Agenda

Featuring six specialised topic stages and a main stage, with the latest AV technology bringing case study presentations to life

3000+ ATTENDEES

250+ PRESENTERS

7 Stages

2 Days

EBM---Customer-Engagement-Summit---09-10-2025-0072

10:00 - 10:05 Studio Host Welcome

LIVE! From the Engage Customer studio, Gerry Brown, Chief Customer Rescue Officer at Customer Lifeguard opens the Virtual Customer Engagement Transformation Conference with a whole host of organisations set to take to the stage, ranging from BMW to Trainline, to Microsoft to Pfizer, describing the unprecedented times they have encountered so far during the last 18 months and how they have kept up with customer trends to implement winning strategies and reap the rewards of customer loyalty as a result.

Speaker: Gerry Brown Customer Lifeguard

10:00 - 10:05 Studio Host Welcome

Dates:

Wednesday 07 October 2026

08:55 - 09:00

Main Stage

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

Introduction

The Customer-Led Growth Agenda

Welcome to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 is all about The Customer Reality – putting the real pressures, gaps and successes in customer engagement front and centre. From strained contact centres and shifting customer expectations to the challenges of turning data into decisions and rebuilding loyalty, today is designed to surface what is genuinely happening in organisations right now, not just what the slideware says.

In this opening address, Martin will set the tone for a day of honest, practical insight. Today’s agenda is built to help you see your own organisation more clearly – through case studies, panels and conversations grounded in lived experience.

Speaker:

Martin Hill-Wilson

Brainfood Training

Co-Founder

Martin Hill-Wilson is a long-standing member of the Customer Engagement community. Over his career, he has launched a series of change initiatives using the dynamic of action-based learning – most recently AI for Non Technical Minds. All are designed to disrupt and reset the ‘art of the possible’ using new operating models re-imagined through foundation user education.

09:00 - 09:25

Main Stage

The UK CX Report 2026: The Opportunity for Delight: Rising Above the Mediocre

Opening Keynote

The Customer-Led Growth Agenda

Ipsos, in partnership with Engage Business Media, is delighted to share this year’s insights into current trends within the customer experience landscape.

The 2026 nationally representative study explores:

1.The continued rise of ‘nothing notable’ experiences, and why this should be a concern

2.The key factors currently influencing customer perceptions of CX

3.Why and how it’s time to revisit VoC with a fresh perspective

Join Jamie Thorpe, Chief Experience Officer, and Laura Godfrey, Head of Client Services, CX, as they share actionable insights from the UK CX Report 2026 to help you understand current landscape trends, and determine next steps for differentiating your brand experience in uncertain economic times.

Speakers:

Jamie Thorpe

Ipsos

Chief Experience Officer

Jamie is a CX, Research and Engagement professional with over 25 years industry experience and expertise. Having worked directly with clients for the duration of his career he prides himself on developing solutions with them to meet their needs and drive actionable intelligence into the business. Jamie recognises the growing need for brands to be connected with customers and the customers realisation of their own value. These elements, when blended with the technologically advanced world in which we now live and the fickle, impatient customer of today, make the customer agenda more important than ever. Customer segmentation, data, business intelligence and insight play a key part. Jamie is a member of several leading governing bodies and well networked both within the supplier and client communities - all of which enables him to provide guidance and support irrespective of sector and methodology.

Laura Godfrey

Ipsos

Head of Client Service Team, CX

Laura is the Head of Client Service for CX at Ipsos UK. With over 20 years’ experience, she leads a team that delivers cutting-edge research programmes, insights, analytics and professional services to brands across all industry verticals. Passionate about making a difference, Laura is committed to helping clients build stronger, more profitable relationships with their customers, through best practice programme design and delivery.

09:50 - 10:20

Main Stage

The Growth Conversation Every Organisation Should Be Having

Panel Discussion

The Customer-Led Growth Agenda

Customer experience has long been positioned as a strategic priority, yet the gap between organisations that talk about customer-led growth and those genuinely building commercial strategy around it remains significant. As competitive pressure intensifies, the decisions leaders make about where to invest, what to measure, and how to align the whole organisation behind a single, customer-led growth agenda are becoming increasingly consequential.

In this panel, senior leaders will share how they are making customer experience a genuine priority rather than a functional concern. From building the business case for CX investment to aligning leadership teams around a shared growth agenda, panellists will explore the strategic decisions, cultural shifts, and hard lessons that separate experience leaders from the rest.

What you'll gain:

Insight into how senior leaders are linking CX strategies to measurable growth
Practical approaches to building leadership appetite for customer-led transformation
Real examples of the strategic decisions that are making the biggest difference
A clearer picture of what genuine alignment between CX and revenue growth looks like in practice

Speakers:

Will Abbott

Workspace

Chief Customer Officer

Growth-focused marketing leader with a track record of helping organisations scale by uniting brand strategy, performance marketing, revenue optimisation, data & insight and customer experience.My experience spans FTSE-listed, PE-backed and high-growth businesses, with particular depth in SME-focused markets. Much of my work has been about applying the discipline and creativity of B2C marketing to more complex B2B environments – building brands that create preference, drive demand and long-term customer value. At Workspace, my role as Chief Customer Officer encompasses a broad growth agenda across brand, proposition, marketing, digital, CRM, partnerships and customer experience. My background includes brand repositioning, performance marketing, CRM and segmentation, digital transformation, customer experience, AI adoption, proposition development and cross-functional leadership. Across roles at Workspace, Hiscox, Neilson, Freesat, Sky and Complan, I’ve helped build stronger brands, improve conversion, grow customer bases and create more commercially accountable marketing teams.

Jo Harris

Quilter

Chief Customer Officer

Jo Harris is Chief Customer Officer at Quilter and has more than 30 years' experience across banking and wealth management. Passionate about closing the advice gap, she is dedicated to helping more people achieve a brighter financial future through access to quality financial guidance, advice and support. Having led large-scale customer, operational, commercial and distribution teams across Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest prior to Quilter, Jo has built her career around transforming customer experiences to deliver better customer outcomes and sustainable commercial growth. At Quilter, she leads the firm's Customer Champion strategy.

10:20 - 11:00

Main Stage

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Customer-Led Growth Agenda

Step away from the Main Stage and make the most of our exhibition space.

This break is your opportunity to engage with sponsors, explore new tools and services, and exchange insights with fellow attendees. Whether you’re looking for solutions, inspiration or new connections, the exhibition floor is where conversations come to life.

Top Tip: Use the Event App to pre-book meetings with those partners and peers that matter most.

11:00 - 11:25

Main Stage

DHL Express Case Study: What Transformation Setbacks Taught Me About Scaling AI, Change and Customer Operations

Case Study

Innovation, Disruption & Building the Future-Ready Organisation

Technology transformation rarely fails because of the technology itself. More often, the challenges emerge when new systems, processes and ways of working meet the reality of day-to-day operations.
Drawing on her customer service transformation journey, this session explores the lessons learned from a major service migration, the unexpected impact, and how those experiences are now shaping the organisation's approach to AI, innovation and future change.

This presentation offers an honest perspective on what happens when transformation doesn’t go as expected, and what leaders can learn from it.

What was unexpected during a large-scale transformation and the lessons learned along the way.
Why trust, adoption and employee confidence matter as much as technology.
Building a culture that embraces experimentation, learning and continuous improvement.
Leading through uncertainty and creating the conditions for innovation to succeed.
Applying those lessons to the next generation of AI and agentic AI initiatives.

Speaker:

Jen Sharp

DHL Express

Vice President Customer Service

Jen Sharp is Vice President of Customer Service at DHL Express. An experienced and passionate CX leader, she brings over 20 years of expertise delivering excellence in the transportation and logistics sector, where she leads DHL’s customer service strategy and transformation agenda.

Jen is known for her focus on driving meaningful change through people. She champions courageous leadership in times of transformation-believing that in periods of rapid change, leaders must step forward before they feel ready, as standing still often presents the greater risk.

Her approach combines innovation, collaboration, and a strong commitment to building agile, adaptive cultures where people are empowered, and change is embraced as the norm.

11:50 - 12:20

Main Stage

Ahead of the Curve – What It Really Takes to Be Industry-Leading

Panel Discussion

Innovation, Disruption & Building the Future-Ready Organisation

Disruption is no longer a future threat, it is a present reality. The organisations winning in customer engagement are not just responding to change, they are driving it, making bold bets on new models, new technology, and new ways of thinking about the customer relationship before their competitors do. Yet building an organisation that can genuinely innovate at pace while maintaining strategic direction remains one of the hardest leadership challenges of our time.

In this panel, senior leaders will share how they are actively shaping the future of their industries rather than reacting to it. From creating the cultural conditions for genuine innovation to making the strategic calls that keep organisations on the right side of disruption, panellists will explore what it takes to lead boldly when the pace of change shows no sign of slowing.

What you'll gain:

Insight into how senior leaders are building organisations that can genuinely innovate at pace
Practical approaches to staying on the right side of disruption rather than reacting to it
Real examples of bold strategic bets that are paying off in customer engagement
A clearer picture of what a future-ready organisation actually looks like from the inside

Speakers:

Josh Hulse

Halo

Senior Account Executive

Josh Hulse is a Senior Account Executive at Halo, working with organisations as they modernise customer service, replace legacy systems and adopt new technology like AI. He brings a practical, front-line view of what it takes to build a future-ready organisation.

Lisa Topliss

Ricoh Europe

Director Strategy & Operations

A strategic leader specialising in the future of work, market intelligence and business transformation, working across both EMEA and global strategic initiatives. She helps organisations navigate changing customer expectations by translating market insight, customer needs and emerging technology trends into practical strategies that drive growth and strengthen competitive positioning.

Passionate about the intersection of AI, customer engagement and workplace innovation, Lisa works with industry analysts, business leaders and global teams to understand how technology is reshaping the way organisations buy, work and engage with customers. She is particularly interested in how independent market insight, and external validation can help organisations build credibility, differentiate in increasingly competitive markets and create compelling customer experiences.

Rhea Fox

Absolute Collagen

Chief Marketing Officer

Highly commercial digital and marketing director with extensive experience in omnichannel ecommerce, in PLC and private equity environments. Cuts through noise to focus on what genuinely moves revenue, aligning customer strategy, commercial priorities and execution. Builds and leads vibrant high-performance, multi-disciplinary marketing and digital teams at pace and brings board-level influence / matrix leadership. Regular industry speaker on digital transformation, marketing effectiveness and customer strategy. London-based.

12:20 - 12:45

Main Stage

Why Customer Conversations Are Won Before an Agent Says Hello

Presentation

Innovation, Disruption & Building the Future-Ready Organisation

By the time an agent joins a conversation, the customer has often already formed an impression of the experience. The channels they used, the context that was preserved, the effort required, and the effectiveness of automation have already shaped the outcome.

This session looks beyond the agent interaction itself to explore the invisible factors that determine customer experience success. From orchestration and context-sharing to AI-driven service journeys and operational design, leaders will discuss how the best experiences are often determined long before a conversation reaches a human.

What we'll discuss:

The role of context in shaping successful customer outcomes
Why orchestration matters more than individual interactions
How leading organisations design for continuity rather than handoffs
The operational decisions that customers notice most, even when they never see them

Speaker:

Andrew Pattie

Sprinklr

CX Solutions Director UKI & South Europe

With a decade of experience in CX and EX, Andrew specialises in Digital, AI, and CX Transformation. He’s delivered impactful solutions across Pre and Post-sales roles at high-growth companies like Content Guru, Freshworks, and Talkdesk. Now CX Solutions Director at Sprinklr, he drives platform adoption across Europe, helping public and private sector organisations reimagine customer experience. Known for his deep contact centre expertise and transformative thinking, Andrew is a passionate advocate for pushing CX boundaries.

12:45 - 14:00

Main Stage

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Innovation, Disruption & Building the Future-Ready Organisation

14:00 - 14:25

Main Stage

From Optimisation to Reinvention: How END. Is Harnessing AI to Transform

Interview

Leadership, Culture & Trust in Driving Transformation

When Andrew Webber stepped into the Chief Digital & Customer Officer role at END., he made a deliberate choice: AI wouldn’t be a tool for marginal gains, it would be the engine of a fundamental shift in how the business performs and serves customers. In this interview, Andrew shares why he believes AI can leapfrog broken processes rather than slowly patching them, and how that conviction is shaping his transformation agenda.

Across the conversation, we’ll explore:

Why incremental optimisation is no longer enough – and what “full commercial transformation” means in practice
How AI is being applied across customer journeys, decision‑making and operational bottlenecks
The leadership, governance and talent moves needed to unlock AI’s real value at scale
What “progress” looks like through Andrew’s lens, and how he keeps customer outcomes at the heart of a tech‑driven change programme

This is a candid look at what it really takes to lead AI‑driven change as a Chief Digital & Customer Officer, with lessons for any senior leader rethinking how technology, customer and commercial strategy come together.

Speaker:

Andrew Webber

END.

Chief Digital & Customer Officer

Andrew has built a 20 year career combining marketing, analytics and technology, across gaming, utilities, healthcare and retail, including founding and running an AI and Machine Learning business back in 2018.

This experience, combined with the rapidly evolving AI landscape, has been the perfect timing and fit for transforming the commercial engine at End Clothing with data and AI.

14:50 - 15:20

Main Stage

The Culture Problem Nobody Talks About

Panel Discussion

Leadership, Culture & Trust in Driving Transformation

Technology can be bought. Culture has to be built. And trust, once lost, is extraordinarily difficult to rebuild. For C-suite leaders, the ability to shape culture, lead through uncertainty, and build genuine trust with both customers and employees is arguably the most consequential and least discussed dimension of CX leadership. Yet in many organisations, culture and trust remain aspirational rather than operational.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what it has genuinely taken to drive cultural transformation that sticks. From building trust internally and externally under significant commercial pressure to leading through change without creating the anxiety that undermines performance, panellists will explore the lived experience of making culture and trust real competitive advantages rather than values on a wall.

What you'll gain:

Honest perspectives on what cultural transformation looks like from the top
Insight into how senior leaders are building trust with customers and employees simultaneously
Practical approaches to leading through change without losing the culture you are trying to build
Real examples of the moments that tested culture and trust, and what they revealed

Speakers:

Judy Boniface-Chang

Birdie

Chief Customer Officer

I build the commercial engines that make mission-driven companies grow. But if there's one thing twenty years has taught me, it's that strategy doesn't fail on the spreadsheet. It fails in the gap between what leaders decide and what teams actually believe. Culture and trust aren't the soft edges of transformation; they're the whole game.

I've built and restructured teams across the US, EMEA and APAC, and every time, the technical part was the easy bit. The hard part was earning the trust to take people somewhere they couldn't yet see.

At Birdie I coined the vision "it takes a village", not as a tagline, but as a genuine organising principle for how we lead and build an impactful culture that puts the person receiving care at the centre, and connect everyone around them. Over the last four years I've led a transformation of our customer organisation, redesigning it into segmented functions and embedding AI early and deliberately. While that drove a sign improvement in gross margin, the result I'm proudest of is a team that stayed engaged through the change rather than bracing against it. You don't get one without the other.

I'm convinced the leaders who win the next few years won't be the ones with the best AI roadmap, but the ones who build enough trust for their people to actually use it well. If you're wrestling with how to lead change without losing the humans in it, I'd always welcome the conversation.

Kieran Holdcroft

ManyPets

Operations Director

Kieran is the Operations Director at ManyPets, a leading UK pet insurer, having joined them in 2024. He is passionate about creating a high performing environment that nurtures talent and allows people to grow and achieve their goals. Before joining ManyPets, Kieran built a diverse career across senior customer facing and operational roles within Operations, Banking, and Financial Services, working with organisations including Cushman & Wakefield and the Royal Bank of Scotland. His broad experience and commitment to continuous improvement underpin his focus on delivering exceptional customer and business outcomes.

15:45 - 16:05

Main Stage

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Leadership, Culture & Trust in Driving Transformation

16:05 - 16:30

Main Stage

Inside Bel: Building the Capability Behind Babybel, The Laughing Cow and Beyond

Interview

The State of Customer Experience: What the Data is Telling Us

As Chief Capability Officer at Bel – the group behind household names such as Babybel, The Laughing Cow and a broader portfolio of dairy and snacking brands – Hady Kalaf sits at the point where strategy, people and execution meet. In this interview, he explores what the “future of work” really means when a global consumer brand group rethinks how it builds capability across multiple markets and banners.

Across the conversation, we’ll explore:

Why future‑of‑work debates often stay abstract – and how Bel translates them into concrete capability decisions for brands customers recognise
How Bel is re‑thinking skills, structures and collaboration to stay competitive and customer‑centric in fast‑moving consumer markets
The role of capability in enabling digital, AI and CX transformation, rather than simply reacting to it
How senior leaders can align people, technology and ways of working across a portfolio of brands without losing pace or overwhelming teams

This is a practical, forward‑looking discussion about how a major consumer group designs an organisation that is genuinely ready for the future of work – with insights that will resonate for any leader responsible for people, transformation or customer outcomes.

Speaker:

Hady Kalaf

Bel

Chief Capability Officer

I spent my life together with other people from my country, adapting to change, learning how to turn challenges to opportunities and choosing optimism as the only way forward.

Dealing with uncertainty, building resilience, searching for meaning and transforming myself have been my lifetime story and the catalyst of my growth journey.
These experiences didn’t just shape who I am; they shaped how I lead, coach, and empower others to thrive in complexity.

As an Executive Business Coach and transformation partner, I help leaders and teams become future ready. My approach is tailor made and focuses on challenging linear mindset, embracing creativity and reimagining what’s possible.

16:30 - 17:00

Main Stage

The State of Customer Engagement – What the Data Is Really Telling Us

Panel Discussion

The State of Customer Experience: What the Data is Telling Us

Benchmarks, indices, and research reports paint a picture of the state of customer experience across industries, but how useful is that picture when it comes to making real strategic decisions? And what do the numbers inside your own organisation actually reveal about where you stand, what is working, and where the gap between aspiration and reality is widest?

In this panel, senior leaders will take a data-led look at the current state of CX, separating signal from noise and exploring what the most meaningful metrics are telling us about where the industry is heading. From using data to drive strategic decisions and make the case for investment, to identifying the priorities that will matter most in the year ahead, panellists will share how they are turning insight into action rather than into reports.

What you'll gain:

A clear view of where the industry stands on key CX metrics and what that means strategically
Insight into how senior leaders are using data to drive CX investment decisions
Practical frameworks for identifying the metrics that actually matter in your organisation
Real examples of turning data insight into strategic action rather than just reporting

Speakers:

Nicole Sharp

Soverign Network Group

Chief Customer Officer

Nicole is SNG's Chief Customer Officer and she leads all customer facing services including safeguarding, and on compliance with consumer regulation.

Prior to her appointment at SNG Nicole was Chief Customer Officer at Sovereign which she joined in 1998 and has led a range of operational and customer-service teams and major projects across property, housing and landlord services.

She brings extensive experience of the social housing sector and a passion for developing a forward-thinking customer/resident-centric culture.

Rebecca Trebble

Gridserve

Chief Customer Officer

A high-energy, self-motivated, experienced business leader, with a broad experience across finance, customer analytics, strategy (inc. customer strategy), project management, customer experience and customer marketing. Operating at the executive level with board experience.

17:25 - 17:30

Main Stage

Closing Remarks

The State of Customer Experience: What the Data is Telling Us

Speaker:

Martin Hill-Wilson

Brainfood Training

Co-Founder

17:30

Main Stage

Summit After-Party

The Night Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Future of The Contact Centre

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

Introduction

Scaling Service: Meeting Demand Without Compromise

Welcome to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 is all about The Customer Reality – putting the real pressures, gaps and successes in customer engagement front and centre. From strained contact centres and shifting customer expectations to the challenges of turning data into decisions and rebuilding loyalty, today is designed to surface what is genuinely happening in organisations right now, not just what the slideware says.

In this opening address, Marcus will set the tone for a day of honest, practical insight. Today’s agenda is built to help you see your own organisation more clearly – through case studies, panels and conversations grounded in lived experience.

Speaker:

Marcus Hickman

Davies Hickman

Managing Director

Jo and Marcus are founders of Davies Hickman Partners, set up in 2007. Responsible for one of the longest-running tracker studies of customer contact – The Autonomous Customer – they are market research advisers to the customer experience and contact centre industry, that includes some of the leading customer service associations. In 2023, Davies Hickman Partners were finalists in the Content Marketing Institute awards for research on AI for CX. Jo is on the BSI and ISO committee responsible for developing Contact centre, Customer service excellence and Complaint handling standards.

09:00 - 09:25

Future of The Contact Centre

Opening Keynote: The Future of the Contact Centre – What the Data Is Really Telling Us

Opening Keynote

Scaling Service: Meeting Demand Without Compromise

The contact centre sits at the sharp end of customer reality – and the pressure has never been higher. Rising volumes, complex customer needs, talent constraints and rapid technology change are colliding in ways that few operations can ignore. This opening keynote reveals brand‑new industry research on how contact centres are responding, where they are genuinely progressing, and where the gap between ambition and reality remains widest.

Drawing on fresh data and insight, the session will explore:

How service demand, customer expectations and operational strain are evolving across the industry
Where investment in digital, automation and AI is delivering tangible results – and where it is still falling short
What separates high‑performing contact centres from those struggling to keep pace
The leadership, capability and measurement shifts that will matter most in the next wave of change

Designed as the scene‑setter for the Future of the Contact Centre stage, this keynote gives senior leaders a clear, evidence‑based view of where the industry stands today – and the questions they need to be asking of their own operations as they look ahead.

09:50 - 10:20

Future of The Contact Centre

Scaling Service – How Are You Really Holding the Line?

Panel Discussion

Scaling Service: Meeting Demand Without Compromise

Contact centres are navigating a perfect storm of rising contact volumes, stretched teams, and growing customer expectations. For many organisations, the pressure is not theoretical, it is daily and operational, playing out in real time across every shift.

This panel brings together senior contact centre leaders to share how they are genuinely managing demand without compromising quality. From workforce planning and demand forecasting to the cultural and operational decisions that keep service levels stable under strain, panellists will offer honest perspectives on what is working, what is not, and where the pressure is most acute.

What you'll gain:

Honest insight into how leading contact centres are managing rising demand
Practical approaches to workforce management and demand planning under pressure
Real examples of maintaining quality when operational strain is at its highest

10:20 - 11:00

Future of The Contact Centre

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Scaling Service: Meeting Demand Without Compromise

11:00 - 11:25

Future of The Contact Centre

Cambridge University Press & Assessment Case Study: Modernising Customer Service at One of the Worlds Oldest Institutions

Case Study

Digital Contact Centre Transformation

From AI hype to the operational reality AI has moved from boardroom conversation to operational necessity – but what does successful adoption really look like for service leaders? Drawing on real-world experience from Cambridge University Press & Assessment, this session explores the practical realities of implementing AI within customer service.

