Success Podcast & Power Up – the first women-only podcast and mentoring program for customer success professionals, with almost 100 hundred episodes featuring the best of the best in the world of customer success, Marija is sharing women’s inspirational stories and career tips to help other women succeed and make an impact.
After leading customer success teams across hyper-growth start-ups (including ClickUp), Marija is now a Co-Founder of Fractional SaaS, a customer success leadership consultancy for start-ups.
The Inclusion Award
In recognition of the women who champion intersectional diversity, equity, and inclusion. These women have thought beyond the boundaries of their own identity and advocated for the rights of the marginalised. They inspire others through activism, going beyond lip service to take action and create a better world.
Adejoju Ajagunna | Head of CX & Operations, Jobberman
Adejoju Ajagunna is the Head of Customer Experience and Operations at Jobberman, the leading job placement and training platform in sub-Saharan Africa.
She has over 15 years of experience in customer service and B2C sales across several business verticals, including human resources, telecommunications, and e-commerce. Within the last 8 years, she has been responsible for customer service and experience management strategies across three leading Nigerian companies.
In her role as the Head of Customer Experience and Operations, she designed an interactive voice response system for customers to get assistance automatically which has improved the SLA.
Her professional capabilities help her lead the team, successfully manage customer issues, as well as optimise customer support and HR management costs.
Christine Hemphill | Managing Director, Open Inclusion
Christine is a disability and age-inclusive researcher, designer, and innovator. In 2015 she founded Open Inclusion, a London-based, global insight, design, and innovation agency.
Open works across the spectrum of customer experience including digital, physical products, the built environment, customer service, and communications. We also work across the spectrum of functional human differences, providing clients with broadly informed, ethical, equitable and practical disability and age-inclusive insights and co-creation.
Christine is a Certified Member of the Market Research Society (MRS), a Certified Accessibility Professional (CPACC) and currently chairs MRS Unlimited, a disability-inclusive research sector group. She is an Ambassador for Co-Innovate at Brunel University and an active member of the Inclusive Design for XR group at XRAccess.
As a neurodivergent individual and parent, wife, aunt, and daughter of family members with different access needs and disabilities, understanding and designing for human differences is a personal and professional joy.
DeAnna Avis | Coach for Ambitious Misfits, The Neurodivergent Entrepreneur
Founder of CX and brand strategy consultancy, Starfish CX, DeAnna is on a mission to help organisations create irresistible brands that make waves with human-centred design. Bringing insights from psychology, DeAnna identifies the conscious and unconscious drivers behind organisational and customer behaviour to create collaborative and sustainable culture change. She turns insight into actionable strategy.
DeAnna works with clients who are innovating and transforming to create a positive impact and legacy – for employees, customers, and the world.
She was named one of the Top 25 CX Professionals in the world and has won five customer experience awards, including Overall Winner at the UK CXA.
As a coach and consultant, DeAnna is dedicated to helping individuals and organisations bring their meaning to life and turn their purpose into a movement that generates collective action. She believes in the power of big dreams coupled with the courage to paint outside the lines and hopes to inspire others to paint outside the lines too – in career and in life, surpassing what we ever thought possible.
Susanna Baque | Senior Director, Global CX, SCIEX
Susanna is an experienced Senior Global Leader of Customer Experience at SCIEX, a Danaher Company. Having worked in the Life Sciences industry for more than 20 years in different customer-facing functions, she has a PhD in Chemistry and Biochemistry and started her career as a researcher and Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Barcelona.
She’s been driving the strengthening of a customer-centric culture within SCIEX, leading globally cross-functional teams to revolutionise the way to interface, transact, and serve customers to increase customer intimacy and enhance the overall customer experience and company growth.
The Courageousness Award
In recognition of the women who have climbed the highest mountains or overcome the most difficulty to be where they are today. These women inspire others having navigated challenges with a focus on resilience, positivity, and personal growth. They are warriors, and they deserve to be celebrated.
Ashley Williams | VP, CX Strategy, Citizens
A dedicated, Customer Experience professional with a focus on growing a customer-first culture by leveraging feedback to make actionable process improvements. Thought leader, with a deep understanding of the "inner" and "outer" loop of the Net Promoter System. Leverages customer feedback to influence process improvement opportunities, develop business insights, and project management of key CX initiatives in support of the Customer acquisition and retention strategies focusing on the Branch and Voice channels including Scheduling, Onboarding, Team Management, Mentorship, Closed-Loop resolution, and leadership at large.