In addition to exploring future possibilities it examines what is delivering value today: building business cases that resonate with senior leadership, measuring ROI, managing organisational change, and ensuring AI enhances rather than replaces the human experience.

Richard Murray will share lessons learned from introducing AI into service operations, including common pitfalls, governance considerations, securing board-level support, and balancing innovation with risk. Attendees will leave with practical insights as to where AI is creating measurable impact today, how to lead successful adoption within their own organisations, and what capabilities service leaders should be preparing for over the next three to five years.

Speaker:

Richard Murray

Cambridge University Press & Assessment

Global Director of Customer Service

Richard Murray is the Global Director of Customer Service at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, where he leads customer service strategy and transformation across a global education organisation serving learners, educators, institutions and partners worldwide.

11:25 - 11:50

Future of The Contact Centre

It’s Not About AI, It’s About the Customer Stupid!

Presentation

Digital Contact Centre Transformation

AI can process information, automate tasks, augment agents and help people make better decisions – it has the potential to be a true gamechanger in the world of customer services. But the best outcomes don't start with AI, they start with understanding the customer journey and designing the right path to the desired outcome. Only then should you ask how AI can help. Otherwise, it risks becoming a solution looking for a problem.

The organisations seeing the greatest value from AI don't start with the technology. They start by defining the outcomes they want for customers, colleagues and the business.

From there, they redesign services around those outcomes, identify what's getting in the way, and then apply AI where it adds the greatest value - removing friction, improving decisions and freeing people to focus on the moments where judgement and empathy make the biggest difference.

Our research shows just how often that critical step is being missed. Nearly half of businesses don’t gather insight from the people who will use a new service before changing it. Half don’t set clear measures of success. And 44% fail to train employees on the new technology or processes they’re expected to use.

And the risks are real. While 88% of financial services firms have increased their use of customer-facing AI, only 23% are confident it isn’t increasing bias or digital exclusion. Nearly three-quarters of vulnerable customers say they have felt like giving up while trying to get help.

Complaints are where the real story begins.

They expose where customer journeys break down, where processes create unnecessary friction, and where both customers and employees are forced to navigate needless complexity. With UK financial services firms recording 1.74 million complaints in the second half of 2025 alone, the message is impossible to ignore: services need to change. That's exactly where we chose to start.

In this session, we'll show how we're transforming complaints handling for a major automotive finance provider by putting the problem before the technology. We'll demonstrate how to turn customer pain points into clear AI and transformation priorities, avoid solving tomorrow's challenges with yesterday's infrastructure, and design technology that enables fairer, faster, more consistent and fully explainable decisions.

This isn't AI for AI's sake. It's AI with purpose - freeing people from unnecessary complexity so they can focus on what matters most: applying judgement, showing empathy and delivering better outcomes for customers.

Speakers:

Joseph Jack

ArvatoConnect

Head of Compliance

Joseph Jack is Head of Compliance at ArvatoConnect, with over 15 years’ experience across contact centre operations and regulated financial services, spanning both first-line Operations and second-line Risk & Compliance roles. He has a particular focus on the Consumer Duty, supporting the business to translate regulatory requirements into practical processes that drive good customer outcomes. More recently, his work has centred on the use of AI in operational environments, with a specific interest in how to deploy and manage the technology in a way that supports the delivery of good outcomes for all customers, including those in vulnerable circumstances.

James Towner

ArvatoConnect

Chief Growth Officer

James Towner, Chief Growth Officer, ArvatoConnect James Towner is a business growth leader with over 30 years’ experience delivering transformational value for clients across government, financial services, telecoms and utilities. As Chief Growth Officer at ArvatoConnect, he drives business growth and digital strategy, helping organisations navigate change and unlock new and future opportunities through innovation and partnership. Previously, as Senior Vice President at a leading global services firm, he expanded the company across the UK and Europe in the energy and utility sector, focusing on data-driven and digital solutions. Earlier, as a Group Sales Director at a major outsourcing and professional services company, James established its sales presence in Germany, securing groundbreaking outsourcing partnerships. Beyond his executive role, James is a Non-Executive Director at Oxford Direct Services (ODS), supporting its mission to deliver sustainable, customer-focused services for the local community. He has also served as a Trustee for local organisations including an Oxford-based theatre company and the Prospect Hospice in Swindon.

11:50 - 12:20

Future of The Contact Centre

Digital Transformation in the Contact Centre – Closing the Gap Between Ambition and Reality

Panel Discussion

Digital Contact Centre Transformation

Every contact centre is on a digital transformation journey, but the distance between those making it work and those still navigating the complexity of implementation is significant. Adopting digital tools, cloud platforms, and intelligent automation mid-operation is rarely straightforward, and the organisations getting it right understand that successful transformation is as much about bringing their people with them as it is about the technology itself.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what digital transformation actually looks like in a live contact centre environment. From the realities of cloud migration and automation deployment to keeping agents engaged, motivated, and central to the transformation journey, panellists will explore what genuine progress looks like, where the common pitfalls are, and what it takes to close the gap between transformation ambition and operational reality when both technology and people are part of the equation.

What you'll gain:

Honest insight into what digital transformation looks like in a live contact centre environment
Practical approaches to deploying intelligent automation without disrupting operations or disengaging frontline teams
A clearer picture of where conversational and generative AI is genuinely adding value for agents and customers alike
Real examples of how leading organisations are keeping agents engaged and empowered throughout the transformation journey

Speakers:

Tom Miller

Invoca

Senior Director, Customer Success

Tom Miller is the Senior Director of Customer Success at Invoca, helping brands optimise how they acquire and engage customers. With over 15 years of SaaS leadership experience, he works with organisations to bridge digital and offline experiences - unlocking insights from customer conversations to enhance business performance, elevate customer experience, and deliver measurable, revenue-driving impact across every stage of the customer journey.

Barry Cooper

Smart Currency Exchange

Head of Conversion

Joining the contact centre industry was not something I had planned, but like most unplanned things its one of the best things that could have happened.

Starting my contact centre career as a customer service advisor answering customer calls, I was able to learn a lot about what great service meant not only to me but to my customers, since then I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing all the great things the contact centre industry has to offer.

I was lucky enough to have great mentors and teachers along the way that helped me focus my passion for all things customer and 20+ years later I find myself still working in a industry that I love and have the pleasure of sharing with a great community.

I’ve been working for moneycorp for 6 years and I get to do something that makes me smile everyday, from interactions with our customers, delivering for the business to watching and developing our amazing people.

I know one thing for sure, although I didn’t plan to join the contact centre industry when I started I’ve since learned it’s one the best industries you can be in and I am well and truly in it to stay.

I have great leadership skills and a passion for delivering great customer experience and service at the highest level, whilst meeting the needs of the business and inspiring those around me.

David Goldsworth

Aqualisa Products Limited

Director of Customer Experience

Senior Customer Service and Experience (CX) professional, specialist in building high-performing customer functions within regulated, loyalty driven businesses. A breadth of experience in consultancy, interim and permanent positions across sectors including finance, telecoms and automotive.

My career has centred around service transformations driving loyalty and subscriptions with strong ROI for renowned brands including BT, Virgin Media, Aviva, and fast-paced digitally focused start-ups Motorway.co.uk and Virgin Red.

12:20 - 12:40

Future of The Contact Centre

AI in UK Contact Centres - What's Really Happening?

Presentation

Digital Contact Centre Transformation

Speaker:

Steve Morrell

ContactBabel

Managing Director

Steve Morrell is the Managing Director of ContactBabel, the research and analysis firm established in 2001 to serve the UK contact centre industry. He has authored hundreds of research reports over more than two
decades, and his analysis has been featured across the BBC, ITV, Sky, the Guardian, Forbes and the Financial Times. He has also advised the UK government on the impact of offshoring on the UK economy.

12:40 - 14:00

Future of The Contact Centre

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Digital Contact Centre Transformation

14:00 - 14:25

Future of The Contact Centre

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Case Study: Architecting AI Capacity: Executive Governance & Leadership ROI vs. ROE

Case Study

Redefining Efficiency: Cost, Quality & the Customer Balance

Deploying 2026 AI technology with 1990s management paradigms is driving burnout, administrative debt, and customer churn. In this executive briefing, Top 50 CX Leader Sabina Onwuka delivers the ROI to ROE (Return on Experience) Blueprint, a practical governance framework to eliminate operational drag, optimise workforce capacity, and protect brand equity where human connection matters most.

Key Takeaways

The ROI to ROE Shift: Moving boardroom metrics from short-term cost cutting to sustainable capacity and retention.
WFM & Headcount Balance: Right sizing human talent alongside AI without causing operational backlogs.
The System Orchestrator: Elevating middle management out of spreadsheet debt and into high-impact strategic coaching.
The Empathy Imperative: Protecting frontline capacity for high emotion, high-value customer interactions.

Speaker:

Sabina Onwuka

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

Head of Customer Services

Sabina Onwuka is a multi‑award‑winning customer experience consultant, strategist, international keynote speaker, and industry judge, with 25 years of hands‑on leadership across financial services and the public sector.

Recognised among the Top 50 Women Shaping the Future of Customer Experience in 2024, a finalist for Women in CX Leader of the Year 2025, recognised amongst top 50 incredible people shaping CX in 2025 and recently recognised amongst top 50 CX leaders 2026 to follow, Sabina has built a reputation as a catalyst for transformative, people‑centric service delivery.

A passionate coach and mentor, Sabina brings creativity, operational rigor, and a genuine desire to exceed expectations. As the role of the manager is changing, Sabina recently launched The Future Ready Manager Masterclass series to help empower operational leaders to use AI effectively while strengthening empathy, ethics, and leadership. And has written an eBook titled “Coaching Mid-level Managers in an AI-Augment World”. Her ethos bridges technology and compassion, making her a standout voice in ethics‑driven CX.

Currently serving as Head Customer Services for the Barking and Dagenham Council, Sabina has led major operational transformations. Her major achievement involved implementing an inclusive speech analytics and AI platform. This innovation dramatically improved support for vulnerable residents, enabling the council to proactively identify individuals in need, respond with empathy and urgency, and enhance overall accessibility. This innovation won bronze at the esteemed European Contact Centre & Customer Services award in 2025 and Gold at the Smarter Working Live Awards in 2024. Sabina’s leadership is defined by combining digital innovation with deep human insight.

She successfully transitioned her service teams from traditional office‑based setups to fully remote, cloud‑enabled operations, while embedding psychological safety, fostering motivation, and empowering employees to elevate customer interactions.

14:50 - 15:20

Future of The Contact Centre

The Efficiency Equation – Finding the Balance That Actually Work

Panel Discussion

Redefining Efficiency: Cost, Quality & the Customer Balance

The pressure to reduce costs while maintaining or improving customer experience is one of the most persistent tensions in contact centre management. Getting the balance right requires more than good intentions, it demands smarter metrics, stronger operating models, and a clear understanding of where efficiency gains are genuinely sustainable and where they risk undermining the very experience they are meant to support.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore how they are navigating the efficiency and experience balance in practice. From the metrics that genuinely reflect sustainable performance to ensuring that the drive for efficiency never compromises the standard of care owed to vulnerable customers, panellists will share what a commercially successful and customer-responsible operation actually looks like.

What you'll gain:

Practical frameworks for balancing cost reduction with experience quality in a contact centre environment
Insight into the metrics that genuinely reflect sustainable operational efficiency
A clearer picture of how leading organisations are protecting vulnerable customers within efficiency-driven models
Real examples of where efficiency investment is delivering the strongest commercial returns

Speaker:

Jordan Hornby-Turner

Outsource and Workforce Optimisation Manager

Jordan Hornby-Turner is the Workforce Optimisation & Outsource Manager at Nespresso UK&I, with over a decade of experience across customer experience, workforce planning, operational leadership and business transformation. Having progressed from frontline customer service roles to leading workforce strategy and outsourcing partnerships, she brings a unique perspective on balancing efficiency, cost, employee engagement and customer outcomes. Jordan has led major operational improvement initiatives, technology implementations and contact centre transformation, while remaining passionate about developing people and creating high-performing teams.

15:45 - 16:05

Future of The Contact Centre

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Redefining Efficiency: Cost, Quality & the Customer Balance

16:05 - 16:30

Future of The Contact Centre

Adanola: The Agent Experience Behind High Growth Customer Operations

Interview

The Agent Experience: People, Performance & the CX Connection

Agents sit at the point where customer expectations, operational pressure and organisational change collide. In this interview, transformative CX and operations leader Sandrea Morgan – with over two decades leading global contact centres, BPO relationships, learning and development and high‑growth customer operations – explores what it really takes to support agents when everything around them is moving fast.

Drawing on experience across different brands and sectors, including scaling digital‑first customer operations and building L&D programmes that strengthen confidence and capability, Sandrea will focus on the human side of modern contact centres: how to build teams that can handle volume, complexity and change, while introducing automation and AI in ways that help rather than overwhelm.

Attendees will hear:

What long‑term agent experience leadership has taught Sandrea about motivation, resilience and performance
How to connect people, process and technology so agents feel supported, not sidelined, by automation and AI
Practical moves leaders can make to improve day‑to‑day agent experience without waiting for a full transformation programme
How to keep customer outcomes at the heart of operational decisions when pressures and priorities compete

This session offers a people‑centred view of the future of the contact centre, with insights for anyone responsible for leading teams through ongoing change.

Speaker:

Sandrea Morgan

Adanola

Head of Customer Experience

Sandrea is a Senior Customer Service and Experience leader with over 20 years’ experience building and transforming global support functions across fashion, beauty, e-commerce, start-ups, and the public sector. She has led both in-house and outsourced operations at scale, spanning B2C and B2B environments, with deep expertise in digital-first customer support.

A strategic and commercially focused leader, Sandrea is known for transforming customer support from a reactive service into a proactive, insight-driven growth engine. She specialises in contact reduction, AI-enabled service design, and operational excellence, consistently improving efficiency, customer satisfaction, and revenue through smarter journeys and data-led decision making.

Passionate about the Voice of the Customer, Sandrea works cross-functionally with product, marketing, and technology teams to turn customer insight into meaningful,
measurable change. She is equally committed to building high-performing, engaged teams, with a strong focus on coaching, development, and leading through transformation.

16:30 - 16:55

Future of The Contact Centre

The Human Edge: Why Leadership Excellence is the True Driver of Customer Experience

Presentation

The Agent Experience: People, Performance & the CX Connection

The best technology and the most skilled agents will only take you so far. What truly separates organisations that consistently deliver exceptional customer experience from those that don't is the quality of their leadership. Leaders who operate with discipline, clarity, and empathy are the architects of CX excellence, setting the culture, defining the standards, and creating the conditions in which agents can perform at their best. This session makes the case for why leadership capability is the most critical and most underinvested variable in any CX strategy.

16:55 - 17:25

Future of The Contact Centre

The Agent Experience – Engaging Your Most Valuable CX Asset

Panel Discussion

The Agent Experience: People, Performance & the CX Connection

The link between agent experience and customer experience is well established, yet in many organisations the frontline workforce remains underinvested relative to its commercial importance. Agent attrition, disengagement, and burnout are not just people management challenges, they are customer experience challenges with measurable consequences for satisfaction, loyalty, and revenue.

In this panel, senior leaders will make the commercial case for investing in the agent experience and explore what that investment looks like in practice. From wellbeing, development, and retention strategies to supporting agents who regularly handle vulnerable customer interactions, panellists will share what it takes to build a frontline workforce that performs consistently, sustainably, and with genuine care for every customer it serves.

What you'll gain:

A clear commercial framework for the link between agent experience and customer outcomes
Practical approaches to reducing attrition and building frontline resilience
Insight into how leading organisations are supporting agents who handle vulnerable customer interactions
Real examples of the agent experience investments that are delivering the strongest returns

Speakers:

Dr Nicola Millard

Principal Innovation Partner

Once described as “human caffeine” on social media, Dr Nicola Millard injects a people-centred expresso shot to innovation and future strategy. In her long and varied career Nicola has done many jobs, including futurology, research, usability, customer service, marketing, and business consulting. She was
involved with some innovation firsts, including the first application of artificial intelligence into BT’s call centres, BT’s experiments with home working, and helping to develop BT’s “net easy” customer score.

Nicola got her PhD on motivation & technology acceptance from Lancaster University
in 2005, has authored over 50 publications – including 1 book and numerous book chapters – and is a mentor on Cambridge Judge Business School’s Masters programme on innovation & entrepreneurship. She is a judge on a number of award panels including the European Contact Centre & Customer Service awards.

Nicola is an award-winning presenter, with 2 TEDx talks and hundreds of conference panel, chair, and keynote sessions under her belt. She occasionally pops up on radio and TV around the world, including appearances on ‘Woman’s Hour’, ‘Tech Tent’, ‘The Media Show’, ‘The Genius of Invention’ and ‘Back in Time for the Weekend’ for the BBC.

Siobhan Taylor

Good Life Sorted

Head of Customer Experience

A Customer Support Leader, with a passion for people and always keen to be part of a community that champions feedback and collaboration.

I take the time to nurture and coach, to develop the best-in-class support teams. Focussing on enhancing the customer experience with care, which ultimately leads to increased customer satisfaction.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou 💜

17:25 - 17:30

Future of The Contact Centre

Chair's Close

Closing Remarks

The Agent Experience: People, Performance & the CX Connection

Speaker:

Marcus Hickman

Davies Hickman

Managing Director

17:30

Future of The Contact Centre

Summit After-Party

The Night Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Customer Contact

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

Introduction

The Omnichannel Imperative: Connecting Every Customer Touchpoint

Welcome to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 is all about The Customer Reality – putting the real pressures, gaps and successes in customer engagement front and centre. From strained contact centres and shifting customer expectations to the challenges of turning data into decisions and rebuilding loyalty, today is designed to surface what is genuinely happening in organisations right now, not just what the slideware says.

In this opening address, Nick will set the tone for a day of honest, practical insight. Today’s agenda is built to help you see your own organisation more clearly – through case studies, panels and conversations grounded in lived experience.

Speaker:

Nick Brice

Soul Corporations

CEO

Nicholas Brice is an international keynote speaker, consultant and author who helps organisations build the human capability, culture and customer experience needed to thrive in a fast-changing world. As founder of Soul Corporations® and author of The Mindful Communicator, he works with leaders and teams to strengthen clarity, communication, judgement, connection and everyday behaviour. Drawing on neuroscience, behavioural insight, culture change and theatre, Nicholas helps organisations create more aligned cultures, more consistent customer experiences and more meaningful performance.

09:00 - 09:25

Customer Contact

Opening Keynote: Adapting to the Rapid Evolution of the Contact Centre

Opening Keynote

The Omnichannel Imperative: Connecting Every Customer Touchpoint

The contact centre is changing fast – but how ready is the industry for what comes next? In this session, CCMA CEO Leigh Hopwood will unveil brand new research due to launch in early autumn, offering an exclusive first look at what the latest insight says about the future of contact centres.

The session will spotlight:

Where contact centres are genuinely progressing – and where they’re still under strain
How leaders are thinking about technology, AI, people and operating models in the years ahead
The emerging trends that will matter most for senior contact centre and customer leaders
The questions organisations should be asking now to stay ahead of the next wave of change

Speaker:

Leigh Hopwood

CCMA

CEO

As CEO of the Contact Centre Management Association (CCMA) since 2020, Leigh is drawing on her 20+ years’ experience in supporting the contact centre industry, holding leadership positions in a variety of membership organisations and as a professional marketer. Her mission is to support the development of the contact centre industry, give it a voice in society and to improve its overall reputation.

Leigh has been an awards judge since 2006, industry speaker and host of CareerTalk, and she sits on the Profession and Business Services Council in the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) on behalf of the contact centre industry. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a Chartered Marketer.

09:25 - 09:50

Customer Contact

After the Helpdesk: Why the Ticket Queue Won't Survive AI

Presentation

The Omnichannel Imperative: Connecting Every Customer Touchpoint

For twenty years, customer support ran on one idea: pay per seat. It's a pricing model built for an era when software couldn't measure the value it created, so vendors charged for the next best thing: how many people logged in. The better your AI gets, the fewer agents you need, and the less your vendor makes. Charles Studt, CMO of Delight.ai, argues that the ticket queue itself, not just its pricing, is the real artifact of an era that's ending. He shows what that actually looks like inside a real support org: AI orchestrates everything, the whole case from start to finish, and brings a human into the loop only for the one piece that actually needs a person. That's the flip. The AI runs the show, the human is the exception, not the other way around. Once AI is doing that much of the real work, the seat stops being what has value. The work does. This keynote lays out what comes after the helpdesk: a support org where the queue stops being the org chart, and ownership, not seat count, is what CX leaders are actually paying for.

Speaker:

Charles Studt

delight.ai

CMO

Charles Studt is the Chief Marketing Officer of Delight.ai, the AI-powered customer concierge platform that helps global enterprises deliver predictive, proactive and personalized customer experiences across every channel. With more than 20 years of experience scaling high-growth technology companies and building category-defining brands, he leads Delight.ai’s global marketing strategy at a pivotal moment in the evolution of agentic AI and customer engagement. As CMO, Studt is responsible for strengthening Delight.ai’s position as a leader in agentic AI-powered customer experience, bringing the company’s AI innovations to new markets and showcasing the measurable business impact of AI-driven customer engagement. Before joining Delight.ai, Studt held executive marketing roles at Qualtrics, where he led growth for their Customer Experience platform, cementing it as the leading CX solution for global brands. He has also held marketing leadership roles at IntelePeer, QuanticMind and Redbooth.

09:50 - 10:20

Customer Contact

The Omnichannel Reality – Are You Truly Connected or Just Multi-Channel?

Panel Discussion

The Omnichannel Imperative: Connecting Every Customer Touchpoint

Customers move seamlessly between channels without a second thought, yet most organisations are still operating in ways that create friction, inconsistency, and disconnection at every handoff. The gap between a genuinely joined-up omnichannel strategy and simply offering multiple contact options is significant, and customers notice it even when organisations do not.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what building a truly connected customer contact strategy looks like in practice. From integrating voice, chat, social, and self-service into a coherent experience to the operational and cultural changes needed to deliver consistency at scale, panellists will explore what it actually takes to move from multi-channel to genuinely omnichannel and why the distinction matters more than ever.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuine omnichannel customer contact looks like versus simply offering multiple channels
Practical approaches to integrating voice, digital, and self-service into a coherent and consistent experience
Insight into the operational and cultural changes needed to deliver true channel consistency at scale
Real examples of how leading organisations are closing the gap between omnichannel ambition and omnichannel reality

Speaker:

Colin Goodbody

Bromford Flagship

Head of Customer Operations

Colin is a strategic customer and operational transformation leader with over 20 years' experience delivering large scale change across housing, retail, utilities and infrastructure. He specialises in customer experience, AI enabled transformation, operational excellence and commercial leadership, helping organisations simplify complexity, identify & remove friction, improve performance and deliver better outcomes for customers and colleagues alike. Alongside his executive career, Colin is a Trustee for the Autism East Midlands, reflecting his passion for inclusion, accessibility and creating services that work for everyone.

10:20 - 11:00

Customer Contact

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Omnichannel Imperative: Connecting Every Customer Touchpoint

11:00 - 11:25

Customer Contact

Xero Case Study: The Future of CX: The Human and AI Partnership

Case Study

Self-Service & the Empowered Customer

How Xero is evolving CX through a human + AI model: starting with a digital-first support strategy, where AI-powered content and answers drive high self-service and allow human specialists to focus on the most complex customer issues.

It explores the impact on our people, showing how AI tools and emerging agents make work easier, while also investing heavily in training, change support, and experimentation to build confidence rather than fear around AI adoption.

The future of CX is not AI replacing humans, but a human–agent partnership where AI handles routine work and people bring empathy, judgement, and deeper problem-solving to higher-value customer moments.

Speaker:

Melanie Fischer

Xero

Director, Customer Experience - UK & EMEA

Results-oriented Director with 20+ years' experience in service excellence and continuous improvement. Expert in defining service excellence strategies that remove customer friction through AI-tooling, automation, and self-solve solutions. Motivational leader of 300+ staff, skilled in aligning global operations with business OKRs and leading Lean/Six Sigma re-engineering initiatives.

Areas of expertise include:
- AI & Technology Strategy: Defines and implements strategies to replace legacy tooling with AI-Assistance interwoven with human assistance.
- Process Innovation: Uses Lean/Six Sigma to simplify workflows and improve resolution speed
- Global Operations Leadership: Leads global teams including outsourced vendor BPO and in-house resolution and escalation teams
- Stakeholder Influence: Experienced C-level advisor and member of UK Leadership teams directly reporting to C-suite
- Quality Assurance and CSAT: Oversees CSAT and AI and Human-agent QA frameworks to drive Customer-Sentiment.

11:25 - 11:50

Customer Contact

One AI Agent, Every Market: Personalising Support Across Markets

Presentation

Self-Service & the Empowered Customer

Delivering great customer experiences across global markets means navigating different languages, regulations, and customer expectations—all while maintaining speed, quality, and consistency. As customer demands grow and high-volume moments put additional pressure on support teams, AI agents are helping enterprises deliver personalised service at scale.

In this session, you’ll hear how a global enterprise uses Ada’s AI agent to deliver fast, personalised support across languages and markets. Learn how they’re moving beyond scripted automation with generative AI, balancing local nuance and compliance requirements, and creating consistent customer experiences worldwide. We’ll explore the lessons learned from scaling AI across regions, the impact on customer support operations, and where AI is driving the greatest business value.

11:50 - 12:20

Customer Contact

Self-Service That Actually Works – Empowering Customers Without Losing Them

Panel Discussion

Self-Service & the Empowered Customer

Self-service has enormous commercial potential, but the gap between self-service that genuinely empowers customers and self-service that simply deflects contact and frustrates people is wider than most organisations want to admit. Getting it right requires more than deploying the right technology, it requires a deep understanding of what customers actually need and designing journeys that work for all of them, including those who are most vulnerable.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what genuinely effective self-service looks like in practice. From the design principles that make digital journeys feel effortless to the commercial and ethical case for inclusive self-service design, panellists will explore what it takes to build self-service capability that customers choose rather than endure.

What you'll gain:

Insight into what genuinely effective self-service design looks like and what separates it from self-service that simply deflects contact
Practical approaches to building digital journeys that customers actually want to use
A clearer picture of how to design self-service that works for all customers including those in vulnerable circumstances
Real examples of how leading organisations are turning self-service into a genuine competitive advantage

Speakers:

Shanti Kaur Gray

HSBC

Conversational Designer

I’m a Conversational Designer at HSBC, working at the intersection of language, experience design and AI to shape how customers get help across chat and voice. In practice, that means turning complex servicing needs into clear, intuitive conversations - so customers can resolve straightforward tasks quickly, and move seamlessly to a colleague when the situation needs empathy, judgement or specialist support.

My career started on the frontline in customer service and moved through social media before landing in conversation design. That mix gives me a grounded view of what customers actually do in the moments that matter: what they ask, what confuses them, and what builds confidence and trust.

I’m passionate about responsible AI in customer service - using automation where it genuinely reduces friction, designing with clear boundaries and quality controls, and always keeping the human experience (for customers and colleagues) at the centre.

Ashwin Peter

Brtish Gas

Senior Product Lead - Customer Experience & Product Strategy | Payments & Open Banking Innovation

I am a product leader who is passionate about building innovative game changing products to deliver value through customer centric solutions. I have over decade of global experience driving short & long term strategic goals through building products that solves customer's core problems.

I am analytical at heart and believe data drives product decisions . I am hyper focused on key metrics. Entrepreneurial by nature, I thrive under pressure and building products excite me. Highly resourceful with great influencing skills and with proven ability to lead diverse teams across geographies.

I have a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering and an M.B.A from McCombs School of Business, University of Texas - Austin

12:20 - 12:40

Customer Contact

Audience Q&A: Your Customer Contact Reality

Q&A

Self-Service & the Empowered Customer

This interactive Q&A session is all about you and your experience on the front line of customer engagement. Instead of another presentation, the focus shifts to the room – with Ipsos guiding the discussion to explore how senior leaders are thinking and feeling about the themes raised throughout the stage.

Through live polling and open discussion, the Ipsos team will delve into:

Where you see the biggest pressures and opportunities in your own organisation
How your reality compares to the stories and case studies shared on the stage
The bets you are making on people, process and technology – and where you still have questions
What support, evidence or examples you most need to move your customer agenda forward

A chance to test your thinking against peers, surface honest challenges and add your voice to the debate.

12:40 - 14:00

Customer Contact

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Self-Service & the Empowered Customer

14:00 - 14:25

Customer Contact

Small Features, Big Shifts – How Digital Products Move the CX Needle at Scale

Case Study

Smarter Customer Contact: Building Engagement Strategies That Scale

Serving millions of customers digitally leaves no room for guesswork: every friction point in a journey quickly becomes hundreds of thousands of contacts.

In this session, Mo Nuur, Head of Customer Product at E.ON Next, shares how his team built a customer product function that listens at scale and acts fast. He'll cover how feedback from across every channel is turned into a live product roadmap, how new features are tested and proven before rollout, and what that has delivered in fewer contacts, higher satisfaction and stronger advocacy.

Mo will also look ahead to the role of AI in the contact mix – where it genuinely removes effort for customers, and where the human touch still matters most.

Speaker:

Mo Nuur

E.ON Next

Head of Customer Product

Experienced digital leader with 15+ years in building and scaling B2C products across energy, e-commerce and technology sectors. I specialise in developing and leading high-performing digital product teams and delivering digital experiences that drive measurable business outcomes, reducing churn, improving customer satisfaction and increasing operational efficiency through self-serve and automation.I have a proven track record of partnering with Director & C-level stakeholders to shape and execute digital strategies that align commercial performance with customer experience. My leadership approach blends strategic clarity with a strong bias for execution, empowering teams to move fast, learn quickly and deliver at scale.Core strengths: digital product leadership, customer experience, commercial strategy and scalable digital delivery.

14:50 - 15:20

Customer Contact

Smarter Contact – How Intelligent Technology Is Changing the Game

Panel Discussion

Smarter Customer Contact: Building Engagement Strategies That Scale

The organisations pulling ahead in customer contact are using intelligent technology not to replace human interaction but to make every interaction smarter, faster, and more relevant. From large language models and virtual assistants to autonomous resolution, the technology is maturing rapidly, but the gap between organisations deploying it effectively and those still in pilot mode is growing.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what genuinely scalable intelligent contact looks like beyond the proof of concept stage. From deployment realities and implementation lessons to keeping the human touch central even as technology takes on more of the contact journey, panellists will explore what it takes to use intelligent technology in a way that works for customers, agents, and the business alike.

What you'll gain:

Practical insight into what deploying intelligent contact technology at scale actually looks like
A clearer picture of where large language models, virtual assistants, and autonomous resolution are delivering real value
Insight into how leading organisations are maintaining the human touch as intelligent technology takes on more of the contact journey
Real examples of how smarter contact technology is improving outcomes for customers and agents simultaneously

Speakers:

Laura Canellas

Sky

Director of CSG Strategy

Versatile and accomplished senior executive with 20 years of experience spanning IT operations, customer-facing roles, and internal transformation. Proven track record in managing and transforming large-scale IT and telecom operations, with deep expertise in contract negotiation and execution across multiple continents, technologies, and vendors, with contracts valued at hundreds of millions annually.

A skilled general manager, chief of staff, and COO, I bring a wealth of financial acumen, HR experience, and strategic insight to every role. My unique blend of deep technical knowledge in IT and telecommunications, coupled with extensive experience in IT strategy, operations strategy, and consulting, allows me to drive significant change and deliver impactful results.

The constant thread in my career is a passion for transformation. I excel in improving and optimizing teams and solutions, whether leading from the customer front lines or driving internal change. My ability to seamlessly pivot between external and internal roles enables me to tackle diverse challenges and consistently deliver strategic success.

Ange Johnson De Wet

Barclays Business Banking UK

Customer Journey Delivery Director for Lending Technology

Ange is the Customer Journey Delivery Director for Lending Technology at Barclays Business Bank.
Prior to working at Barclays, Ange was a London based head of engineering at NatWest, a head of function at Lloyds Banking Group and a Programme Director at Deutsche Bank.
Within banking she’s worked in Business and Commercial Banking, Cloud Enabled Business Transformation, Operational Technology and Cloud Risk, Data and Analytics and Capital Markets Finance Risk and Regulatory Reporting.
Before working in banking, Ange worked in consulting as a senior manager with EY and a consultant with IBM. She worked across AsiaPacific and EMEA and focused on business and commercial banking and financial services. Ange worked as a developer, tester, designer, business analyst, programme analyst, project manager and programme manager. She has led business and technology strategies, programme reviews and complex technology enabled business transformations.
Ange has an honours degree in Mechanical Engineering (Mechatronics / Robotics) and Computer Science from the University of Melbourne, Australia.

15:45 - 16:05

Customer Contact

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Smarter Customer Contact: Building Engagement Strategies That Scale

16:05 - 16:30

Customer Contact

Barclays Case Study: Customer Expectations and Technology Approaches

Case Study

Channel Strategy: Delivering Better Customer Outcomes

In this case study, Ange Johnson De Wet, Customer Journey Delivery Director for Lending Technology at Barclays Business Banking UK, explores how a major bank is re‑thinking customer journeys and technology choices to meet those expectations in practice – not just on paper.

Drawing on experience leading complex, technology‑enabled transformations across Barclays, NatWest, Lloyds Banking Group and Deutsche Bank, and a career that spans engineering, cloud, data, risk and capital markets, Ange will focus on what it takes to align customer contact, journeys and lending technology in a way that feels simple for customers but is robust enough for a regulated, high‑stakes environment.

Attendees will hear:

How Barclays is approaching customer journey delivery for lending in a way that connects front‑end experience with back‑end technology
How customer expectations are reshaping decisions about channels, contact, automation and human interaction
What Ange has learned from leading business and technology strategy across multiple banks and disciplines
Practical ideas for leaders who want their customer contact and technology approaches to move in step with what customers actually need

Speaker:

Ange Johnson De Wet

Barclays Business Banking UK

Customer Journey Delivery Director for Lending Technology

16:55 - 17:25

Customer Contact

Channel Strategy – Putting Customer Outcomes at the Centre

Panel Discussion

Channel Strategy: Delivering Better Customer Outcomes

Having more channels is not the same as having a better strategy. As the channel mix becomes increasingly complex, the organisations delivering the strongest customer outcomes are those making smarter, more deliberate decisions about which channels to invest in, how to measure their performance, and how to ensure every channel serves every customer effectively including those in vulnerable circumstances.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what a genuinely outcome-focused channel strategy looks like in practice. From rationalising the channel mix to reduce customer effort to measuring performance in a way that reflects what customers actually experience, panellists will share the strategic and operational decisions that are making the biggest difference to customer outcomes and commercial results.

What you'll gain:

Practical frameworks for building a channel strategy that puts customer outcomes at the centre
Insight into how leading organisations are measuring channel performance in a way that genuinely reflects customer experience
A clearer picture of how to rationalise the channel mix to reduce effort and improve satisfaction
Real examples of how smarter channel strategy decisions are driving stronger commercial and customer outcomes

17:25 - 17:30

Customer Contact

Closing Remarks

Channel Strategy: Delivering Better Customer Outcomes

Speaker:

Nick Brice

Soul Corporations

CEO

17:30

Customer Contact

Summit After-Party

The Night Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Customer Experience Management

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

Introduction

CX Strategy: Building a Customer-Centric Organisation

Welcome to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 is all about The Customer Reality – putting the real pressures, gaps and successes in customer engagement front and centre. From strained contact centres and shifting customer expectations to the challenges of turning data into decisions and rebuilding loyalty, today is designed to surface what is genuinely happening in organisations right now, not just what the slideware says.

In this opening address, Brian will set the tone for a day of honest, practical insight. Today’s agenda is built to help you see your own organisation more clearly – through case studies, panels and conversations grounded in lived experience.

Speaker:

Brian Manusama

Actionary

Executive Partner

Throughout my career, I have been at the forefront of delivering impact at scale, leveraging cutting-edge technology to resolve today’s business challenges and prepare for tomorrow’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) challenges. My passion for customer engagement, digital business, artificial intelligence and customer experience focused leadership have been a consistent theme in my career.

09:00 - 09:25

Customer Experience Management

The State of CX Management – What the Latest Evidence Is Telling Us

Opening Keynote

CX Strategy: Building a Customer-Centric Organisation

Customer experience management has grown from a set of initiatives into a core discipline – but how well are organisations really doing when it comes to strategy and execution? This opening keynote reveals brand‑new research on the state of CX management, offering a clear, evidence‑based view of where organisations are progressing and where they are still falling short.

The session will explore:

How CX strategy, governance and ownership are evolving across different sectors
Where investment in VoC, journey design and measurement is delivering real impact – and where it remains cosmetic
The patterns separating CX leaders from those still struggling to embed customer outcomes in day‑to‑day decisions
The questions senior leaders should be asking of their own CX programmes as they look ahead

09:50 - 10:20

Customer Experience Management

Customer-Centricity – Closing the Gap Between Claim and Reality

Panel Discussion

CX Strategy: Building a Customer-Centric Organisation

Almost every organisation claims to put the customer first. Far fewer have built the strategy, culture, and operational foundations to make that claim genuinely true. As AI, real-time data, and personalisation technology make it increasingly possible to deliver experiences that feel individually tailored at scale, the gap between organisations that are genuinely leveraging these capabilities to embed customer-centricity and those still treating it as a cultural aspiration is becoming a measurable commercial divide.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what building a genuinely customer-centric organisation looks like in practice today. From embedding CX into board-level strategy and using real-time insight to drive faster, smarter decisions, to creating the cross-functional alignment and employee experience foundations that make long-term improvement sustainable, panellists will explore what it actually takes to move from customer-centricity as an aspiration to customer-centricity as an operational reality.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuine customer-centricity looks like beyond the rhetoric in an era of AI and real-time personalisation
Practical approaches to embedding CX into organisational strategy, culture, and decision-making
Insight into the critical link between employee experience and customer experience in building a truly customer-centric organisation
Real examples of how leading organisations are using emerging technology to close the gap between customer-centricity as a claim and as a reality

Speakers:

Gabriella Lambert

Nestlé Nespresso SA

Head of Customer Experience

Gabriella Lambert is a customer experience and business transformation leader with a track record of helping organisations turn customer insight into measurable growth. Having led transformation across global brands, consultancies and purpose-led organisations, she is recognised for delivering customer strategies that reduce churn, improve service performance and create lasting commercial value.

Sandrea Morgan

Adanola

Head of Customer Experience

10:20 - 11:00

Customer Experience Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

CX Strategy: Building a Customer-Centric Organisation

11:00 - 11:25

Customer Experience Management

Philip Morris International: From Experimentation to Transformation: Our AI Journey in the UK

Interview

Voice of the Customer: Listening, Acting & Customer Signals in CX

Speaker:

Viviane Gabriel

Philip Morris International

Director Consumer Experience

Viviane Gabriel is an experienced business leader with 25+ years of expertise spanning customer experience, marketing, digital transformation and commercial strategy across multiple European markets. As Director of Consumer Experience at Philip Morris UK, she is spearheading the adoption of AI-driven solutions shaping the future of consumer experience. She is passionate about empowering people, cultivating talent, and creating environments where individuals can thrive and contribute to transformational growth.

11:50 - 12:20

Customer Experience Management

Voice of the Customer – From Feedback to Action

Panel Discussion

Voice of the Customer: Listening, Acting & Customer Signals in CX

Most organisations are collecting more customer feedback than ever before, but the tools and techniques available for capturing and acting on that feedback are evolving rapidly. From AI-powered sentiment analysis and real-time customer signal tracking to predictive VoC capabilities that can identify emerging issues before they become widespread, the gap between organisations using cutting edge listening capabilities and those still relying on periodic surveys is growing.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what a genuinely action-oriented VoC programme looks like in practice today. From building enhanced feedback loops and real-time customer signal capabilities that drive tangible change, to closing the loop with customers in a way that rebuilds trust and strengthens loyalty, panellists will explore what it takes to turn listening into a real competitive advantage rather than a reporting function.

What you'll gain:

Practical approaches to building VoC programmes that use AI, real-time signals, and predictive insight to drive genuine change
Insight into how leading organisations are using customer signal tracking to identify and act on emerging issues faster than ever before
A clearer picture of what a genuinely action-oriented VoC programme looks like in practice
Real examples of how turning customer feedback and signals into action is strengthening loyalty and driving commercial results

Speakers:

Vanessa Milan

Cambridge University Press & Assessment

Head of Voice of the Customer, Global Operations

Passionate about Voice of the Customer and a natural customer advocate, I specialise in engaging internal stakeholders and turning customer insight into strategic improvements that enhance the customer experience across the organisation.

A self-starter with a multidisciplinary approach, I lead the development and execution of the Voice of the Customer programme, strategy, and governance across departments at Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Bonnie Muzam

Flogas Britain

Head of Customer Experience

Bonnie Muzam is Head of Customer Experience at Flogas Britain and a passionate advocate for customer-centric transformation. With more than 10 years’ experience leading customer service, customer success and CX functions, she specialises in connecting customer insight, operational performance and culture change to drive better outcomes.

Bonnie currently leads Flogas Britain’s customer experience strategy and transformation programme, focused on simplifying customer journeys, reducing effort, improving service performance and embedding a culture where everyone takes ownership for delivering great customer experiences. Her work spans customer insight, service transformation, employee engagement and organisational culture, helping teams turn customer feedback into meaningful action.

A recognised CX leader, Bonnie is passionate about building customer-focused organisations that deliver lasting value for customers, colleagues and businesses alike.

12:20 - 12:40

Customer Experience Management

NHS: Access, Experience, Outcomes, Improvement

Case Study

Voice of the Customer: Listening, Acting & Customer Signals in CX

The NHS has all the consonants: hospitals, targets, budgets, policy, technology. What's missing are the vowels, the connective tissue that actually makes a system usable: navigation, communication, continuity, trust and practical support. That gap isn't a footnote to the NHS's problems, it's the reason access is unequal, experience is inconsistent, and outcomes diverge so sharply between patients.

Using an Access, Experience, Outcomes, Improvement and You framework, this piece unpacks where that gap actually lives: in confusing entry points and unclear navigation, in waiting lists shaped as much by deprivation and digital access as by clinical need, in wards and clinics that strip away patient agency, and in a leadership culture still chasing throughput over quality.

You'll come away with:

Why "improving the NHS" without addressing access and experience just produces more activity, not real change
How failure demand and preventable illness account for an estimated 25% (c.£50bn) of NHS spend
A set of practical funding and culture levers that don't rely on waiting for a bigger budget
A clear articulation of what "good" should actually look like, and why the public needs to start demanding it

The argument throughout: stop asking patients to adapt to the system, and start adapting the system to people's lives.

Speaker:

Joe Fraser

NHS

Head of Healthcare Inequalities, Prevention & Personalisation

Joe Fraser is a healthcare leader specialising in personalised care, quality improvement and tackling healthcare inequalities across London. He plays a key role in regional programmes that strengthen how people manage their own health and wellbeing, working across NHS England London and integrated care systems. Joe’s background includes senior leadership and transformation roles, partnership working with primary care and neighbourhood teams, and experience in business analysis and social innovation. He also holds an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.

12:40 - 14:00

Customer Experience Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Voice of the Customer: Listening, Acting & Customer Signals in CX

14:00 - 14:25

Customer Experience Management

The Royal College of Surgeons of England Case Study: The CX Paradox: How AI Is Helping Us Deliver More Human Experiences

Case Study

CX Transformation: Leading Change Across People, Process & Technology

Customer experience transformation is often seen as a technology challenge - implementing new platforms, introducing automation, and harnessing the potential of AI.

But the real opportunity is not to replace human interactions; it is to create the headspace for better ones.

At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, our CX North Star is simple: we care for the people who care. To bring this to life at scale, we have adopted a clear principle: automate the repeatable, personalise the emotional.

This session explores how we are using AI, technology, and service redesign to transform CX across people, processes, and technology. By removing unnecessary friction, improving access to information, and empowering colleagues, we are creating more time and capacity for the moments where empathy, expertise, and human connection matter most.

Discover how a human-led approach to AI can help organisations navigate the complexity of CX transformation - balancing efficiency with empathy, digital capability with personalisation, and innovation with care.

Speaker:

Harry Blamire

The Royal College of Surgeons of England

Director of Customer Experience

Harry Blamire helps organisations stop talking about customer experience and start delivering it. A CX and transformation leader, he has built teams, led large-scale change programmes, and helped organisations turn fragmented customer journeys into measurable business results.

Part strategist, part operator, and full-time champion of people-centred design, Harry is known for bringing energy, clarity, and a healthy dose of pragmatism to complex challenges.

His guiding philosophy? Be curious, be kind, get things done.

14:50 - 15:20

Customer Experience Management

CX Transformation – Leading Change That Actually Sticks

Panel Discussion

CX Transformation: Leading Change Across People, Process & Technology

CX transformation is one of the most ambitious and most commonly stalled programmes on a senior leader's agenda. The pace of technological change, from agentic AI and journey orchestration to autonomous service delivery, is accelerating the need for transformation while simultaneously raising the stakes for getting it right. The ambition is rarely the problem. What derails most programmes is the complexity of managing change across people, process, and technology simultaneously while maintaining operational performance and cultural momentum.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what CX transformation looks like when it delivers lasting rather than temporary change. From navigating the integration of AI and intelligent automation into live CX operations to ensuring employee experience remains central throughout, panellists will explore what separates the transformations that stick from those that lose momentum and what leaders can do to give their programmes the best possible chance of success.