DeAnna Avis | Coach for Ambitious Misfits, The Neurodivergent Entrepreneur
Founder of CX and brand strategy consultancy, Starfish CX, DeAnna is on a mission to help organisations create irresistible brands that make waves with human-centred design. Bringing insights from psychology, DeAnna identifies the conscious and unconscious drivers behind organisational and customer behaviour to create collaborative and sustainable culture change. She turns insight into actionable strategy.
DeAnna works with clients who are innovating and transforming to create a positive impact and legacy – for employees, customers, and the world.
She was named one of the Top 25 CX Professionals in the world and has won five customer experience awards, including Overall Winner at the UK CXA.
As a coach and consultant, DeAnna is dedicated to helping individuals and organisations bring their meaning to life and turn their purpose into a movement that generates collective action. She believes in the power of big dreams coupled with the courage to paint outside the lines and hopes to inspire others to paint outside the lines too – in career and in life, surpassing what we ever thought possible.
Lisa France | Director Market Research, Meet Minneapolis
Lisa has woven customer experience and customer-derived insights in high tech, media, healthcare, hospitality/travel and manufacturing, leveraging the best practices in each to tell a holistic, ecosystem-driven story. Lisa provides strategic insight by connecting the dots across people, process, technologies, and data.
Lisa is currently the Director of Market Research for the city of Minneapolis' destination market organization (DMO).
Lisa resides in Minneapolis with her husband Michael, three cats (Oliver, Tofu, and Juno) and three bunnies (Thumper, Maximillian, and Genevieve).
Natalia von Oertel | Head of CS, Qualtrics
Natalia specialises in crafting strategic pathways to customer success for Startups and Entrepreneurs, with a rich background in leading Customer Experience initiatives for global expansion. She is a certified in Customer Experience, proficient in data analysis, and an advocate for DEI. She is also a devoted mother and ballet enthusiast.
The Authenticity Award
In recognition of the women who dare to be themselves, and in doing so, open doors for others to show up as themselves too. These women inspire through their honesty, vulnerability, openness, acceptance, and encouragement of others. They are role models for leadership.
Charlotte Kennett | Senior Director, Global CX, S&C Blue Prism
As a customer-obsessed leader, Charlotte Kennett is the Senior Director of Global Customer Experience at SS&C Blue Prism, where she is responsible for customer marketing, community management and voice of customer activities globally.
She is an accomplished expert in building and managing award-winning B2B community, customer marketing and ideation programs that bring tangible and measurable value to businesses. Charlotte was named one of the top B2B Marketing Innovators in 2022 and regularly serves as a judge for the B2B Marketing Awards and speaker for the Women in Silicon Roundabout series.
She is passionate about empowering women and underrepresented individuals to thrive, grow and challenge the status quo, and acts as a mentor for the EY Foundation.
Ewa Davenport | CX Senior Transformation Director, Kantar
Ewa works as Senior Director in Kantar’s CX practice with a portfolio of large Blue-Chip clients with specific focus on Financial Services and Travel.
Ewa’s passion lies with making things happen and bringing together exceptional talent to deliver transformational CX results for her clients. With over 20 years in research industry, Ewa brings a blend of expertise from many sectors like Finance, Professional Services, Travel and FMCG and methodologies like brand & ad tracking, customer engagement, innovation & proposition development to develop and deliver fresh and holistic Customer Experience ecosystems.
Ewa’s natural energy and drive is channelled into humane leadership, motivating, and supporting her teams, which, apart from engaging with clients and technology partners, is her favourite part of the job. Often seen as confident, straight-talking, and genuine, Ewa values collaboration and working for something bigger than just individual or a team or a single initiative.
Serena Riley | Senior Director, CX, ConverSight.ai
Serena Riley, the Senior Director of Customer Experience at ConverSight.ai, is an extraordinary force in the world of CX and innovation. With over two decades of experience, she's a certified CX professional (CCXP) known for igniting transformation in individuals, teams, and organizations. Serena's passion lies in reshaping businesses through exceptional customer experiences and organizational excellence, and her track record includes remarkable revenue growth for B2B SaaS tech start-ups.