What you'll gain:

Practical approaches to managing CX transformation across people, process, and technology in an era of rapid technological change
Insight into how leading organisations are integrating generative, conversational and agentic AI and intelligent automation into live CX operations without losing sight of the human side
A clearer picture of what separates CX transformations that deliver lasting change from those that stall
Real examples of the change management decisions that are making the biggest difference in successful CX transformation programmes

Speakers:

Natalie Fuller

Zempler Bank

Head of Customer Experience

Natalie Fuller is Head of Customer Experience at Zempler Bank, where she leads efforts to make banking simpler and work better for customers. With over 15 years’ experience across financial services and consumer brands, she focuses on turning customer insight into practical, organisation‑wide change.

Natalie has spent the last 8 years at Zempler Bank, playing a key role in its journey from fintech challenger to established digital bank, with a clear focus on supporting UK small businesses.

Her work spans improving everyday journeys, reducing avoidable friction and helping teams deliver better outcomes for customers – while balancing commercial goals and regulatory expectations.

She’s particularly passionate about making CX transformation real and sustainable, sharing honest lessons on what works (and what doesn’t) when driving change across people, process and technology.

Tansy Cox

Serco

Global Cyber Delivery Lead

Tansy Cox is a Digital Transformation Coordinator and delivery leader with experience spanning cyber security, AI, enterprise technology, change management and customer engagement.

Throughout her career, Tansy has specialised in helping organisations navigate complex transformation by bringing structure to ambiguity, aligning stakeholders around shared outcomes, and translating strategy into meaningful action.

Alongside her work in digital transformation, Tansy is Co-Chair of Serco's multicultural inclusion network, Embrace, where she has helped grow engagement, build community participation and create sustainable governance models that empower others to lead.

Her work sits at the intersection of people, process and technology, with a particular interest in how trust, communication and behavioural signals influence engagement, adoption and long-term loyalty.

Tansy is passionate about creating environments where people choose to participate, contribute and stay engaged, whether as customers, employees, stakeholders or community members.

Mark Clydesdale

Tap CXM

Head of Strategic Consulting

Mark is Head of Strategic Consulting at Tap CXM, helping brands unlock the value from their investments in technology and AI, and accelerate growth through strategy, measurement and new ways of working.

15:20 - 15:45

Customer Experience Management

Trusted AI in CX: What Transformation Actually Requires

Presentation

CX Transformation: Leading Change Across People, Process & Technology

The pressure to deploy AI in customer service is high. The pressure to make it work safely, consistently, and in ways customers actually trust, is even greater.

This session moves past the deployment question and into the harder one: what does it actually take to build AI that delivers, not just demos?

Through structured discussion and real-world examples, we’ll examine what separates trustworthy AI programs that scale from those that stall, and what the organizations getting it right are doing differently.

We will cover:

How to define and measure trust in AI-assisted customer interactions
What governance and human-in-the-loop models look like in practice
Lessons from implementations that succeeded and those that didn't
Practical frameworks attendees can bring back to their team immediately

15:45 - 16:05

Customer Experience Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

CX Transformation: Leading Change Across People, Process & Technology

16:05 - 16:30

Customer Experience Management

Experian Case Study: From Feel-Good to Bottom Line: The Business Impact of CX

Case Study

Measuring What Matters: CX Metrics, ROI & the Business Case

Customer Experience teams are no longer just the creators of reports and presenters of client feedback. Customer Experience is no longer a soft metric; it is a measurable driver of business performance. In this session, we will explore how to build a convincing business case for CX by linking customer experience outcomes to financial results and demonstrating the ROI of CX initiatives.
We will discuss how to identify the metrics that matter most, measure the impact of CX on revenue and growth, and use customer insights to make smarter decisions.

Speaker:

Emma Perkins

Experian

Head of CX Strategy EMEA & APAC

With over 25 years of experience, Emma has spent her career championing the idea that Customer Experience (CX) is about more than surveys, scores, or dashboards. She believes that when done well, CX is a powerful driver of real business results, shaping culture, strengthening relationships, and delivering measurable impact. This belief has guided her work across a wide variety of roles and industries, consistently pushing CX beyond theory and into practical, value creating action.

16:55 - 17:25

Customer Experience Management

Making the Business Case – The Metrics That Actually Move Boards

Panel Discussion

Measuring What Matters: CX Metrics, ROI & the Business Case

NPS and CSAT have served the CX industry well, but they are no longer enough to make the commercial case for continued investment at board level. As AI-driven measurement, predictive analytics, and real-time customer outcome tracking make it increasingly possible to demonstrate the financial return of experience investment with far greater precision, the organisations doing this most effectively are changing the conversation about what CX measurement is actually for and what it is capable of proving.

In this panel, senior leaders will share how they are building more commercially credible measurement frameworks that go beyond legacy metrics and connect CX performance directly to revenue outcomes, customer lifetime value, and business growth. From measurement tools to predictive models that link experience investment to future commercial performance, panellists will explore what it takes to make measurement a strategic asset rather than a reporting exercise.

What you'll gain:

Practical frameworks for building commercially credible CX measurement that resonates at board level
Insight into how advanced measurement and predictive analytics are changing what is possible in CX performance tracking
A clearer picture of how to move beyond NPS and CSAT to a measurement approach that drives strategic decisions
Real examples of how leading organisations are using next-generation measurement to strengthen the business case for continued CX investment

Speakers:

Emma Perkins

Experian

Head of CX Strategy EMEA & APAC

Laurent Lemberger

Nuvei

Head of Customer Experience

I help organisations simplify, scale and succeed through clearer purpose, smart processes, optimised operating models, agile empowered teams and embedding a culture of Continuous Improvement.

Ambitious, inspiring, analytical and curious, I specialise in designing and embedding smarter, faster, more effective ways of working across complex organisations. The result – happier returning customers, motivated teams and bottom line improved performance.

17:25 - 17:30

Customer Experience Management

Closing Remarks

Measuring What Matters: CX Metrics, ROI & the Business Case

Speaker:

Brian Manusama

Actionary

Executive Partner

17:30

Customer Experience Management

Summit After-Party

The Night Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Customer Relationship Management

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

Introduction

Smarter Campaigns, Better Outcomes

Welcome to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 is all about The Customer Reality – putting the real pressures, gaps and successes in customer engagement front and centre. From strained contact centres and shifting customer expectations to the challenges of turning data into decisions and rebuilding loyalty, today is designed to surface what is genuinely happening in organisations right now, not just what the slideware says.

In this opening address, Scott will set the tone for a day of honest, practical insight. Today’s agenda is built to help you see your own organisation more clearly – through case studies, panels and conversations grounded in lived experience.

Speaker:

Scott Logie

DMA

DMA Membership Advocate

Engaging, innovative and creative thinker; passionate about helping businesses build growth strategies to drive increased loyalty and value.

My main aim in business is to help build and then unlock the potential in a customer base.

I love to spend my time with businesses looking at what they can achieve if they understand their customers better and use that understanding to create long term relationships.

I’m a highly experienced data based marketer, with a background in finance but I have spent lots of time with charities, automotive, FMCG, government, on-line gaming and retail.

With a grounding in data, a degree in statistics and over 20 years of working across a range of businesses, both inside and working with suppliers, I can understand the challenges any business has in growing and building long-term value and can then contribute to achieving this goal.

As a current board member and ex-Chair of the Direct Marketing Association, I get a unique perspective on industry developments which in turn helps me to understand the future of direct marketing and how businesses should adapt to meet the challenge ahead.

I’ve built successful teams, covering areas as diverse as customer insight, marketing, Consultancy and Campaign Management and led a management team through a successful MBO, dealing with private equity backers and staying with the business to a successful trade sale. It’s all about great people and I have employed and developed some of the best in the industry.

I believe my main strength is in understanding business strategy and building collaborative teams to design, build and deliver winning propositions to meet and beat expectations.

09:00 - 09:25

Customer Relationship Management

The Customer Data, CRM and Marketing Benchmark

Opening Keynote

Smarter Campaigns, Better Outcomes

Customer data, CRM and marketing are under more scrutiny than ever: personalisation promises more revenue and loyalty, but audiences are also demanding trust, relevance and better experiences. In this opening keynote, the DMA will share research findings into how organisations are really using CRM and marketing to create value – and where they are still missing the mark.

Drawing on the latest studies into email, CRM and data‑driven marketing, the session will explore:

How brands are currently organising and using customer data across CRM, email and wider marketing.
Where CRM strategies, segmentation and personalisation are delivering measurable impact – and where activity remains largely tactical.
The patterns that separate the most effective programmes from those struggling to turn data into commercial and customer outcomes.
The questions senior leaders should be asking of their own CRM and marketing strategies over the next 12–18 months.

09:50 - 10:20

Customer Relationship Management

The Campaign That Actually Lands – Smarter Marketing for Better Customer Outcomes

Panel Discussion

Smarter Campaigns, Better Outcomes

Marketing has never had more data, more channels, or more tools at its disposal, yet the gap between the communications customers want to receive and the ones they actually get remains stubbornly wide. The organisations closing that gap are those where marketing strategy is genuinely driven by customer insight, where campaigns are designed around customer outcomes rather than campaign metrics, and where the connection between what is sent and what the customer actually needs feels purposeful rather than coincidental.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what genuinely outcome-focused marketing looks like in practice. From using customer data to build more intelligent, lifecycle-driven campaign strategies to measuring success in a way that reflects customer engagement and outcomes rather than delivery statistics, panellists will explore what it takes to build a marketing approach that customers actually welcome and that drives the relationships and results organisations are looking for.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuinely outcome-focused marketing looks like when customer insight is driving every campaign decision
Practical approaches to building lifecycle-driven marketing strategies that feel relevant and timely to every customer
Insight into how leading organisations are measuring campaign success in a way that reflects customer engagement and outcomes rather than activity metrics
Real examples of how smarter, more insight-driven marketing is improving customer relationships and driving stronger outcomes

Speakers:

Paddy Doran

Hightouch

Sr. Solutions Engineer, Enterprise EMEA

Paddy Doran is a Senior Solutions Engineer at Hightouch, where he works with leading brands to design smarter, data-driven customer engagement strategies. He helps teams turn warehouse data into more relevant, personalized campaigns, with a focus on activation, experimentation, and AI-powered decisioning.

Michelle Monck

Redwood Bank

Director of Marketing and Relationship Management

Strategic proposition and communications leader with deep experience across deposit strategy, mortgage lending, unsecured lending, and new product development in challenger banks and specialist financial institutions. I bring over 15 years’ experience shaping lending and savings propositions that deliver commercial growth, strong customer outcomes, and operational scalability.

My background spans residential and commercial mortgage lending, unsecured loans (including aggregator models), and home improvement finance, giving me an end-to-end understanding of the lending lifecycle, from pricing and underwriting through to technology delivery, regulatory alignment, and go-to-market execution.

I’m passionate about blending commercial insight, product thinking, and customer experience to build propositions that scale and stand out, whether in a fast-growing challenger bank or a specialist financial services environment.

10:20 - 11:00

Customer Relationship Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Smarter Campaigns, Better Outcomes

11:00 - 11:25

Customer Relationship Management

Landmark Information Group Case Study: Landmark’s One Team Approach Means Success for Customers

Case Study

The Unified Customer

Speaker:

Helen Luty

Landmark Information Group

Head of Customer Experience

Helen has over 20 years of Customer Service Leadership experience across a variety of B2B and B2C businesses. As Head of Customer Experience for Landmark Information Group, Helen covers service, support and success across a variety of Landmark brands, building and improving processes to ensure Landmark are easy to do business with, that focus on positive outcomes, that seek and learn from feedback and that look to the ever-evolving needs of customers.
Helen’s passion for making a difference, cascades throughout the CX Teams and has resulted in high engagement scores and as we all know…engaged and happy teams mean engaged and happy customers.
Helen has been named in the CXM Stars Top 25 Professionals 2024 and 2025, Was awarded CX Professional of the Year at the UKCXA23, Customer Service Professional at the UK Customer Satisfaction Awards 2023 and her team won Best B2B Customer Experience at UKCXA24 and Best Use of Customer Insight at the Engage Awards 2024.

11:50 - 12:20

Customer Relationship Management

Breaking Down the Walls – How Cross-Functional Teams Are Transforming CX

Panel Discussion

The Unified Customer

Delivering a consistently excellent customer experience is not the responsibility of a single team, yet in many organisations marketing, sales, service, and operations are still working in ways that create friction, inconsistency, and missed opportunity at every handoff. The organisations genuinely raising the bar on customer experience are those that have broken down the functional walls and built truly cross-functional approaches to CX delivery that put the customer at the centre rather than the organisational chart.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what genuine cross-functional collaboration looks like in a CRM-enabled organisation. From building the structures that allow teams to work from the same customer picture, to the cultural and leadership changes needed to make cross-functional CX delivery stick, panellists will explore what it takes to move from siloed functions to a genuinely connected approach that improves experience at every stage of the customer journey.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuine cross-functional CX delivery looks like and what it takes to build it
Practical approaches to creating the shared data foundations and governance structures that enable teams to work together around the customer
Insight into the cultural and leadership changes needed to make cross-functional collaboration in CX sustainable rather than occasional
Real examples of how breaking down functional silos is improving customer experience and driving commercial results

Speakers:

Sharon Braude

Virgin Active

Global Group Director Marketing Technology

Sharon Braude is recognised as a leading expert in Media, Data and Marketing Technology. She has over 20 years’ experience spanning numerous sectors, industries, and brands. Throughout her career Sharon has transformed marketing practices and operations and built award-winning teams, having won at Cannes, Eurobest and other prestigious competitions.

In her leadership roles, Sharon has created and defined the marketing vision and designed and implemented customer strategies for globally recognised brands – including Disney, Red Bull Racing, and the BBC. She holds several Advisory Board positions, presents keynotes at industry events, and judges global advertising and design awards.

Sanj Badhan

Starling

Head of Customer Engagement

I help build and manage Marketing, CRM & customer experience programmes, with a focus on both hard commercial and soft customer engagement metrics. Using data and an understanding of growth levers I love to innovate & identify commercially sound customer centric propositions that work for customers, businesses and internal teams.

Areas of impact: strategic development & planning | customer marketing & communications (CRM/loyalty) | growth marketing | proposition development | commercial management | marketing automation | data & segmentation.

12:20 - 13:40

Customer Relationship Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Unified Customer

13:40 - 14:00

Customer Relationship Management

Audience Q&A: Inside Your CRM and Marketing Strategy

Q&A

The Unified Customer

This interactive Q&A session turns the spotlight onto you and how your organisation is really using CRM, data and marketing to drive growth and loyalty. Instead of another presentation, the focus shifts to a guided conversation with the room, exploring the choices senior leaders are making about customer data, segmentation, personalisation and measurement.

Through live polling and open discussion, we’ll explore:

How CRM is currently structured and owned in your organisation – and how it connects to marketing and CX
Where your campaigns and programmes are delivering clear commercial and customer impact, and where progress is slower
How you’re using data and insight to shape content, journeys and offers, rather than just report on activity
What examples, evidence or support would most help you refine your CRM and marketing strategy from here

A chance to compare approaches with peers, surface honest challenges, and contribute your experience to the evolving conversation about what modern, CRM‑led marketing should look like.

14:00 - 14:25

Customer Relationship Management

Gebr. Heinemann Case Study: The Connected Customer Journey – Why Data Is the Engine, Not the Add-On

Interview

Why Data Powers the Connected Customer Journey

Global travel retail moves fast – and with a customer base spread across more than 150 airports and cruise lines, insight has to translate into action at speed. In this case study, Jasper Krog shares the "Data to Action" framework his team has built to turn fragmented data into a genuinely connected customer journey. He'll walk through the holistic data framework now taking shape – new survey and data structures, in-store heat mapping and recognition technology – and how those inputs feed everything from CRM to AI-assisted newsletter creation. Expect an honest account of the challenges, the missteps and the learnings, plus practical guidance on building the organisational structure that makes insight-led marketing stick.

Speaker:

Jasper Krog

Gebr. Heinemann

Head of Marketing Strategy & Insights

Jasper Krog is Head of Marketing Strategy & Insights at Gebr. Heinemann, where he built and leads a global team driving strategy, customer insights, social media, and AI-first marketing across the GH Group. He is spearheading the organization's shift toward data-driven, AI-enhanced marketing from unified performance frameworks to motive-based customer understanding.

With over 17 years in digital consumer marketing, Jasper has held senior leadership roles at stock-listed companies and industry-leading agencies, including Beiersdorf, Axel Springer, and Edelman.

14:50 - 15:20

Customer Relationship Management

CRM as the Engine of the Connected Customer Journey

Panel Discussion

Why Data Powers the Connected Customer Journey

The most effective customer journeys are powered by a CRM strategy that goes far beyond contact management. When CRM is working at its best it is the connective tissue of the entire customer journey, ensuring that every interaction across marketing, sales, and service is informed by a shared, accurate, and up-to-date picture of the customer. Yet too many organisations are still using CRM as a system of record rather than as the engine driving a genuinely connected experience at every stage.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what it looks like when CRM is truly powering the connected customer journey. From using CRM data to trigger the right interaction at the right moment across every touchpoint, to ensuring every customer-facing team has the context it needs to deliver a seamless, relevant experience without the customer ever having to repeat themselves, panellists will explore what genuinely CRM-powered journey delivery looks like and what it takes to get there.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what it looks like when CRM is genuinely powering the connected customer journey rather than simply recording it
Practical approaches to using CRM data to trigger relevant, timely interactions across every customer touchpoint
Insight into how leading organisations are ensuring every customer-facing team has the context needed to deliver a seamless experience
Real examples of how CRM-powered journey delivery is reducing customer effort and driving stronger commercial outcomes

15:45 - 16:05

Customer Relationship Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Why Data Powers the Connected Customer Journey

16:30 - 17:00

Customer Relationship Management

The CRM Reality Check – Are You Getting the Return You Should

Panel Discussion

The Reality Check: Measuring Adoption, ROI & Real Business Impact

Speaker:

Michelle Monck

Redwood Bank

Director of Marketing and Relationship Management

17:00 - 17:05

Customer Relationship Management

Closing Remarks

The Reality Check: Measuring Adoption, ROI & Real Business Impact

Speaker:

Scott Logie

DMA

DMA Membership Advocate

17:05

Customer Relationship Management

Summit After-Party

The Night Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

Introduction

Loyalty Beyond Points & Programmes

Welcome to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 is all about The Customer Reality – putting the real pressures, gaps and successes in customer engagement front and centre. From strained contact centres and shifting customer expectations to the challenges of turning data into decisions and rebuilding loyalty, today is designed to surface what is genuinely happening in organisations right now, not just what the slideware says.

In this opening address, Andrew will set the tone for a day of honest, practical insight. Today’s agenda is built to help you see your own organisation more clearly – through case studies, panels and conversations grounded in lived experience.

Speaker:

Andrew Hough

Cranfield University

Associate Professor Sales Leadership & Performance

Andrew has spent all of his working life in sales. Starting in financial services in Lloyds, then Barclays Asset Finance initially in Manchester, then London. The foundations gained in selling externally and internally, the need for asset finance loans (externally) and the . acceptable risk (internally), have never been lost on him. From there he moved to GE Capital and ran their joint venture with Sun Microsystems Ltd, and from there to EMC2 Inc (now part of Dell). He held roles from need of customer financial services (UK and EMEA levels), through to Director EMEA Sales enablement. In that role understanding sales learning and tool needs and developing programs for growth, were critical and Andrew’s relationship with Cranfield began there. He also held roles in specialist sales and core storage group sales with 2000 sellers under leadership. Leaving after 16 years he founded the Association of Professional Sales, focused on developing sales into a recognised profession and placing it on parity with other professions. Following a merger with the ISM the Institute of Professional Sales was formed with 8000 members world-wide. As founder Andrew stays actively involved with thought leadership and research which links to his role as researcher in sales at Cranfield University. Passionate about sales at every level Andy supports organisations embrace you learning methodologies and frameworks for sales ecosystems. He lives in Highgate, with wife Alison (his personal CEO and Managing Partner of EY), their two children, and mad working cocker (who has never worked in her life).

09:00 - 09:25

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

From Contacts to Confidence: How Customer‑Led Growth Really Happens

Opening Keynote

Loyalty Beyond Points & Programmes

Brands talk a lot about customer‑centricity, but growth still often starts from channels and campaigns rather than from people. This opening keynote reframes CRM, marketing and customer engagement around one simple idea: growth happens when customers feel confident choosing you, staying with you and recommending you.

The session will explore how leading organisations are joining up CRM, content, data and service into journeys that build that confidence over time. It will look at what modern “customer‑led growth” really means – from the way teams are structured and targets set, to how personalisation, loyalty and measurement work together rather than as separate initiatives. Delegates will leave with a clear set of questions to apply to their own strategies during the day: who are we really serving, what confidence are we building, and how do we know?

09:50 - 10:20

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Beyond the Points Card – What Loyalty Really Means Today

Panel Discussion

Loyalty Beyond Points & Programmes

Points, rewards, and tiered programmes have their place, but the customers who stay, spend more, and advocate for a brand are rarely those motivated by a points balance alone. The organisations building genuine long-term loyalty are those that have moved beyond the transactional and started creating the emotional connections, relevant experiences, and sense of genuine value that make customers choose to stay rather than feeling incentivised to.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what modern loyalty strategy looks like when it goes beyond the programme. From understanding what is actually driving repeat behaviour today to building the emotional connections that create lasting brand relationships, panellists will explore what it takes to build loyalty that is genuinely felt by customers rather than mechanically administered.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what modern loyalty strategy looks like beyond points and traditional rewards mechanics
Practical approaches to building the emotional connections that drive genuine long-term loyalty
Insight into what is actually driving repeat behaviour in a market where switching has never been easier
Real examples of how leading organisations are creating loyalty that customers feel rather than just participate in

Speakers:

Harry Blamire

The Royal College of Surgeons of England

Director of Customer Experience

Simge Sertbas

JLR

UK Customer Experience Design Lead

Strategic Customer Experience & Transformation Leader with 20 years of professional experience in leadership roles, driving enterprise-wide customer strategy, loyalty, engagement, and digital transformation across automotive, financial services, and retail sectors. Proven ability to define and deliver end-to-end customer experience strategies, combining deep expertise in CRM architecture, data governance, AI-enabled insights, and digital platforms with strong commercial acumen to drive retention, revenue growth, and long-term customer value. Experienced in leading cross-functional transformation programmes, influencing senior executives, and embedding customer-led operating models across complex, multi-brand organisations. Adept at partnering with Sales, Marketing, Digital, and Operations teams to deliver measurable business impact through insight-driven customer engagement and loyalty initiatives.

10:20 - 11:00

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Loyalty Beyond Points & Programmes

11:00 - 11:25

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Serco Case Study: Retention Under Pressure: Why People Leave Emotionally Before They Leave Commercially

Case Study

Retention Under Pressure: Keeping Customers in a Competitive Market

In competitive markets, organisations often focus on customer churn as a metric to manage rather than a behaviour to understand. But customers rarely leave suddenly. More often, they disengage gradually, with confidence, trust, and emotional connection declining long before commercial signals appear.

Drawing on experience from digital transformation, stakeholder engagement, and community-building, this session explores the concept of "quiet churn" – the subtle behavioural indicators that signal when people are beginning to disengage.

Tansy Cox will share practical lessons on identifying early warning signs, creating meaningful interventions, and building environments where people actively choose to stay engaged. Attendees will learn how trust, transparency, communication, and visible progress can strengthen loyalty in situations where customers have greater choice than ever before.

Through real-world examples and a human-centred approach, the session will challenge delegates to think differently about retention, moving beyond transactions and metrics to focus on confidence, connection, and long-term engagement.

Speaker:

Tansy Cox

Serco

Global Cyber Delivery Lead

11:50 - 12:20

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Retention Under Pressure – Keeping Customers When Switching Has Never Been Easier

Panel Discussion

Retention Under Pressure: Keeping Customers in a Competitive Market

Churn is rising across sectors and the commercial cost is significant. In a market where switching is easier, faster, and less risky than ever for customers, the retention strategies that worked even a few years ago are showing their age. The organisations holding on to their customers most effectively are those that have moved beyond reactive win-back tactics and built genuinely proactive retention models that identify and act on risk before it becomes defection.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what effective retention looks like under genuine commercial pressure. From churn prediction and at-risk customer strategies to the operational and cultural levers that are making the biggest difference to retention rates, panellists will explore what it takes to keep customers in a competitive market where their next alternative is always just a click away.

What you'll gain:

Practical approaches to building proactive retention models that act on churn risk before it becomes defection
Insight into the churn prediction and at-risk customer strategies that are delivering the strongest results
A clearer picture of the operational and cultural levers that are making the biggest difference to retention rates right now
Real examples of how leading organisations are holding on to customers in markets where switching friction has almost disappeared

Speakers:

James Vukashin

phs Group

Head of Commercial Operations

James has over 20 years’ experience in customer roles, working across varies blue chip businesses as well as startups. This has included leading large contact centres, cross functional teams and delivering large change programmes for some well-known brands.

Currently the Head of Commercial Operations at phs Group, his focus is on improving the customer experience, increasing customer loyalty/reducing churn, ensuring the commercial teams are as efficient as possible, driving a new data strategy, ensuring the business is insight focused, the sales teams deliver and have the tools/systems to do the job and ensuring customer needs are met through a great service delivery, pricing model and product range.

Oliver Parsons

Lloyds Banking Group

Head of Ecosystems, Customer Propositions

Oliver leads a proposition team at Lloyds Banking Group, building digital ecosystems that better serve customers by supporting them through contextually relevant customer journeys that help present the right solution at the right time, to help them better achieve their day to day needs. He is a digitally proficient leader with a passion for delivering insight driven business and customer outcomes, with expertise in delivering customer centric propositions; new products; marketing communications; and business improvement through multiple methodologies.

12:20 - 13:40

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Retention Under Pressure: Keeping Customers in a Competitive Market

13:40 - 14:00

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Audience Q&A: Beyond Points and Perks: Real Talk on Loyalty and Retention

Q&A

Personalisation, Relevance & Growth: Turning Customer Understanding into Commercial Results

Loyalty is about more than cards, points and discounts – it’s about whether customers choose to stay, come back and grow with you over time. In this audience Q&A, we’ll dig into how organisations are really approaching loyalty and retention today, beyond the glossy programme mechanics.

Through live polling and open discussion, we’ll explore:

How you define and measure loyalty, and whether that matches how customers see your brand
What’s genuinely working to reduce churn and grow customer value – and where progress is stalling
The balance between rewards, experience and product when it comes to keeping customers over the long term
Where growth targets and “doing right by the customer” pull in different directions, and how leaders are resolving those tensions

A conversation designed to surface real examples and challenges from the room, giving delegates fresh ideas on how to strengthen loyalty and retention beyond points and perks.

14:00 - 14:25

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

The Future of Subscriber Retention: AI, Personalisation and the Next Best Action: In Conversation With Charlotte Vlahavas from The Economist

Interview

Personalisation, Relevance & Growth: Turning Customer Understanding into Commercial Results

For years, retention strategies have relied on broad segmentation, fixed offers and one-size-fits-all interventions. As AI capabilities mature, organisations have an opportunity to move beyond static retention tactics towards real-time, personalised decision-making.

In this fireside chat, Charlotte Vlahavas, Global Head of Subscriber Retention & Engagement at The Economist, will discuss how AI is reshaping subscriber retention, from predicting churn and personalising experiences to determining the next best offer and action for individual subscribers. The session will explore both the opportunities and challenges of applying AI in a subscription business, alongside practical lessons for organisations looking to move from experimentation to implementation.

Speaker:

Charlotte Vlahavas

The Economist

Global Head of Subscriber Retention & Engagement

Charlotte Vlahavas is Head of Retention Trading at The Economist, responsible for subscriber retention, customer lifecycle strategy and commercial performance across the subscription business.

Passionate about the role of AI in customer engagement, Charlotte is leading work to develop AI-powered decisioning and personalised retention experiences, helping shape how The Economist delivers more relevant customer interactions at scale. She also serves as the B2C AI Lead, supporting AI adoption across the organisation.

14:50 - 15:20

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Personalisation as a Growth Driver – Turning Customer Understanding into Commercial Results

Panel Discussion

Personalisation, Relevance & Growth: Turning Customer Understanding into Commercial Results

Personalisation is one of the most talked about strategies in customer engagement, but its commercial value is only realised when it genuinely drives behaviour rather than simply feeling clever. The organisations using personalisation most effectively are those that have connected their customer data, their experience design, and their commercial goals into a single, coherent growth strategy where relevance at every stage of the customer lifecycle translates directly into retention, revenue, and relationship depth.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what commercially effective personalisation looks like in practice. From translating customer data and understanding into experiences that genuinely strengthen relationships to the role of frontline employee experience in delivering personalised service at the moments that matter most, panellists will explore what it takes to turn customer understanding into measurable commercial results rather than just more targeted communications.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what commercially effective personalisation looks like when it is genuinely driving behaviour rather than just improving open rates
Practical approaches to connecting customer data, experience design, and commercial goals into a coherent personalisation-led growth strategy
Insight into how leading organisations are using personalisation to strengthen relationships and drive retention across the full customer lifecycle
Real examples of how frontline employee experience is being used to deliver personalised service at the human moments that matter most

Speakers:

Kathleen MacLean

Dr. Martens

Global Head of Customer Growth Strategy & Planning

Kathleen MacLean is a growth strategist and customer intelligence leader specialising in helping organisations identify, unlock and scale new growth opportunities.

With more than 15 years of experience across scale-ups, technology businesses and global consumer brands, Kathleen has built and led growth, customer intelligence and digital transformation initiatives spanning automotive, clean technology, telecommunications, fintech and retail. She has worked with organisations including Dr. Martens, BMW, O2, BT, Huawei and ev.energy, helping businesses accelerate customer acquisition, increase retention, optimise customer lifetime value and deliver measurable commercial growth.

Known for translating complex customer, data and organisational challenges into practical growth strategies, Kathleen combines deep expertise in customer intelligence, digital transformation and commercial strategy to help businesses uncover untapped opportunities, scale more effectively and build the foundations for long-term success.

Her approach bridges strategy and execution, enabling organisations to turn customer insight into sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

Sanj Badhan

Starling

Head of Customer Engagement

15:45 - 16:05

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Personalisation, Relevance & Growth: Turning Customer Understanding into Commercial Results

16:05 - 16:30

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Turning Customer Insight Into Business Impact: In Conversation With Linzi Hindle at DHL Supply Chain

Interview

Customer Lifetime Value: Measuring Relationships, ROI & Revenue Potential

Customer insight is only valuable if it leads to action. Linzi Hindle, Director of Customer Experience shares how she transformed customer feedback from a measurement activity into a strategic driver for growth and cultural change. Through a clear vision, strong leadership, and a relentless focus on outcomes, she helped establish DHL Supply Chain UKI as a global benchmark for customer experience excellence.

Linzi will discuss the leadership decisions and actions that enabled customer experience to become one of the organisation's top priorities. Attendees will gain practical lessons on leading transformation, building customer-centric cultures at scale, securing executive sponsorship, and turning insight into measurable business impact. Whether you're starting your CX journey or looking to accelerate an existing programme, this session offers proven leadership lessons for creating meaningful and lasting change.

Speaker:

Linzi Hindle

DHL Supply Chain

Customer Experience Director

Linzi Hindle is Customer Experience Director at DHL Supply Chain UK & Ireland, leading the strategy of customer experience across a business serving 300+ customers and 35,000 colleagues. She has led a business-wide transformation that established the UKI region as a global benchmark for customer experience, and under her leadership, customer loyalty almost tripled and customer experience became one of the organisation’s top strategic priorities.

Known for combining strategic vision with authentic leadership, Linzi has built a culture where customer insight drives action, innovation, and growth. This has contributed to industry recognition including multiple UK Customer Experience Awards, most recently Gold for Best CX Strategy and Best Measurement.

A regular conference speaker and industry judge, she is passionate about creating lasting competitive advantage through customer-centric leadership and an advocate for creating cultures where customer experience becomes everyone’s responsibility.

16:30 - 17:00

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

The CLV Growth Opportunity – Are You Measuring the Right Things to Drive Long-Term Growth?

Panel Discussion

Customer Lifetime Value: Measuring Relationships, ROI & Revenue Potential

Customer lifetime value is one of the most powerful commercial metrics available, yet many organisations are still not using it to drive strategic decisions. The gap between organisations that genuinely understand the long-term commercial value of their customer relationships and those that are still optimising for short-term acquisition and transaction metrics is significant, and it is showing up in the way they invest, prioritise, and make decisions about the customer experience.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what a genuinely CLV-driven approach to customer strategy looks like in practice. From building CLV models that reflect the true value of customer relationships to aligning teams across the organisation around long-term value rather than short-term targets, panellists will explore what it takes to make CLV a genuine driver of commercial decisions rather than just a metric on a dashboard.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what a genuinely CLV-driven customer strategy looks like and the commercial difference it makes
Practical approaches to building CLV models that reflect the true value of customer relationships
Insight into how leading organisations are aligning teams around long-term value rather than short-term acquisition and transaction metrics
Real examples of how CLV-driven decision-making is changing the way organisations invest in and prioritise the customer experience

Speakers:

Malory Beaham-Powell

WeWork

Senior Manager, SaaS Customer Success

Malory Beaham-Powell is a Senior Manager of Digital Products & Partnerships at WeWork where he leads the International Customer Success team for the company's digital products and drives global partnerships. With over a decade of experience, Malory is passionate about building strategic partnerships and helping organizations optimize their hybrid work strategies through tech driven solutions.

Ben Truppin

Ford Credit Europe

Group Product Manager

With experience across Ford Credit Europe, Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays – amongst others – I’ve typically sat at the intersection of product, transformation and technology teams and am consistently asked to walk into complex environments to generate straightforward experiences that customers can complete themselves.

Turning ambiguity into structure is a common thread, as is navigating the early part of making change happen. You might recognise this, it’s when organisations know they need to do things differently but are yet to settle on exactly what that might look like in practice.

With autonomy to get close to customers, understand their problems, and then to work with people who care about improving these experiences is where I do my best work.

17:25 - 17:30

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Closing Remarks

Customer Lifetime Value: Measuring Relationships, ROI & Revenue Potential

Speaker:

Andrew Hough

Cranfield University

Associate Professor Sales Leadership & Performance

17:05

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Summit After-Party

The Night Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Data, Insights and Analytics

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

Introduction

Turning Data into Actionable Insight

Welcome to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 is all about The Customer Reality – putting the real pressures, gaps and successes in customer engagement front and centre. From strained contact centres and shifting customer expectations to the challenges of turning data into decisions and rebuilding loyalty, today is designed to surface what is genuinely happening in organisations right now, not just what the slideware says.

In this opening address, Gerry will set the tone for a day of honest, practical insight. Today’s agenda is built to help you see your own organisation more clearly – through case studies, panels and conversations grounded in lived experience.

Speaker:

Gerry Brown

Customer Lifeguard

Chief Customer Officer

Gerry Brown, aka The Customer Lifeguard, is on a mission to save the world from bad customer service. He helps businesses save customers at risk of defecting and breathes life into their customer service operations and customer experience strategy. Gerry has provided organizational leadership on people development, business transformation, customer engagement and technology enablement for some of the largest companies in the UK, Canada, and EMEA. These include National Express, Nutricia, The Royal Albert Hall, Endsleigh Insurance, O2, Screwfix, Sage, Sky, Bell Canada and TELUS. He is a frequent speaker, chairperson, panellist and facilitator at conferences, webinars, company events and other business gatherings, where his many years of business and customer service experience provide stimulating, thought-provoking engagement and audience participation. He is also a published author and his new book When a Customer Wins, Nobody Loses is available on Amazon to help business leaders to create winning and memorable customer experiences.

09:00 - 09:25

Data, Insights and Analytics

The Customer Truth: Turning Data into Decisions Across the Journey

Opening Keynote

Turning Data into Actionable Insight

Customer data has never been richer, but the gap between what we could know and what we actually use is still wide. This keynote sets the tone for your data, insight and journey conversations by focusing on “customer truth” – the shared, actionable understanding of customers that leaders can trust and act on.

We'll unpack the building blocks of that truth: how organisations are connecting fragmented data, agreeing on a common view of the customer, and then using it to design better journeys, smarter interventions and clearer measures of success. It will highlight the mindset shift from reporting to decision‑making, and show how insight teams, CRM, marketing and service can collaborate around journeys instead of isolated metrics. Attendees will be primed to listen to the rest of the day through a different lens: how does this help us see customers more clearly, and act on that clarity?

Speaker:

Maxie Schmidt

Forrester

VP, Principal Analyst

As an expert in customer experience and value creation, I:
- guide organizations in enhancing and sustaining outstanding customer experiences that boost loyalty and drive business growth.
- coach CX leaders to be more effective in securing funding and buy-in from their internal stakeholders. I help CX leaders and their teams to create effective CX measurement programs that measure CX performance and prove the ROI of investing in CX.
- help organizations understand how their customers create value and how the organization can use this to better enable customer journeys to maximize value for customers and for the business.

Additionally, as a university lecturer, I educate graduate students in services management, merging practical experience with theoretical foundations to cultivate future industry leaders.

Previously, as a consultant and engagement manager I have directed clients toward strategic profit enhancement through product and pricing optimization, grounded in deep customer insights. I have spearheaded projects across various industries, including telecommunications, retail, software, transportation, and high-tech.

With a PhD in Business Management focusing on customer care monitoring, my research underscores the critical importance of customer satisfaction and retention.

09:25 - 09:50

Data, Insights and Analytics

Customers Remember. Does Your Business?

Presentation

Turning Data into Actionable Insight

Your customers are already telling you what to fix, what to explain, what to create, whom to recognize and which risks to catch early—across social posts, support conversations, community answers and challenge submissions. Yet most organizations capture the interaction, not the learning. The answer remains trapped in care, the expert remains hidden in community, and the product signal never reaches the roadmap.

The result is omnichannel engagement with organizational amnesia: each team responds, but the business repeatedly relearns the same lesson.

This session introduces the Customer Intelligence Flywheel—a practical framework for detecting signals, validating them through people and evidence, preserving them as trusted knowledge, and activating that learning across channels so every customer interaction makes the next one smarter.

What you’ll gain

Five hidden intelligence opportunities: How to identify reusable knowledge, product signals, content opportunities, potential experts and emerging risks across social, support and community.
Two practical cross-channel playbooks: How a support resolution can become trusted community knowledge—and how a community expert’s answer can become social content that attracts new participation.
A method for designing better signals: How challenges, hackathons, polls and structured feedback generate intelligence that passive listening and surveys may miss.
A diagnostic you can use immediately: Apply the Conversation Multiplier to a redacted interaction and uncover what your organization should preserve, route, activate and measure.

Speaker:

Vellanki Sriharsha

Khoros

AI Product Manager

11+ years building B2C, B2B, and AI products. Focused on one question: "Why would someone come back?" His work centers on communities that drive retention through purpose, progress, safety, and recognition—not just answers.

09:50 - 10:20

Data, Insights and Analytics

From Data Rich to Insight Led – Making Customer Data Work Harder

Panel Discussion

Turning Data into Actionable Insight

Most organisations are sitting on more customer data than they know what to do with. The challenge is no longer collection, it is translation. The gap between organisations that are genuinely turning data into customer engagement decisions that improve experience and drive commercial performance, and those where data sits in silos, goes unanalysed, or informs reports that nobody acts on, is one of the most significant divides in customer engagement today. The organisations pulling ahead are those that have made insight the engine of every customer engagement decision they make.

In this panel, senior leaders will share how they are building the data cultures, analytical capabilities, and operational foundations needed to turn customer data into actionable insight that drives better customer engagement and stronger commercial outcomes. From breaking down data silos to creating the conditions where insight shapes every interaction across the customer lifecycle, panellists will explore what it takes to move from data rich to truly insight led in a way that delivers measurable commercial results.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what a genuinely insight-led customer engagement organisation looks like and what it takes to build one
Practical approaches to breaking down data silos and turning behavioural patterns into customer engagement decisions that improve experience and drive commercial performance
Insight into how leading organisations are building data cultures where insight shapes every customer engagement decision rather than sitting in reports
Real examples of how turning data into action is delivering measurable improvements in customer engagement quality and commercial outcomes

Speakers:

Aida Huggins

KFC

Customer Recovery Manager

Specializing in customer service management and process optimization, I am passionate about aligning operational strategies with evolving customer needs. My mission is to empower teams and deliver exceptional experiences through collaboration, innovation, and effective communication. I remain committed to driving continuous improvement and fostering a positive organizational culture.

Cher Lowies

Interactive Investor

Customer Insights Manager

Cher’s the Customer Insights Manager at Interactive Investor, where she helps teams better understand their customers and turn insight into action.

Blending behavioural science with customer insight, Cher is naturally curious about why customers behave the way they do and enjoys helping organisations challenge long-held assumptions with real evidence. She believes the best research doesn't just answer questions, it changes the way people think.

Her work focuses on uncovering what really matters to customers, translating complex research into practical recommendations, and helping organisations make confident, evidence-based decisions.

Danny Bradley

Virgin Media O2

Senior Data Engagement & Execution Lead

Senior Data Engagement & Execution Lead with over 15 years of experience, operating at the intersection of data, AI, and business strategy.
My focus is on translating complex capabilities into tangible business value. I partner with senior stakeholders to shape requirements for AI and data products and drive their adoption at scale.
I act as a bridge between vendors, internal engineering, and end users, evaluating product capabilities, advocating for features that unlock meaningful outcomes, and influencing roadmaps.
Beyond delivery, I build and nurture data and AI communities through events, training, and enablement programmes to accelerate adoption and drive tangible outcomes.
My foundations are built on deep technical expertise in Tableau and Alteryx, strong stakeholder partnership, and data governance shaped by time spent within government entities. I bring cross-sector perspective to building data strategies and leading teams.
I’m passionate about enabling people and organisations to get more from their data and AI investments.

10:20 - 11:00

Data, Insights and Analytics

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Turning Data into Actionable Insight

11:00 - 11:25

Data, Insights and Analytics

HSBC Case Study: From Understanding to Action, How the Right Customer Mapping Impacts the Business

Case Study

Customer Journey Mapping: From Insight to Outcome

Turning what we learn about customers into practical improvements that deliver measurable results.

Map the end-to-end journey across channels (digital, branch, contact centre), capturing key steps, touchpoints, emotions, and pain points.
Use evidence, not assumptions by combining customer feedback, behavioural data, and frontline insights to identify what really drives friction or drop-off.
Prioritise opportunities based on customer impact and business value (e.g., reduced effort, higher conversion, fewer complaints, improved NPS).
Design and deliver changes by translating insights into clear actions: process fixes, content changes, product tweaks, and service improvements.
Measure outcomes with defined KPIs and ownership so the map leads to tangible benefits, not just a nice diagram.

Speaker:

Ricardo Toral

HSBC Expat

Head of International Customer Acquisition

Commercial banking executive with 21+ years of international experience leading customer acquisition, offshore banking growth, and cross-border banking strategies across the UK, USA, Mexico, Argentina, and global markets.

Proven track record of leading global business, growth strategies, developing international banking propositions, and driving commercial transformation initiatives that delivered sustainable revenue growth, increased customer acquisition, and enhanced market positioning.

Specialised in international customer acquisition, commercial growth strategy, strategic partnerships, digital acquisition optimisation, and stakeholder leadership within complex global banking environments.

11:50 - 12:20

Data, Insights and Analytics

Customer Journey Mapping That Drives Impact

Panel Discussion

Customer Journey Mapping: From Insight to Outcome

Customer journey mapping has become a standard tool in the CX leader's toolkit, yet too many maps gather dust rather than driving meaningful change in customer engagement or commercial performance. The gap between organisations that use journey mapping to create genuine commercial and experience outcomes and those where it becomes an exercise in documentation rather than transformation is one of the most telling indicators of customer engagement maturity. Getting it right requires more than a good workshop, it requires the organisational will, cross-functional alignment, and measurement discipline to turn maps into action that improves the customer relationship and drives commercial growth.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what journey mapping looks like when it genuinely drives change in customer engagement and commercial outcomes. From the methodologies that work in practice to the leadership and cultural conditions needed to align teams around the customer perspective in a way that creates momentum, panellists will explore what it takes to move from journey mapping as a process to journey mapping as a genuine driver of customer engagement improvement and commercial results.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what journey mapping looks like when it is genuinely driving customer engagement and commercial outcomes
Practical approaches to moving beyond documentation to real improvement action that strengthens customer relationships and drives revenue
Insight into how leading organisations are creating the cross-functional alignment needed to turn journey maps into meaningful customer engagement change
Real examples of how effective journey mapping is identifying friction, prioritising improvement, and delivering measurable commercial results

Speakers:

Adam Powers

Experian

Head of Customer Experience

I am a creative and strategic senior leader successfully operating in the world of cx design, brand and technology. I have built and led high-performing design teams on some of the world’s most iconic brands in both a client-side and agency-side capacity. I retain a passion for design in all of its guises.

Rather than fearing developments such as generative AI, I have an undiminished hunger to understand and shape how innovation can enhance design practice and what happens next. I believe holistic design thinking is a business imperative and that the convergence of UX and Service Design is a priority.

My own success has come from an ability to combine an empathetic but demanding leadership style with a track record of consistently delivering award-winning experiences that have generated both enormous human engagement and significant commercial return.