A champion of DEI initiatives, Serena is a founding member of WiCX (Women in CX) and promotes marginalized voices. She's also the Founder of Joy & Moxie, guiding women to discover their strengths and shape their careers and futures.
Serena is not just a practitioner but also an author, with published works including "Customer Experience 3" and "Punk XL." She's an active member of industry associations like CXPA and CXofM, where she received the CX Impact Award and the Individual Award for the Advancement of CX in 2020.
Jannecke Drangert-Hveding | Business Strategist, Customer Centricity
A CX Strategist, passionate customer-centricity advocate, and a CCXP, Jannecke has over 20 years of experience. She founded one of Scandinavia’s first CX and customer-driven innovation consultancies working with major brands in the Nordics and was previously the Strategy and Transformation Lead at one of Scandinavia’s largest health tech organisations.
With personal experience in navigating the change and transformation agenda in complex organisations, she has a burning desire to support and cheer on all the true CX champions out there.
She’s a keynote speaker, as well as a judge at the World and European customer-centricity awards, was one of the founders of the Norwegian CX Network and is also the founder of the Customer Community, a network for customer-centric leaders in Norway.
The Rising Star Award
In recognition of the women in the pipeline of up-and-coming industry talent who are set for a bright future ahead. These women inspire others by role modelling the Women in CX values of courage, collaboration, inclusivity, and authenticity and are taking bold steps to shape their careers, in their own way, on their own terms.
Barbara Van Der Linden | CX Learning Lead, Veriteer
Passionate and curious learning experience designer, facilitator and capability developer within the field of customer experience. As a People & change lead at Veriteer, I am helping to develop capability in organisations, by giving people the right resources to grow and lead the design, development and delivery of learning in the MadeFor brand. Enabling individuals and teams to navigate change and create lasting impact through learning and coaching, is what makes me love my job. In addition, I've had the opportunity to use my passion for learning and female empowerment by being involved with amazing initiatives of Project Fearless and Elance academy by teaching entrepreneurship skills and coaching.
Caroline Ikiara | Client Experience Lead, Absa Bank Kenya Plc.
Caroline Ikiara is a Customer Experience Professional with over 17 years of experience in the hospitality and banking industries. She is passionate about people and creating a customer-centric culture in organizations. She has a certification from the Customer Service Institute of America and has expertise in various aspects of Customer Experience, such as strategy, management, creation and sustainable embedment of service standards, customer satisfaction, creative service recovery, and engagement. She has worked at the Sarova Stanley Hotel, Barclays Bank of Kenya, and Absa Bank Plc, where she has helped thousands of clients and achieved remarkable results.
Lina Yahya | EVP & Head – Customer Excellence & Protection, RAKBANK
Lina joined RAKBANK in 2003 and held several positions before becoming the EVP for Customer Excellence and Protection in 2015. She’s a certified Market Culture Practitioner and has been a key player in redefining the customer experience strategy and objectives into a journey of excellence.
Lina successfully managed to incorporate and integrate customers’ needs and expectations into the conceptualisation of the bank’s products and services. Additionally, she played an instrumental role in RAKBANK winning the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme’s ‘Best Service Performance Brand Award for Banking Services Business’ two years in a row, as well as the much coveted ‘Dubai Quality Appreciation Award’.
Rebecca Gordon | Digital Lead, Westminster City Council
Rebecca is a devoted and seasoned CX digital professional, fuelled by an enthusiasm for user-centric product delivery. Her current role as the Digital Product Lead at Westminster City Council sees her at the helm of the council's digital strategy, prioritizing the creation of accessible online services for residents.
Rebecca ensures that every resident can navigate the council's digital offerings with ease, regardless of their circumstances. With a rich background in steering complex online service development projects, she places emphasis on achieving results through seamless collaboration and clear communication.
Rebecca's ultimate motivation lies in delivering nothing short of excellence for customers. This drives her to construct and lead high-performing teams, moulding them into dynamic forces that lead the charge in the digital realm.