Fellow Royal Society of Arts
Global Design Standards Board Member at General Assembly
BIMA Awards Judge
Ranked in Top 50 of CX Professionals in 2021

Olayinka Sanni

Notting Hill Genesis

Customer Journey Manager

Customer Experience & Operations leader with 10+ years’ experience leading customer transformation, operational improvement and insight-led service strategy across fintech, housing, aviation and consumer services.Experienced in redesigning complex customer journeys, improving customer operations and building scalable service functions that improve retention, reduce operational friction and strengthen business performance.My background spans customer operations, omnichannel experience, service design, AI-enabled support operations and cross-functional transformation within fast-paced and regulated environments.Known for combining strategic leadership with hands-on delivery, stakeholder influence and a strong focus on operational efficiency, customer outcomes and continuous improvement.

Emily Viarnaud

Cash Converters UK

Operational Project Manager

Emily Viarnaud is the Operational Project Lead at Cash Converters, specialising in continuous improvement, customer experience and organisational transformation. Over the past 20 years she has helped organisations including Nestlé, BT, SSE Telecoms, Costa Express and the British Quality Foundation redesign processes, improve customer journeys and build cultures of continuous improvement.

Emily is passionate about making complex problems simple. Her approach combines data, operational insight and collaboration to help organisations create consistent, customer-focused experiences while empowering the people delivering them. She believes that lasting improvements come not from imposing change, but from engaging teams to challenge existing ways of working and develop better solutions together.

12:20 - 13:40

Data, Insights and Analytics

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Customer Journey Mapping: From Insight to Outcome

13:40 - 14:00

Data, Insights and Analytics

Audience Q&A: Beyond Dashboards: Real-Talk on Data, Insight and Customer Journeys

Q&A

Customer Journey Mapping: From Insight to Outcome

Customer data and insight promise clearer journeys and smarter decisions – but many teams still struggle to turn insight into action. In this audience‑led Q&A, we’ll dig into how organisations are actually using data to shape customer journeys, beyond the charts and dashboards.

Through live polling and open discussion, we’ll explore:

How you capture and connect data across key journey stages and touchpoints.
Where analytics are genuinely improving journeys – and where they’re just reporting what you already know.
How teams turn insight into changes: triggers, experiments and journey tweaks that reduce friction and improve outcomes.
The biggest gaps in skills, tools or behaviours that hold back journey analytics from driving real value.

A fast‑paced, candid conversation designed to surface real examples and challenges from the room, giving delegates fresh ideas on how to make data, insight and analytics truly work for their customer journeys.

14:00 - 14:25

Data, Insights and Analytics

E.ON Next Case Study: Identifying the Silent Customer With AI Driven Insights

Case Study

Real-Time Insight & Acting on Customer Signals

Not all dissatisfied customers raise complaints or provide feedback. Many disengage quietly, leaving organisations with limited visibility into churn risk. This session explores how organisations can better understand the “silent customer” by identifying behavioural signals that indicate dissatisfaction before it becomes visible in traditional metrics.

Learn how AI can be applied to uncover hidden patterns in customer interactions, detect early warning signs, and enable more proactive engagement strategies. The session will focus on practical approaches to combining data, analytics, and operational processes to better capture and act on these unseen signals.

Speaker:

Abdul Khaled

E.ON Next

Director of Transformation

Abdul Khaled is an award-winning digital transformation, AI and customer experience leader with 15+ years of experience driving growth, innovation and large-scale business change. He currently leads Digital Transformation at E.ON, where he is spearheading a major digital transformation and introduction of a AI native operating model. Abdul also delivers AI leadership sessions at London School of Economics and Political Science. He has been recognised as one of Europe’s leading customer experience professionals, including being named in the Top 50 CX Leaders, Top 35 CX Professionals in Europe and the Inspire 100 UK list. As a speaker and industry commentator, Abdul is passionate about helping organisations harness technology, AI and customer-centricity to create sustainable competitive advantage.

14:50 - 15:20

Data, Insights and Analytics

Reading the Signals – How Leading Organisations Are Acting on Customer Behaviour

Panel Discussion

Real-Time Insight & Acting on Customer Signals

The ability to identify and respond to customer signals in the moment is becoming one of the most significant competitive advantages in customer engagement. The window between a customer showing signs of dissatisfaction, disengagement, or intent to leave and the point at which intervention is still effective is shrinking, and the organisations that are acting on signals fastest are pulling ahead.

In this panel, senior leaders will share how they are building the real-time insight capabilities needed to act on customer signals when they matter most. From real-time dashboards and trigger-based interventions to early churn signal detection and the operational changes needed to turn insight into customer engagement action at speed, panellists will explore what it takes to build an organisation that responds to what customers are telling them in the moment.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what real-time customer signal capability looks like and the value it delivers when it is working well
Practical approaches to building trigger-based customer engagement strategies that act on signals before they become churn
Insight into how leading organisations are reducing the gap between signal detection and customer engagement action to improve retention and commercial outcomes
Real examples of how acting on customer signals in the moment is making a measurable difference to customer engagement quality

Speakers:

Joss Murdoch

Energy Saving Trust

Customer Experience Specialist

I’ve worked my way up from frontline customer service to designing and implementing new and improved digital services with stops along the way working on complaint handling and minimisation, efficient multi-channel working and digital user experience and accessibility. Currently I’m focused on helping Home Energy Scotland and Energy Saving Trust translate their services to the digital world.

I’m most interested in the opportunities of WhatsApp as a customer service channel, how to balance efficiency with effective personalisation in digital customer service, and how best to utilise AI to level up the customer experience.

Jasper Krog

Gebr. Heinemann

Head of Marketing Strategy & Insights

15:45 - 16:05

Data, Insights and Analytics

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Real-Time Insight & Acting on Customer Signals

16:05 - 16:30

Data, Insights and Analytics

Building CX From the Ground Up: Launching London’s Newest International Convention Centre

Case Study

Hyper-Personalisation & Real-Time Relevance: Delivering Individual Experiences in the Moment

Launching a new venue presents a rare opportunity to define the customer experience before behaviours, processes and culture become established. In this session, Carly Gibbs, General Manager of Olympia’s new International Convention Centre, shares how her team developed a customer experience strategy from a blank canvas while supporting one of London’s largest regeneration projects.

Drawing on Olympia’s £1.3bn transformation, Carly will explore how customer expectations were translated into service standards, operating principles, venue design and team behaviours before the venue opened, creating a shared vision that could be embedded across every customer interaction from day one.

Attendees will learn:

How to translate a customer experience vision into practical service standards, operating principles and behaviours that teams can apply every day.
How to build a customer-centric culture during periods of organisational change, ensuring people, processes and experience evolve together.
How to align multiple teams and stakeholders behind a consistent customer experience, even when responsibilities, priorities and ways of working differ.
Practical lessons on designing experiences around the customer journey, using customer expectations to shape decisions.
A framework for embedding customer experience into a new business, service or transformation before launch, rather than retrofitting it afterwards.

Speaker:

Carly Gibbs

Olympia Events

General Manager - International Convention Centre

Carly Gibbs is General Manager of the International Convention Centre (ICC) at Olympia Events, where she is leading the operational mobilisation and premium customer experience strategy for London’s newest convention centre. Since joining as Head of Customer Experience and stepping into her expanded role in January 2026, Carly has combined over 20 years of event leadership expertise with a people-first approach to delivering innovative, seamless and world-class event experiences.

16:30 - 16:55

Data, Insights and Analytics

Why Your AI Investment Isn’t Compounding and What to Do About It

Presentation

Hyper-Personalisation & Real-Time Relevance: Delivering Individual Experiences in the Moment

Most contact centres have added AI. Few have seen it compound. The problem isn't the technology - it's that every tool sits in its own silo, learning nothing from the others. Your virtual agent doesn't know what your quality team found last week. Your agent assist doesn't share logic with your knowledge base. Every interaction disappears into a different system, and the intelligence never accumulates. Neil Titcomb, SVP International Sales at Capacity, draws on 25 years in the contact centre industry to show what it takes to build a stack where every interaction, every escalation, every resolved query, every coaching moment, feeds back into a single loop that makes both your AI and your people measurably better over time.

Speaker:

Neil Titcomb

Capacity

SVP of EMEA Sales

Neil is a seasoned sales leader with 25 years experience in the customer contact industry. His current role is SVP Sales for EMEA at Capacity which he uses to evangelise about the power of AI technologies in the contact centre.

16:55 - 17:25

Data, Insights and Analytics

Every Customer, Every Time – The Reality of Hyper-Personalisation at Scale

Panel Discussion

Hyper-Personalisation & Real-Time Relevance: Delivering Individual Experiences in the Moment

The gap between broad segmentation and hyper-personlisation is one of the most significant opportunities available to customer engagement leaders today, yet genuine personalisation at scale remains elusive for most organisations.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what personalisation at scale looks like when it is genuinely working across every customer touchpoint. From the data and technology foundations needed to move beyond segment-level thinking to the organisational and operational changes required to deliver truly individual experiences in real time, panellists will explore what it takes to close the gap between personalisation ambition and personalisation reality and what genuinely individual customer engagement looks like in practice.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuine personalisation at scale looks like when it is working across every customer touchpoint
Practical approaches to building the data infrastructure and capability needed to move beyond segmentation to truly individual customer engagement
Insight into how leading organisations are closing the gap between personalisation ambition and what customers are actually experiencing
Real examples of what individual-level customer engagement looks like in practice and the difference it makes to experience quality and customer relationships

17:25 - 17:30

Data, Insights and Analytics

Closing Remarks

Hyper-Personalisation & Real-Time Relevance: Delivering Individual Experiences in the Moment

Speaker:

Gerry Brown

Customer Lifeguard

Chief Customer Officer

17:30

Data, Insights and Analytics

Summit After-Party

The Night Summit

11:00 - 12:00

Focus Groups

The Hard Part Isn't Buying the AI: Pricing, Stack, and Org Chart

Roundtable

Buying an AI tool for customer support is the easy part. Everyone in this room has already done it or is about to. What's actually hard is everything after that, and this roundtable covers three of it in one sitting. First: pricing. Does your vendor's contract actually want you to get more efficient, or does their revenue depend on you staying exactly as inefficient as you are today. Second: your stack. Most CX teams are running a pile of tools that log what happened after the fact, a system of record, not a system that can actually go do something, a system of action. How many of yours are which. Third: your team. If AI is doing more of the actual work, what does the org chart look like, who reports to whom, and what's the part of that change nobody warns you about until you're mid-reorg. Charles Studt, CMO of Delight.ai, hosts this as a working session, not a lecture. Bring your own answers and see where you're actually behind.

Speaker:

Charles Studt

delight.ai

CMO

Thursday 08 October 2026

08:55 - 09:00

Main Stage

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

Introduction

People, Skills & the Future of CX Teams

Welcome back to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 put the customer reality front and centre – the pressures in your contact centres, the gaps in journeys and data, and the honest stories of where organisations are succeeding and where they’re still under strain. Day 2 shifts gear to The Engagement Benchmark: Where Do You Stand?

In this opening address, Martin will connect yesterday’s themes with the question at the heart of today: how does your organisation compare against the best when it comes to customer engagement? From the strategies, technologies and operating models you’ve heard about, to the evidence on where real progress is being made, today’s agenda is designed to help you benchmark, prioritise and decide what needs to happen next.

A moment to reset, refocus and look ahead together – before you dive into a day built around understanding where you stand, what your peers are doing, and how to move your customer agenda forward with confidence.

Speaker:

Martin Hill-Wilson

Brainfood Training

Co-Founder

09:50 - 10:20

Main Stage

Investing in People - The Competitive Advantage Driving Next-Generation Engagement

Panel Discussion

People, Skills & the Future of CX Teams

The future of customer engagement will be shaped as much by people as it is by technology. As the skills required to deliver great customer experiences evolve, the organisations pulling ahead are those investing in their people with the same ambition they bring to their technology strategies, building workforces that are confident, capable, and ready for what is coming next.

In this panel, senior leaders will share how they are equipping their teams with the skills, tools, and development opportunities needed to thrive in a rapidly changing environment. From innovative approaches to reskilling and talent development to building a culture where people and technology work together at their best, panellists will explore what genuine workforce investment looks like and the difference it is making to customer outcomes.

What you'll gain:

Insight into how leading organisations are building the skills and capabilities needed for the future of customer engagement
Practical approaches to reskilling and talent development that are genuinely making a difference
A clearer picture of how investing in people drives stronger customer outcomes
Real examples of what a thriving, future-ready CX workforce looks like in practice

Speakers:

Joanna Reynolds

Former Customer Experience Director at Beauty Pie

Joanna Reynolds is an award-winning Customer Experience leader with over 15 years of experience helping some of the UK's fastest-growing consumer brands build customer service organisations that customers genuinely love.

Most recently, Joanna spent nine years at Beauty Pie, where she led the CX function through rapid international growth, major organisational transformation, and one of the company's biggest technology migrations to Shopify and Gorgias. Throughout her career, she has championed the belief that customer service isn't a support function — it's a commercial driver, a brand builder, and one of the most powerful sources of customer insight.

Known for combining operational excellence with a deeply human approach to leadership, Joanna specialises in scaling high-performing teams, AI and automation, service transformation, Voice of Customer programmes, and designing customer experiences that create loyalty, advocacy, and measurable business impact.

Alongside her leadership career, Joanna advises and mentors growing brands on customer experience strategy, operational scaling, leadership development, and AI adoption, helping businesses build future-ready service organisations without losing the human touch.

Whether speaking about leadership, AI, customer experience, or building customer-centric cultures, Joanna brings practical insights, honest stories from the front line, and actionable ideas that audiences can take back to their own organisations.

Kate Philpot

Getty Images

Vice President Global Sales Enablement

Kate Philpot is Vice President of Global Sales Enablement at Getty Images, where she leads a global team responsible for onboarding, training and coaching over 550 sales and customer service professionals across three regions. Over more than a decade at Getty Images, Kate has built the sales methodologies, coaching frameworks and go-to-market approaches that shape how the business's frontline teams engage customers — from storytelling and negotiation training to a company-wide coaching practice built on customer call reviews. She has led major initiatives to professionalise customer-facing skills at scale, including business-wide sales methodology rollouts, role-playing-based training programmes, and the systems and content that keep hundreds of reps equipped to build stronger customer relationships. Kate sits on the Board of Central School of Ballet, is a qualified ICF coach, and speaks internationally on sales enablement, commercial transformation and inclusive leadership.

Drew Harvey

Price Forbes

Chief Client Officer

As Chief Client Officer at Price Forbes, Drew Harvey is responsible for championing a client-centric culture across the business. He works closely with colleagues, partners and clients around the world to drive growth, strengthen relationships and turn strategy into action. Passionate about collaboration and innovation, Drew enjoys connecting people, championing new ideas and creating long-term value for clients.

10:20 - 10:50

Main Stage

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

People, Skills & the Future of CX Teams

10:50 - 11:15

Main Stage

Rail Europe: From Intent to Confidence: Building Intelligent Customer Experiences

Interview

The Intelligent Business: Leading End-to-End Customer Experience

In high-intent, high-research categories, customers rarely move in a straight line from interest to purchase. They compare options, validate choices, look for reassurance, and often hesitate when the decision feels complex, unfamiliar, or high-stakes.

In this interview, Robert From, Chief Growth Officer at Rail Europe, will explore how businesses can build customer confidence across the full journey: from discovery and evaluation through to purchase, service, and repeat engagement. The conversation will focus on how trust, clarity, customer insight, and the intelligent use of data can turn complexity into confidence, and how leaders can make customer experience a practical driver of growth across functions.

Speaker:

Robert From

Rail Europe

Chief Growth Officer

Robert From has spent 15+ years helping technology, media, and mobility companies grow across Europe and Asia. From Google to fast-scaling mobility startups, he has led international teams, built customer-focused growth strategies, and worked at the intersection of technology, data, and commercial transformation.

Passionate about how technology can create better customer experiences, he believes growth starts with understanding people and making complex journeys feel simple. Today, he is Chief Growth Officer at Rail Europe, where he leads global growth, marketing, and customer strategy.

11:15 - 11:40

Main Stage

Clarity Environmental Case Study: Customer Adversity into Customer Advocacy

Case Study

The Intelligent Business: Leading End-to-End Customer Experience

How do you build customer trust and advocacy in a sector defined by complexity and continual change?

Natalie Rea, CEO of Clarity Environmental and winner of three Engage Awards in 2025, shares the journey behind Clarity's success, including winning Best Customer Service Team 2024 and Best Use of Customer Insights 2025. Through a relentless focus on empathy, personalisation, and meaningful customer outcomes, Clarity has developed practical approaches that cut through complexity and inspire confidence.

Join this session to discover the strategies, insights, and real-world examples that helped turn customer adversity into lasting customer advocacy.

Speaker:

Natalie Rea

Clarity Environmental

Chief Executive Officer

Natalie is CEO of Clarity Environmental, winner of the Engage Great Place to Work Award 2025 and Engage Best Employee Wellbeing Strategy 2025. Named in the FEBE growth 100 list 2 years in a row, an annual ranking highlighting the 100 fastest growing privately owned businesses in the UK, Clarity Environmental celebrates an enviable 99.6% customer retention, demonstrating how forward thinking and futuristic people and culture strategy,
directly transforms customer experience and financial performance.

Natalie is a Great British Entrepreneurial Award Winner, approaching her CEO role from an HR background and will share her case study,
detailing how Clarity’s unique people strategy developed a culture of “People with purpose, finding joy in the job, turning visions into victory.”

As a speaker, Natalie openly shares the core methodologies driving award-winning employee engagement of 97% of employees agreeing they would recommend Clarity as a place to work and how this engagement strategy achieved more than 58% profit growth in 2 years.

11:40 - 12:10

Main Stage

From First Click to Loyal Customer: Leading the End-to-End Experience

Panel Discussion

The Intelligent Business: Leading End-to-End Customer Experience

The most successful customer-facing organisations are those that think about experience as a single, connected journey rather than a series of separate functions. From the moment a customer first encounters a brand through to post-sales, loyalty, and advocacy, every interaction shapes the relationship and the commercial outcome.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what it takes to build and lead an end-to-end customer experience strategy that connects acquisition, experience, and retention into one coherent strategy. From aligning teams across the full customer lifecycle to delivering consistency across global and local markets, panellists will share how they are creating seamless, commercially driven customer journeys that deliver at every stage.

What you'll gain:

Insight into how leading organisations are connecting acquisition, experience, and retention into a single growth strategy
Practical approaches to delivering consistency across the full customer lifecycle
Real examples of what end-to-end customer experience leadership looks like in practice
A clearer picture of how seamless customer journeys drive commercial growth and long-term loyalty

Speakers:

Naomi Sweeting

Places for People

Director of Customer Research & Insight

Naomi Sweeting is an award-winning transformation leader specialising in strategy, service design and customer-led organisational change. With more than 25 years’ experience across housing, financial services B2B and B2C, she helps organisations translate customer insight, behavioural science and regulatory requirements into effective operating models, services and measurable outcomes. Naomi is recognised for her expertise in systems thinking, psychographic segmentation and inclusive service design, bringing together customer voice, performance, governance and delivery to create sustainable transformation and improved customer experiences.

Claire Walsh

HM Revenue & Customs

Customer Experience Director

Claire Walsh is the Director for the Customer Experience Directorate within HMRC. She works to the Departments' very first Chief Customer Officer, Myrtle Lloyd, signalling greater customer centricity and our commitment to delivering an excellent and consistent experience for our customers.

Claire works to ensure HMRC delivers its customer and channel strategies, improving customer experience at every touchpoint. This will include driving forward important initiatives across the enterprise and embodying the HMRC Charter, such as:
• Improving customer guidance via customer data and insight as well as holistic views of the customer’s end-to-end journey.
• Helping to ensure our customers are better informed about their tax and customs responsibilities so that they comply with their obligations at the right time.
• Becoming digital 1st including coaching our customers to use our new digital services, such as the HMRC app.

Claire first joined the Civil Service as a fast streamer in 1996 and has spent most of her career within HMRC, and its predecessor, Inland Revenue. Over that time, she has held numerous policy positions and spent four years working on designs and industry readiness for EU Exit.

12:10 - 13:00

Main Stage

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Innovation, Disruption & Building the Future-Ready Organisation

13:25 - 13:50

Main Stage

Cumberland Case Study: Trust Is a Growth Strategy: What Customer-Owned Businesses Can Teach Us About Winning Loyalty

Case Study

The Loyalty Crisis: Why Customers Are Leaving & How to Win Them Back

In a world obsessed with digital transformation, it's easy to forget that customers don't build relationships with technology; they build them with organisations they trust. As many brands chase efficiency and automation, the organisations creating sustainable growth are those investing just as heavily in human connection by being physically present.

In this session, Cumberland Building Society's Chief Customer Officer explores how a customer-owned organisation is translating purpose into commercial performance. From maintaining a high street presence where others have left, to empowering colleagues to solve problems rather than simply process them, this is a story about using trust as a strategic growth driver, not simply a brand value.

Delegates will leave with practical insights into building customer confidence, aligning culture with customer outcomes, and creating loyalty that extends beyond price or convenience.

Speaker:

Claire Deekes

Cumberland Building Society

Chief Customer Officer

Claire is Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at The Cumberland and is responsible for ensuring the business provides a differentiated and exceptional customer experience. She is accountable for overall customer acquisition and retention, having responsibility for the branch network, the direct and introduced lending functions, product development, marketing, first line risk, Cumberland Commercial and Borderway Finance.

Claire is a member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers with over 30 years of experience in the retail banking sector. Prior to moving into the role of CCO, she had held the role of Head of Retail Distribution. Claire moved to the Society from Virgin Money where she was Head of Stores and Lounges, and prior to this enjoyed success in several senior manager roles within Lloyds Banking Group.

13:50 - 14:20

Main Stage

Why Are Customers Really Leaving?

Panel Discussion

The Loyalty Crisis: Why Customers Are Leaving & How to Win Them Back

Customer defection is rising across sectors, and many of the traditional responses are proving less effective than they once were. Loyalty schemes are being redesigned, retention budgets are increasing, and yet churn persists. The organisations genuinely turning the tide are asking harder questions about why customers leave in the first place, and finding answers that go well beyond price and product.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what the data and the honest customer conversations are telling them about the root causes of defection and what is genuinely working to reverse it. From rethinking loyalty strategy from the ground up to making the bold moves that rebuild lasting relationships, panellists will explore how organisations are winning back customer confidence in a market where switching has never been easier.

What you'll gain:

Honest insight into the root causes of customer defection beyond the obvious explanations
Real examples of retention and loyalty strategies that are genuinely reversing churn
Practical approaches to rebuilding lasting customer relationships in a high-switching environment
A clear view of where traditional loyalty approaches are losing effectiveness and what is replacing them

Speakers:

Lisa Johnstone

Virgin Media O2

Director of Priority, Loyalty & Rewards

Lisa Johnstone is Director of Priority, Loyalty & Rewards at Virgin Media O2, where she leads Priority, the award-winning loyalty platform.

Priority has over 7 million registered members, with more than one million engaging monthly, delivering over £33m in customer value in 2025.

With 25 years’ international experience across entertainment, gaming and media, Lisa is a recognised leader in customer engagement and growth strategy, shaping how loyalty drives commercial performance and long-term competitive advantage.

Jamie Thorpe

Ipsos

Chief Experience Officer

Claire Deekes

Cumberland Building Society

Chief Customer Officer

14:20 - 14:40

Main Stage

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Loyalty Crisis: Why Customers Are Leaving & How to Win Them Back

14:40 - 15:05

Main Stage

The Quiet Tech Giant: How Auto Trader Turned Data and AI into Competitive Advantage

Interview

The Future Customer: Trends, Expectations & Strategic Readiness

Few British businesses have reinvented themselves as completely as Auto Trader. In this Main Stage interview, Ian Plummer, Chief Customer Officer at Auto Trader UK, tells the story of a remarkable transformation – from a print publisher to a multi-billion-pound tech and data company, and one of only two technology businesses on the FTSE 100.

Ian will explore what sets Auto Trader apart: a rare and proprietary data asset built on more than 18 million monthly visits and relationships with 15,000 retailers, and over a decade of sustained investment in AI – so much so that a third of its 1,200-strong workforce now works in data science and engineering.

Speaker:

Ian Plummer

Autotrader UK

Chief Customer Officer

Ian joined Auto Trader in 2017, having spent over 20 years in the automotive industry in senior global roles across the automotive ecosystem including both manufacturers and retailer groups. Currently, he heads up Auto Trader’s relationships with their most senior partners in retailers, manufacturers, lenders and media alike to ensure Auto Trader’s technology and expertise delivers value and revenue for partners in both the new and used car space. He is also on the Board of the Institute of the Motoring Industry, sits on the President’s Committee of the Automotive Leadership Network, and is a regular media commentator as well as being an active lobbyist for the policies required to ensure the electric transition is equitable and accessible.

15:30 - 16:00

Main Stage

A Strategic Lens on the Customer of Tomorrow

Panel Discussion

The Future Customer: Trends, Expectations & Strategic Readiness

Customer expectations are evolving faster than most strategic planning cycles can accommodate. The organisations that will win over the next five years are those that can distinguish between genuine emerging trends and passing noise, and build the readiness to act on what matters before their competitors do. Yet for many senior leaders, the gap between strategic intent and organisational readiness remains stubbornly wide.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark strategic readiness for the future customer across the industry. From separating signal from noise to placing the right strategic bets at the right time, panellists will share how they are preparing for a customer whose expectations, behaviours, and values are shifting in ways that demand a fundamentally different organisational response.

What you'll gain:

A clear benchmark of where the industry stands on strategic readiness for the future customer
Insight into which emerging trends senior leaders are taking most seriously and why
Practical frameworks for building organisational readiness to act on what is coming before competitors do
Real examples of the strategic bets being placed now to stay ahead of shifting customer expectations

Speaker:

John Porteous

Charles Stanley & Co. Limited

Managing Director - Charles Stanley Central Financial Services & Chief Client Officer

Executive Leadership Team member with responsibility for CS Financial Planning, Charles Stanley Direct (D2C) and firmwide Consumer Duty oversight in the role of Chief Client Officer.Experienced across financial planning, proposition development, governance, distribution strategy, and M&A, with a strong track record of leading client-focused growth and regulatory transformation within wealth and financial services.Regular industry speaker and contributor at key influencer forums, with previous leadership roles including:* Chair of the Society of Financial Advisers* Director of the Institute of Financial Planning* Council Member and Director of AIFAPassionate about improving client outcomes and helping shape a more trusted, accessible, and professionally driven financial planning industry.Chartered & Certified Financial Planner | Chartered Fellow CISI | Fellow of the Personal Finance Society | IMC

16:00 - 16:05

Main Stage

Closing Remarks

The Future Customer: Trends, Expectations & Strategic Readiness

Speaker:

Martin Hill-Wilson

Brainfood Training

Co-Founder

09:00 - 09:25

Main Stage

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

Headliner

People, Skills & the Future of CX Teams

As political and social divides continue to widen, Edelman's latest Trust Barometer research reveals a powerful and timely insight: the workplace remains one of the few institutions capable of building trust across difference, and that trust shapes every customer interaction that follows.

In this exclusive session, Francesca Woodhouse unveils the latest findings from the newly released research, exploring what they mean for the customer agenda. From brand credibility and customer expectations to organisational responsibility in an increasingly polarised world, this keynote will challenge CX and business leaders to rethink how trusted, engaged employees translate into trusted, loyal customers.

This is more than a research reveal. It's a strategic lens on why trust is now central to earning, keeping and growing customer relationships, and why organisations that get employee trust right will be better placed to win customer trust in the years ahead.

Speaker:

Francesca Woodhouse

Edelman

Managing Director - UK Workplace Advisory

Francesca is Edelman ‘s UK Workplace Advisory Lead. She has worked across the entire communications spectrum in a career spanning two decades but has developed specialisms in change communications and culture transformation work.

Passionate about supporting people in a positive way through change, Francesca has advised some of the world's largest businesses on major digital transformations, team restructures, employer brand and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging to name but a few.

Francesca’s background is varied, which she believes helps in her work to bring people together, provide compelling workplace and employee experiences and solving complex situations for some of the world’s biggest businesses.

Francesca is a dual national and speaks French, German and Italian.

08:55 - 09:00

Future of The Contact Centre

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

Introduction

The High-Performance Contact Centre: Delivering More for Customers

Welcome back to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 put the customer reality front and centre – the pressures in your contact centres, the gaps in journeys and data, and the honest stories of where organisations are succeeding and where they’re still under strain. Day 2 shifts gear to The Engagement Benchmark: Where Do You Stand?

In this opening address, Marcus will connect yesterday’s themes with the question at the heart of today: how does your organisation compare against the best when it comes to customer engagement? From the strategies, technologies and operating models you’ve heard about, to the evidence on where real progress is being made, today’s agenda is designed to help you benchmark, prioritise and decide what needs to happen next.

A moment to reset, refocus and look ahead together – before you dive into a day built around understanding where you stand, what your peers are doing, and how to move your customer agenda forward with confidence.

Speaker:

Marcus Hickman

Davies Hickman

Managing Director

09:00 - 09:25

Future of The Contact Centre

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

Headliner

Scaling Service: Meeting Demand Without Compromise

Speaker:

Francesca Woodhouse

Edelman

Managing Director - UK Workplace Advisory

09:50 - 10:20

Future of The Contact Centre

Raising the Bar – What High-Performance Contact Centres Do Differently

Panel Discussion

The High-Performance Contact Centre: Delivering More for Customers

High performance in a contact centre is not just about hitting service level agreements. It is about consistently delivering more for customers, more efficiently, more sustainably, and in ways that drive genuine commercial value. Yet performance levels across the industry remain uneven, and the gap between contact centres that are genuinely excelling and those simply keeping pace is increasingly visible.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark what genuine high performance looks like across the industry today. From where technology investment is delivering real returns to the operational and cultural decisions that separate leading contact centres from the rest, panellists will help you understand where your operation stands and what it will take to close the gap between where you are and where the best are operating.

What you'll gain:

A clear benchmark of what high-performance contact centre operations look like across the industry
Insight into where technology investment is delivering the strongest operational returns
Practical approaches to closing the gap between average and excellent contact centre performance
A clearer picture of the decisions that are making the biggest difference in leading operations right now

Speakers:

Baidurjya DasChaudhuri

Ada

Managing Director, EMEA

Baidurjya leads Ada’s strategic operations across EMEA, partnering with enterprise organizations to reimagine and elevate customer experience through AI-powered automation. With deep expertise in scaling tech-driven customer service solutions, he is committed to helping businesses unlock value and drive innovation in their customer care strategies. Based in the UK, Baidurjya's passion lies in harnessing cutting-edge AI to transform how organizations engage with their customers—delivering support that is not only efficient, but deeply human-centric.

Phil Quickenden

London Borough of Camden

Head of Customer and Registration Services

Phil first walked into a contact centre in November 2002 and still finds himself wondering why he never left. With over 20 years in Public Sector contact, ranging from the fast pace of a Police 999 call centre where answer times really do have life and death consequences, through to local government with the breadth of different services that encompasses. Phil
passionately believes that technology and channel choice are valuable tools to support the real stars of the contact centre, the agents who answer the calls.

In his current role as the Head of Customer & Registration Services at the London Borough of Camden Phil is exploring how technology can enhance and develop a new kind of super-agent, equipped with digital skills and expertise which empower customers to play a greater role in their own journey. A self-confessed data geek, Phil believes that through unlocking the intelligence of the contact centre, organisations can move their understanding of the customers they serve to a whole new level, which in the public sector, means changing lives.

Jade Devine

Bristan Group Ltd

Head of Customer Experience

I am a dedicated & energetic individual and have the ability to look at strategic issues as well as carrying out day to day duties. I enjoy the challenge of meeting deadlines and can work well under pressure. I work well within a team and confidently as an individual. I am always seeking new challenges to better myself and keep my skills current.

10:20 - 10:50

Future of The Contact Centre

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The High-Performance Contact Centre: Delivering More for Customers

10:50 - 11:15

Future of The Contact Centre

The Telegraph: The Best of Both: Blending Human Insight and AI in Customer Service

Interview

The Human-Digital Balance: Getting the Blend Right

As AI reshapes the contact centre, the real challenge isn't choosing between people and technology – it's getting the blend right. In this interview, Carolyn Forbes, Head of Service Innovation at The Telegraph, shares what she's learning from implementing AI and agent automation on the front line of customer service.

Carolyn will explore where automation delivers most value, where the human touch remains irreplaceable, and how to bring the two together in a way that serves customers and empowers teams – offering practical lessons for anyone navigating the same journey.

Speaker:

Carolyn Forbes

The Telegraph

Head of Service Innovation

As Head of Service Innovation with over 16 years in the media industry, I specialise in leading technical optimisation programmes and driving operational improvements.

My expertise includes:
- Integrating AI technology into the contact centre and customer facing platforms, leading on design and adoption.
- Technical Integration & Change Management: Successfully implemented integrated telephony systems using Salesforce and Amazon Connect, enhancing customer interaction efficiency.
- Operational Optimisation: Led initiatives to streamline processes, resulting in improved service delivery and customer satisfaction.
- Team Leadership & Coaching: Fostered collaborative environments through coaching and development, aligning teams with strategic goals.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Drove change across training, quality, and service operations, ensuring cohesive execution of projects.

I am passionate about leveraging technology and data to optimise customer operations, while also working alongside the traditional methods of quality management, training and development of teams to lead change.

11:40 - 12:10

Future of The Contact Centre

Human or Digital – Getting the Blend Right for Every Customer

Panel Discussion

The Human-Digital Balance: Getting the Blend Right

Significant investment has gone into automation and self-service across the contact centre industry, yet customer satisfaction with digital interactions remains uneven. The organisations getting the blend right are not simply adding more digital options, they are making smarter decisions about where human interaction adds irreplaceable value and where technology genuinely serves customers better. But how many organisations are honestly there yet?

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands on the human and digital balance and what it takes to get it right for every customer. From designing self-service journeys that customers actually want to use to ensuring that vulnerable customers always have access to the human support they need, panellists will explore how leading organisations are building contact models that work across every customer type and what the rest of the industry can learn from them.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands on the human and digital balance in contact centre operations
Insight into how leading organisations are designing self-service journeys that genuinely empower customers
Practical approaches to ensuring vulnerable customers are never disadvantaged by digital-first strategies
A clearer picture of what a truly balanced contact model looks like and how far most organisations still need to travel

Speakers:

Ingrid van Ruiswijk

Thrivin

Head of Customer Support

I've spent more than 25 years working in customer service and customer experience, leading teams across industries including sports, e-commerce, logistics, and retail.
What I enjoy most is helping organizations create better experiences for their customers while building engaged and successful teams.
I work to improve customer journeys, drive operational excellence, and explore how innovation and technology can strengthen customer relationships.
I'm passionate about people, leadership, and creating experiences that customers genuinely remember.

Jessica Ham

National Grid

Head of Customer Experience

Jessica Ham is an experienced Customer Contact leader, with experience leading digital change within a Customer Service environment as well as managing large operational teams through transformation. In 2023, she was awarded Highly Commended by the CCMA and also received the Gold Award from UKCCF for Head of Contact Centre. She has been a judge for the CCMA for both the UK and European Awards for the past 3 years and in 2026 was recognised as one of the Top 50 CX leaders to follow in 2026.

12:10 - 13:00

Future of The Contact Centre

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Human-Digital Balance: Getting the Blend Right

13:00 - 13:25

Future of The Contact Centre

NatWest Case Study: The Future of Contact Centres & AI

Case Study

Service Excellence: Innovation, Quality & the Duty of Care

How do you innovate at pace while never losing sight of quality and your duty of care to customers? In this case study, Tammy Martin, Head of Connected Customer Experience, Retail at NatWest, shares how the bank is harnessing AI and transformation to raise the standard of service.

Tammy will offer a candid look at what it takes to deliver innovation responsibly – balancing efficiency and quality with the trust, care and protection that customers rightly expect, and the practical lessons learned along the way.

Speaker:

Tammy Martin

Natwest

Head of Connected Customer Experience, Retail

13:50 - 14:20

Future of The Contact Centre

The Excellence Standard – Raising the Bar Across Quality, Innovation & Duty of Care

Panel Discussion

Service Excellence: Innovation, Quality & the Duty of Care

Rising customer expectations and increasing regulatory scrutiny are raising the bar for service quality across the contact centre industry. Yet standards remain inconsistent, and the gap between organisations genuinely embedding excellence into their operations and those still treating quality as a compliance exercise is significant. Understanding where your operation stands against the best is one of the most valuable things a contact centre leader can do.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark what genuine service excellence looks like when quality, innovation, and duty of care are treated as interconnected priorities. From quality management frameworks that drive real improvement to innovative approaches that raise standards for all customers including those who are most vulnerable, panellists will share what the best contact centre operations are doing and where the rest of the industry needs to close the gap.

What you'll gain:

A clear benchmark of what service excellence looks like when quality and innovation work together
Practical approaches to embedding duty of care into contact centre operating models in a way customers actually feel
Insight into how leading organisations are using innovation to raise service standards rather than simply maintain them
A clearer picture of where the industry is genuinely progressing on quality and where the gaps remain widest

Speakers:

Janette Pincott

Thames Water

Head of Change & Contact Centre Support

Janette Pincott is the Head of Change & Contact Centre Support within Thames Water's Customer Experience Transformation function. She leads the Change Management, Business Readiness, Knowledge Management and Quality Assurance teams, helping to ensure that transformation initiatives are successfully delivered, adopted and embedded across the Retail business. In this senior leadership role, Janette is responsible for driving strategic change, operational excellence and customer-focused improvements, ensuring colleagues have the knowledge, tools and support they need to deliver outstanding customer experiences. With a strong focus on continuous improvement, governance and people-led change, she works across the organisation to translate complex transformation programmes into meaningful outcomes for customers, frontline teams and the business.

Dan O'Sullivan

London Borough of Hackney

Transforming Customer Experience. Empowering Communities. Delivering Public Value.

Dan O'Sullivan is an award-winning customer engagement and transformation leader specialising in service transformation, commercial innovation and inclusive economic growth. He leads Hackney Council's Markets, Shop Fronts & Street Trading Service, where he has overseen a transformation that has generated millions of pounds in economic and commercial value, supported thousands of businesses, created nationally recognised digital services and built one of the UK's most recognised and awarded local government teams.

Dan's work has received consistent national recognition for customer engagement, service innovation, commercial transformation and leadership, including three Engage Awards, reflecting both the impact of his work and his commitment to creating better outcomes for customers, communities and public services. His work has also been recognised by the Local Government Chronicle, the National Association of British Market Authorities (NABMA) and the National Market Traders Federation (NMTF) for excellence in leadership, innovation, economic development and public service.

Beyond Hackney, Daniel advises HM Treasury, the Department for Business and Trade, the Mayor of London's Markets Board, the National Association of British Market Authorities (NABMA) and local authorities across the UK on customer engagement, regulatory reform, digital transformation and place-based economic development. Bridging local delivery with national policy, he helps shape how governments, councils and organisations think about customer engagement, commercial innovation and inclusive economic growth, while supporting public services to improve outcomes for residents, businesses and communities.

An invited speaker at the 2026 Engage Customer Summit, Daniel believes the future of customer engagement lies in combining commercial thinking with public purpose, demonstrating that organisations create their greatest impact when customer experience, innovation and social value are designed together rather than treated as competing priorities. His work shows how organisations can combine innovation, data, empowered teams and human-centred design to deliver customer experiences that rival the very best private sector organisations while creating lasting social, economic and commercial impact.

14:20 - 14:40

Future of The Contact Centre

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Service Excellence: Innovation, Quality & the Duty of Care

14:40 - 15:05

Future of The Contact Centre

Transport for Wales Case Study: Empowering Colleagues and Customers Using Technology

Case Study

Service Excellence: Innovation, Quality & the Duty of Care

Transport for Wales is on a journey to use technology not just to modernise rail services, but to make every interaction easier for colleagues and customers. This session will explore how the organisation is equipping frontline teams with better tools, data and digital workflows so they can resolve issues faster, communicate more clearly and deliver a more reliable, joined‑up experience across channels.

From real‑time service information and accessible digital self‑service to platforms that connect operational teams behind the scenes, attendees will see how technology is being used to remove friction rather than add complexity. The case study will share practical lessons on change management, colleague engagement and designing solutions around real customer needs, offering ideas any service‑led organisation can apply to empower its people and improve journeys end‑to‑end.

Speaker:

Jo Foxall

Transport for Wales

Customer Experience Director

I am an enthusiastic and empathic leader, driven by leading, developing, and motivating an empowered team that delivers excellence in customer experience, innovative solutions, and value to the customer. I am a strong communications and customer experience professional who has developed into a business leader for a number of organisations delivering public services across Wales.

I am passionate in the areas of communications, customer experience, leadership and gender equality and have attracted personal recognition and awards in these areas; Institute of Directors (IoD) Wales, Young Director of the Year 2019, Welsh Transport Awards, Woman in Transport of the Year 2020, Welsh Women’s Awards, Managing Director of the Year 2022) CXMA UK Inspire 100 inspirational CX leaders 2024, Silver Award for Senior CX Leader of the Year at the Cnect Wales Contact Centre awards 2024, as well as several organisational awards for marketing and customer service at the Welsh Marketing and Welsh Contact Centre Awards.

Customer champion, strong communicator, organised, focused and a perpetual list maker. As a mum of twins, I have to be!

15:05 - 15:30

Future of The Contact Centre

How Agentic Self-Learning Is Transforming Customer Experiences. True Agentic AI Doesn’t Wait to Be Retrained — It Improves Itself.

Presentation

The Autonomous Contact Centre: How Self-Acting Technology is Reshaping Operations

Most enterprises have already invested in AI for their contact centre but their automation rates have plateaued. Not because the implementation was wrong, but because the architecture was.

When you have to rely on manual tuning or your vendor’s PS team to improve your CX platform, it’s not agentic.

Omilia has the solution. True agentic AI that doesn't wait to be retrained but improves itself. Our self-learning agentic CX agents monitor every interaction, identify what to improve, build better agents automatically, and deploy them with human approval — compounding performance.

We'll reveal what this looks like at enterprise scale, how to deploy LLMs where they genuinely add value, and why specialised voice AI, not general-purpose models, is the right engine for live customer calls. And you can see exactly what's happening inside the AI and why it made every decision. Nothing is hidden or unexplainable - critical for compliance teams and regulated industries.

The result is that a non-technical team can stand up an agent and watch it get measurably better within days, with ROI in just three months and call resolution that doesn't plateau but compounds.

Speaker:

Lloyd Buxton

Omilia

VP Sales, Northern Europe

Lloyd Buxton is Regional Sales Director, Europe at Omilia, where he partners with large enterprises to improve customer experience through Agentic CX. With more than two decades in CX, spanning data, customer engagement platforms and contact centre technology, Lloyd focuses on practical AI adoption that delivers real operational impact, better customer outcomes and clear ROI, not just innovation for innovation’s sake.

15:30 - 16:00

Future of The Contact Centre

The Contact Centre of the Future – Are You Ready for What's Coming?

Panel Discussion

The Autonomous Contact Centre: How Self-Acting Technology is Reshaping Operations

The contact centre is changing faster than at any point in its history. Conversational AI is already reshaping how customers interact with organisations, and agentic technology that can take autonomous action on behalf of customers and agents is moving rapidly from concept to deployment. Alongside shifting customer expectations and the evolving role of the frontline workforce, these forces are converging to create an operation that looks fundamentally different from what most organisations have today.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry is on the journey towards the contact centre of the future and what genuine readiness actually looks like. From conversational and agentic AI deployment to the workforce, culture, and governance considerations that will define success, panellists will help you understand where your operation stands against the best and what you need to prioritise now to avoid being left behind.

What you'll gain:

A clear benchmark of where the industry is on the journey towards the contact centre of the future
Insight into the technology, workforce, and governance priorities that will define success
Practical approaches to building readiness for conversational and agentic AI in a live contact centre environment
A clearer picture of what the contact centre of the future actually looks like and how far most organisations still need to travel

Speakers:

Emma Greenwood

Lloyds Banking Group

Head of Personal Banking Strategy & Conversational Banking

Emma Greenwood is a senior digital and transformation leader at Lloyds Banking Group, with nearly 27 years’ experience spanning technology, digital, products, propositions and customer channels.

Emma leads strategy and delivery across both digital and advisor-assisted servicing within Personal Banking, with a particular focus on conversational banking, AI enabled engagement and proactive service models. She has extensive experience designing and running large scale customer contact and servicing environments, and in translating data and AI capability into tangible improvements in customer experience, operational efficiency and trust.

Her work centres on moving beyond traditional “wait and respond” service models towards more pre emptive, insight led engagement — identifying friction and risk early, orchestrating journeys across channels, and delivering timely support that feels relevant rather than intrusive.

Emma has played a key role in some of Lloyds Banking Group’s most complex transformation programmes and is passionate about using technology to simplify banking, strengthen customer relationships and support colleagues to deliver better outcomes at scale.

Veatriki Tzannatos

Ex Colgate-Palmolive

Consumer/Customer Care & Experience Leader

With a career spanning over two decades in global consumer affairs and customer service operations, Veatriki has built a reputation for transforming customer experience ecosystems and driving operational excellence at scale.

From managing multi-site contact centre operations to leading high-stakes crisis management strategies and award-winning strategic partnerships, she has consistently bridged high-level CX vision with seamless front-line execution across complex global landscapes.