Jennie Lewis | Sr Manager, Customer Insights, Airship
Jennie leads the Customer Insights function at Airship, helping brands measure the economic impact of their mobile app strategies. Her work encompasses B2B2C research, influencing the brands she works with, their customers and her own organisation's go-to-market strategies.
Jennie's focus is on data-backed strategies that help businesses grow. She created the industry-leading Mobile Lifecycle Measurement Framework that gives brands the ability to measure the impact of customer engagement on their business and recently released a study on the ‘7 Building Blocks of Mobile Experience Personalisation’, a guide for brands who want to create personalised customer experiences within the reality of a marketing operations team workload.
Prior to joining Airship, Jennie led Solutions Architecture and Strategic Alliances at CrowdTwist where she managed 150 partner relationships and built a team that designed technical architecture for omni-channel loyalty programs.
The Leader of the Year Award
This award recognises women at the forefront of leading customer experience and technology. These women inspire by role modelling the Women in CX values of courage, collaboration, inclusivity, and authenticity and are highly influential on their organisation, the people they work with and the wider community. These women have demonstrated a tangible impact on business performance through the CX initiatives they have led and are undoubtedly paving the way for others to succeed through their commitment to the development of others.
Amory Somers Vine | Director, CX, Expereo
Amory is a customer experience leader who believes that great customer experiences are designed. She is passionate about building intentional CX management capabilities and practices that align employees, partners, processes, policies, and technology around customers.
As a trusted strategic business partner, she has developed a reputation for her customer-centricity, commitment to high-quality delivery, strong entrepreneurial spirit, strategic thinking, drive for achievement, empowering and outcome-driven management style and supportive mentoring skills.
Amory joined Expereo, a leading provider of managed network solutions, in January 2023 as Director of Customer Experience to drive their strategic customer experience goals on a regional and global level. Prior to this, she spent 10 years with NTT Ltd where she created and led their global Client Experience and Insight Centre of Excellence.
She has a proven track record of building business-relevant functions that deliver factual, contextual, and actionable intelligence, putting customers at the centre of decision-making.
Charlotte Wray | CX Team Manager, Atos
With over 6 years of experience in the industry, Charlotte is currently the Customer Experience Team Manager at Atos, a global leader in digital transformation.
She’s a kind and empathetic leader and also incredibly professional. She sets high expectations which result in a collaborative, inclusive, and talented team that delivers extremely high-quality service.
In addition, Charlotte is a great ambassador for her community, working with local school children and the Prince's Trust.
Elaine Barnes | Chief Customer Officer, Cromwell
Elaine is a transformational leader passionate about Customer Experience. She is dedicated to connecting everything we do in business to how it impacts the customer, utilising the method of storytelling to engage organisations.
Elaine has experience at the Board level both as an Exec and Non-exec Director in the public and private sector. She started working life as a charity fundraiser and today is the Chief Customer Officer at Cromwell Group, an organisation dedicated to keeping operations running and people safe.
Living and working in the UK, Europe, Asia, and the US, harnessing the strength of her teams to enable organisations to delight customers, in almost 40 years of business, her greatest pleasure has been working with people, recognising their potential, and witnessing them thrive.
Tracey Pankhurst | Sr. Customer Experience Strategist, Reputation
Tracey has lived and breathed CX for the last 8 years, coming from a market research background and progressing from CSM to Insight Director to CX Specialist.
Now, as a CX and Insight Strategist, Tracey has extensive experience in designing, managing, and strategically advising global businesses on how to get value from their CX and EX programmes, enabling them to drive business improvement.
Her main passion is data, insights, and storytelling, and she combines this with a strategic focus to help leading organisations improve experiences across their entire customer journey, from acquisition to loyalty.
Olga Potaptseva | Founder, European Customer Constultancy
Olga Potaptseva is a Founder of CXPanda and a Top 15 Global CX Consultant. She works with organisations worldwide to enable customer-informed operating models that benefit the customers, employees, and the bottom line.
Throughout her 15 years in a leadership role and more recently as a Judge, Consultant and Thought Leader, she observed companies spending much effort and budget on CX education and alignment and not focusing enough on making CX operational. She’s on a mission to change that.
CX-inspired professionals can now confidently lead CX planning, education, stakeholder alignment, strategy sessions, customer insight, journey mapping and management using verified resources Olga and her team publish on CXpanda.