Passionate about the convergence of human empathy and modern technology, Veatriki advocates for HUMAN + AI solutions that empower teams, elevate service quality, and deliver meaningful, personalised engagements.

Because exceptional customer experience isn't just about resolving issues, it's about combining human connection with intelligent technology to build the culture, alignment, and momentum that turn modern customer engagement into a distinct competitive advantage.

16:00 - 16:05

Future of The Contact Centre

Chair's Close

Closing Remarks

The Autonomous Contact Centre: How Self-Acting Technology is Reshaping Operations

Speaker:

Marcus Hickman

Davies Hickman

Managing Director

08:55 - 09:00

Customer Contact

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

Introduction

Redefining Customer Contact: Speed, Personalisation & the New Service Standard

Welcome back to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 put the customer reality front and centre – the pressures in your contact centres, the gaps in journeys and data, and the honest stories of where organisations are succeeding and where they’re still under strain. Day 2 shifts gear to The Engagement Benchmark: Where Do You Stand?

In this opening address, Nick will connect yesterday’s themes with the question at the heart of today: how does your organisation compare against the best when it comes to customer engagement? From the strategies, technologies and operating models you’ve heard about, to the evidence on where real progress is being made, today’s agenda is designed to help you benchmark, prioritise and decide what needs to happen next.

A moment to reset, refocus and look ahead together – before you dive into a day built around understanding where you stand, what your peers are doing, and how to move your customer agenda forward with confidence.

Speaker:

Nick Brice

Soul Corporations

CEO

09:00 - 09:25

Customer Contact

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

Headliner

Redefining Customer Contact: Speed, Personalisation & the New Service Standard

Speaker:

Francesca Woodhouse

Edelman

Managing Director - UK Workplace Advisory

09:50 - 10:20

Customer Contact

The New Service Standard – Are You Keeping Pace With What Customers Expect

Panel Discussion

Redefining Customer Contact: Speed, Personalisation & the New Service Standard

Customer expectations of speed, personalisation, and seamlessness in contact are rising faster than most organisations are able to respond. Conversational AI is enabling more immediate, relevant interactions, and the emergence of agentic AI is beginning to redefine what resolution looks like entirely, with technology capable of acting autonomously on behalf of the customer from first contact through to full resolution. The new service standard is being set by the best experiences customers have anywhere, and the gap between that standard and what most contact operations are delivering is a growing commercial risk.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands against the new service standard and what it takes to close the gap. From the operational changes needed to deploy conversational and agentic AI effectively to understanding where customer contact is meeting rising expectations and where it is still falling short, panellists will share what the organisations pulling ahead are doing differently and what the rest of the industry needs to learn from them.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands against the new customer contact service standard
Insight into what genuine speed and personalisation at scale looks like when underpinned by conversational and agentic AI
A clearer picture of where customer contact is meeting rising expectations and where the gaps are widest
Real examples of how leading organisations are pulling ahead on service standard and what is driving their success

Speakers:

Jason Roos

Cirrus Response

Chief Executive Officer

Jason Roos is the founder and CEO of Cirrus, the UK contact centre platform powering mission-critical conversations for the public and private sectors. He launched the business in 2011 with one goal: fix broken customer experiences. Since then, Jason’s turned Cirrus into a go-to CCaaS provider—cloud-native, AI-smart, and built for resilience. Under his watch, Cirrus earned a Royal Warrant from HM The King and supports names like FWG and IAMP. A tech realist, Jason leads Cirrus’s AI strategy with a clear focus: cut through the hype and make AI actually useful. With today’s CX leaders drowning in AI buzzwords, he’s on a mission to bring it down to earth—helping customers harness real, game-changing tools that deliver value today, without the wait.

Tom Kirby

Mindvalley

Head of Customer Experience

Tom Kirby is a CX leader at Mindvalley. With over 15 years in customer support and experience, he's passionate about helping businesses improve retention and ensure customer success, understanding the importance of creating long-term value and fostering strong customer relationships.

Leanne Thwaites

Head of Group Customer

I’ve always been at my best when building something that doesn’t yet exist. Throughout my career, I have helped organisations turn complex challenges into clear strategies, practical plans and meaningful change. I bring together customer understanding, commercial thinking and organisational design to create strategies that do not simply sit on a page, but change how a business operates and grows. I began my career in frontline banking, giving me a practical understanding of customers, colleagues and the realities of delivering change. I progressed into strategy and transformation roles, working closely with senior leaders and Boards before moving into the retirement sector. At Just, I progressed from Strategy Manager to Head of Group Customer. During that time, I created and launched the organisation’s first enterprise Customer Strategy and Customer Promises, led major customer and regulatory transformation, developed new insight capabilities and helped embed customer thinking across the organisation. What motivates me is the opportunity to create clarity where there is ambiguity, bring people together around a shared ambition and build something that leaves an organisation stronger than I found it. I am particularly interested in Head of and Director-level opportunities spanning strategy, transformation, customer, growth and organisational change.

10:20 - 10:50

Customer Contact

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Redefining Customer Contact: Speed, Personalisation & the New Service Standard

10:50 - 11:15

Customer Contact

Holiday Extras Case Study: What If Your Next AI Team Is Already Sitting in Your Contact Centre?

Case Study

Designing a Frictionless Journey: Self-Service & Customer Experience

Every organisation wants to use AI to transform customer experience, but many assume innovation has to come from Product or Engineering teams.

At Holiday Extras, we took a different approach.

Following a company-wide commitment to AI adoption, we empowered frontline customer service colleagues - the people who understand our customers better than anyone - to become AI solution builders. Equipped with accessible AI tools and driven by real customer insight, they began identifying recurring customer problems and designing AI assistants to solve them.

The results have transformed the way we innovate. Our Operational AI team has developed assistants that reduce customer effort, improve operational performance, and deliver significant business value, while proving that technical backgrounds are no longer the only route to creating impactful AI solutions.

This session shares the story of our first nine months, exploring how democratising AI can unlock hidden talent, accelerate innovation, and reshape the future of customer service. You will leave with practical ideas for empowering your own frontline teams to become problem solvers, while maintaining the governance and quality needed to scale AI responsibly.

Speaker:

Amanda Bishop

Holiday Extras

Head of Customer Service Journeys/Operational AI

As Head of Customer Service Journeys at Holiday Extras Amanda leads the Operational AI team, where frontline customer service colleagues are empowered to identify customer problems and build AI-powered solutions. By combining deep customer insight with accessible AI tools, the team has developed assistants that reduce customer effort, improve operational performance and deliver significant business value through measurable efficiency and cost savings.

With almost 20 years' experience across customer operations, transformation and leadership, Amanda is passionate about developing people, challenging conventional thinking and proving that curiosity and customer insight can be just as valuable as technical expertise. She believes the future of AI belongs to organisations that equip everyone, not just engineers, to solve customer problems in new ways.

Amanda is also a facilitator for Google's #IamRemarkable programme, helping people build confidence, recognise their achievements and advocate for themselves in the workplace.

11:40 - 12:10

Customer Contact

Frictionless by Design – The Future of Self-Service & Customer Journeys

Panel Discussion

Designing a Frictionless Journey: Self-Service & Customer Experience

Self-service investment has accelerated across the industry, but friction has not disappeared. The gap between organisations that are genuinely designing effortless customer journeys and those that are simply adding digital options without addressing the underlying experience is becoming a significant differentiator. Customers increasingly judge organisations not by what channels they offer but by how little effort it takes to get what they need.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands on frictionless journey design and what it takes to genuinely close the effort gap. From self-service journeys that customers choose over assisted channels to ensuring that frictionless design works for all customers including those who are vulnerable, panellists will share what genuinely effortless customer contact looks like and how far most organisations still need to travel to get there.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands on frictionless journey design and customer effort reduction
Practical approaches to designing self-service journeys that customers genuinely prefer over assisted channels
Insight into how leading organisations are ensuring frictionless design works for all customers including those who are vulnerable
A clearer picture of what genuinely effortless customer contact looks like and what it takes to build it

Speaker:

Shanti Kaur Gray

HSBC

Conversational Designer

12:10 - 13:00

Customer Contact

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Designing a Frictionless Journey: Self-Service & Customer Experience

13:00 - 13:25

Customer Contact

Movianto UK Case Study: The Journey to Future‑Ready Customer Care

Case Study

People, Innovation & Staying Ahead of Expectations

As organisations grow and customer expectations rise, service teams find themselves handling more complexity, more channels and more pressure to get things right first time. In this case study, Movianto UK’s Head of Customer Care, Prashant Parekh, shares how his organisation is evolving its customer contact and care function to stay ahead of those expectations, while continuing to innovate.

Rather than treating customer care as a reactive back‑office, Movianto is working to make it a proactive, value‑adding part of the customer experience – where people, processes and technology are aligned around what matters most to customers. The session will focus on how teams are being equipped, structured and supported to handle challenging conversations, data‑driven decisions and the demands of fast‑moving operations.

Attendees will hear:

How customer care roles and capabilities are being reshaped to match rising expectations
How innovation in operations and technology changes the nature of customer contact and support
What it takes to keep people, processes and tools aligned when customers expect speed, accuracy and accountability
Practical lessons for leaders looking to move their own service function from reactive problem‑solving to proactive partnership

Speaker:

Prashant Parekh

Movianto UK

Head of Customer Care

Prashant Parekh is Head of Customer Care, leading customer service transformation, operational excellence, and customer experience initiatives. With extensive experience in customer engagement, contact centres, and digital innovation, he is passionate about combining people, process, and technology to deliver exceptional customer outcomes and build lasting customer loyalty.

13:50 - 14:20

Customer Contact

People, Innovation & the Future of Customer Contact

Panel Discussion

People, Innovation & Staying Ahead of Expectations

Innovation in customer contact is accelerating, but the organisations genuinely pulling ahead are those where technology investment and people investment are moving at the same pace. The future of customer contact will not be defined by AI & technology alone, it will be defined by the organisations that use technology to make their people more effective, their contact strategies more intelligent, and their customer relationships more resilient.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands on building contact strategies that are genuinely future-ready across both technology and people dimensions. From bridging the gap between technology investment and human capability to the employee experience decisions that are driving stronger customer outcomes, panellists will share what it takes to build a contact operation that stays ahead of rising expectations rather than constantly catching up with them.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands on building future-ready customer contact strategies
Insight into how leading organisations are bridging the gap between technology investment and people capability
Practical approaches to building employee experience strategies that drive stronger customer contact outcomes
A clearer picture of what a genuinely future-ready contact strategy looks like across people, technology, and innovation

Speakers:

Leigh-Anne Gray

Vanquis

Senior Specialist Complaints Manager

Currently a Senior Specialist Complaints Manager at Vanquis Bank, Leigh-Anne has built and led high-performing complaints teams, developed industry leading operating models, and regularly shares her experience at CX focused events, and industry forums. She is passionate about creating fair customer outcomes, embedding a "right first time" culture, and sharing practical insights that help organisations turn complaints into opportunities for positive change.

Lucy Johnson

Bupa

Customer Contact Enabling Lead

Lucy Johnson is Customer Service Enablement Lead at Bupa, with over 18 years experience in customer operations and people leadership. Leading the academy and coaching team in Bupa’s UK Insurance operations team, She is passionate about creating world-class colleague experiences to in turn deliver exceptional service for customers.

14:20 - 14:40

Customer Contact

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

People, Innovation & Staying Ahead of Expectations

14:40 - 15:05

Customer Contact

Beyond Reactive: The Open University's Journey to Proactive Service

Case Study

Predictive Engagement: Reaching Customers Before They Reach You

Modernising a contact centre isn't just about new systems – it's about changing mindsets. In this case study, Katie Hales and Busola Akinsola of the Open University share the story of a two-year organisational design project to professionalise and transform higher education support.

They'll explore how they navigated cultural tension within the university, introduced formal contact centre practices, and upgraded core systems – from telephony and WFM to web chat – while beginning to explore AI for advisor support and predictive service. At the heart of it all: a shift from reactive, on-demand support to proactive engagement built around customer need.

Speaker:

Busola Akinsola

The Open University

Head Of Capacity, Resource and Operational Planning

Busola Akinsola is Head of Capacity, Resource and Operational Planning at The Open University in Milton Keynes, England. In this role, she leads capacity, resource and operational planning activities for the institution.

15:30 - 16:00

Customer Contact

Getting There First – The Case for Predictive Customer Engagement

Panel Discussion

Predictive Engagement: Reaching Customers Before They Reach You

The most effective customer contact is the contact that never needs to happen because the organisation has already anticipated what the customer needs and acted on it. Predictive and proactive engagement is one of the most powerful levers available to customer contact leaders, yet the gap between organisations genuinely doing it well and those still operating in a reactive mode remains significant across the industry.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands on predictive customer engagement and what it actually takes to make the shift from reactive to proactive. From the data and technology maturity required to anticipate customer needs at scale to the commercial case for getting ahead of contact rather than simply managing it, panellists will share what genuine predictive engagement looks like and how organisations are building the capability to get there.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands on predictive and proactive customer engagement
Insight into the data and technology maturity required to anticipate customer needs at scale
Practical approaches to making the shift from reactive contact management to genuinely proactive engagement
A clearer picture of the commercial case for predictive engagement and how leading organisations are making it internally

16:00 - 16:05

Customer Contact

Chair's Close

Closing Remarks

Predictive Engagement: Reaching Customers Before They Reach You

Speaker:

Nick Brice

Soul Corporations

CEO

08:55 - 09:00

Customer Experience Management

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

Introduction

The Future of Service Delivery

Welcome back to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 put the customer reality front and centre – the pressures in your contact centres, the gaps in journeys and data, and the honest stories of where organisations are succeeding and where they’re still under strain. Day 2 shifts gear to The Engagement Benchmark: Where Do You Stand?

In this opening address, Brian will connect yesterday’s themes with the question at the heart of today: how does your organisation compare against the best when it comes to customer engagement? From the strategies, technologies and operating models you’ve heard about, to the evidence on where real progress is being made, today’s agenda is designed to help you benchmark, prioritise and decide what needs to happen next.

A moment to reset, refocus and look ahead together – before you dive into a day built around understanding where you stand, what your peers are doing, and how to move your customer agenda forward with confidence.

Speaker:

Brian Manusama

Actionary

Executive Partner

09:00 - 09:25

Customer Experience Management

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

Headliner

The Future of Service Delivery

Speaker:

Francesca Woodhouse

Edelman

Managing Director - UK Workplace Advisory

09:50 - 10:20

Customer Experience Management

The Future of Service Delivery – How Ready Is Your Organisation Really?

Panel Discussion

The Future of Service Delivery

Autonomous and intelligent technology is reshaping what service delivery looks like, moving from reactive, agent-led interactions to proactive, AI-powered resolution that anticipates customer needs before they become contact. Agentic AI is taking this further still, enabling technology to act autonomously on behalf of customers across complex, multi-step service journeys without human intervention. The direction of travel is clear, but readiness levels across the industry are uneven, and the gap between organisations genuinely preparing for the future of service delivery and those still catching up on the present is growing.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands on readiness for the next generation of service delivery. From whether agentic and intelligent technology is actually delivering measurable improvements in service operations to the cultural and operational barriers still holding organisations back, panellists will help attendees understand where their organisation sits against the best and what it will take to close the gap.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands on readiness for the future of service delivery including agentic and autonomous technology
Insight into where intelligent technology is delivering measurable improvements in service operations right now
A clearer picture of the cultural and operational barriers most commonly holding organisations back
Practical approaches to building genuine readiness for the next generation of service delivery

Speakers:

Steve Herbert

TLT LLP

Director of Customer Strategy

Steve believes the true test of customer experience isn't speed, convenience or digital journeys- it's what happens when a customer is confused, scared, vulnerable, frustrated or running out of options.

As Customer Strategy Director at TLT LLP, Steve owns the end-to-end customer journey, leading customer contact, complaints, service assurance and transformation programmes supporting major financial institutions. His work sits at the intersection of customer experience, vulnerability, regulation and AI, helping organisations deliver better outcomes while navigating increasingly complex customer and regulatory expectations.

Steve specialises in transforming customer operations in highly regulated environments, where trust has become an organisation's most valuable asset. He believes customer issues and complaints are more than problems to solve - they are some of the richest sources of insight for improving products, services and customer experiences.

His experience spans financial services, legal services and critical national infrastructure. At Nominet, the organisation responsible for operating the .UK domain registry, Steve led customer-facing operations including product support, abuse prevention and domain dispute resolution—helping protect one of the UK's most critical digital assets while balancing security, customer outcomes and public trust. Earlier in his career at Ecotricity, he helped demonstrate how purpose-led businesses can deliver both commercial success and meaningful societal impact.
Today, Steve speaks on the future of customer experience in regulated industries, responsible AI, and why the organisations that earn the greatest trust will be those that use technology to become more human, not less.

His ambition is simple: to build organisations that leave every customer in a better position than they found them.

Sarah Faulkner

Zurich

Head of Digital & Customer Experience

A customer-obsessed and award-winning marketer with a proven-track record of improving brand experience across the customer journey. As an established leader, Sarah is adept at engaging senior stakeholders across multiple business functions. She uses customer-led thinking to achieve business objectives and put customer at the heart of marketing.

10:20 - 10:50

Customer Experience Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Future of Service Delivery

10:50 - 11:15

Customer Experience Management

Forge Holiday Group: Unreasonable Hospitality by Design How Focus, People, AI, Technology and Ways of Working Create Exceptional Guest Experiences Across Hospitality and Contact Centres

Interview

Designing for Delight: Creating Journeys Customers Remember

Guest experience isn’t created at reception, in a contact centre or when something goes wrong. It’s designed long before a guest arrives or makes contact.

In this interview, Luke Squires shares why exceptional guest experiences are the outcome of leadership decisions, not luck. Drawing on his experience transforming operations across travel, hospitality and contact centres, Luke explores how clear focus, empowered people, AI, technology and simple ways of working create a culture where doing the right thing becomes the norm.

From removing friction through AI to creating an environment where colleagues, whether on the frontline or in a contact centre, have the confidence to deliver unreasonable hospitality, this session challenges the idea that guest experience belongs to one team. Instead, it explores how every operational, commercial and leadership decision shapes the moments guests remember.

Attendees will leave with practical ideas on building organisations where exceptional guest experience isn’t an initiative, it’s simply how the business operates.

Speaker:

Luke Squires

Forge Holiday Group

Group Director of Operations

Luke is a senior leader with extensive experience across Retail, Customer Experience, Operations and HR, known for building high-performing teams and delivering meaningful results. He combines strategic thinking with a relentless focus on execution, using technology and innovation to enhance customer experience and drive efficiency.

Passionate about people, Luke is a strong advocate for neurodiversity, seeing it as a catalyst for creativity, problem-solving and performance. As a parent to three neurodiverse children, he brings both personal insight and professional commitment to creating environments where different minds thrive.

11:40 - 12:10

Customer Experience Management

Designing for Delight – What Genuinely Great Customer Experience Looks Like

Panel Discussion

Designing for Delight: Creating Journeys Customers Remember

The organisations winning on customer experience are those going beyond meeting expectations to creating moments that customers genuinely remember, talk about, and come back for. As hyper-personalisation, real-time journey orchestration, and AI-driven experience design make it increasingly possible to engineer delight at scale, the gap between organisations deliberately designing for exceptional experiences and those hoping they happen is one of the clearest benchmarks of CX maturity.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark what genuinely delightful customer experience looks like across the industry and what it takes to build the organisational capability to deliver it consistently. From the role of hyper-personalisation and real-time data in creating moments that feel individual to the cultural and operational foundations needed to make delight repeatable rather than occasional, panellists will share where the industry is genuinely raising the bar and where most organisations still have significant ground to close.

What you'll gain:

A clear benchmark of what genuinely delightful customer experience looks like across the industry
Practical approaches to using hyper-personalisation and real-time journey orchestration to design moments customers remember
Insight into the cultural and operational foundations needed to make customer delight consistent rather than occasional
A clearer picture of where the industry is raising the bar on experience design and where the gaps remain widest

Speakers:

Melda Sofuoglu

Vodafone

Global Senior CX & Service Excellence Manager

Melda is a Global CX & Service Excellence leader at Vodafone, driving company-wide transformation and enabling markets to scale customer-centric operating models. She turns strategy into measurable impact, leading high-performing teams to enhance CX through data, insights, AI, and a continuous improvement mindset.

With cross-sector experience spanning Telco, BPO, and Services, Melda influences senior leaders and delivers sustainable operational and customer outcomes. She holds a doctorate, bringing an academically rigorous perspective to her work, and is recognised as a distinctive voice in the UK CX community.

Rosie Franca

NatWest Commercial and Institutional

Head of Customer Experience, Midlands & East of England

Rosie leads customer experience for Commercial Mid-Market, driving growth, simplification and collaboration.

Since joining NatWest Group in 2015, Rosie has held a range of roles across Business Banking, Entrepreneurship, Affluent Banking, and Corporate and Commercial Banking.

Before joining NatWest, Rosie spent 10 years in Australia, where she led teams across Retail, Small Business Banking, Commercial Banking, Real Estate Finance, Charities, and Not-for-Profit sectors.

Rosie holds an MBA from the University of York and a BSc (Hons) in Nutrition from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has also completed further qualifications in Senior Leadership and Fintech at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and Climate Change at the University of Edinburgh.

Rosie is a Fellow of Leadership Western Australia.

Charles Studt

delight.ai

CMO

12:10 - 13:00

Customer Experience Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Designing for Delight: Creating Journeys Customers Remember

13:00 - 13:25

Customer Experience Management

HSBC Private Bank Case Study: Voice of the Customer: Lessons from Private Banking That Every CX Leader Can Apply

Case Study

Voice of the Customer: Turning Feedback into Future Experience

What happens when your customers are among the wealthiest and most demanding in the world? Private Banking clients expect exceptional service, deep personalisation, and absolute trust. While their environment is unique, many of the Voice of the Customer challenges are surprisingly familiar across every industry.

Drawing on his experience leading Client Experience for HSBC Private Banking across Western markets, Stefan Witteman shares how a small global team turns customer insight into executive decisions, measurable improvements, and commercial outcomes. Rather than focusing on frameworks or theory, this session explores practical approaches to turning customer feedback into meaningful action and lasting business impact.

Delegates will leave with practical ideas they can immediately apply to make Voice of the Customer more influential, drive meaningful change, and strengthen its role in business decision-making.

Speaker:

Stefan Witteman

HSBC Private Bank

Client Experience Lead

Stefan Witteman helps financial institutions turn customer insight into measurable business outcomes. He is a customer experience and customer intelligence leader working across private banking, financial services and digitally led organisations.
At HSBC Private Bank, he contributes to client experience strategy across six international markets, leading Voice of the Customer initiatives and redesigning advisory, payments and onboarding journeys that contributed to a nine-point improvement in relationship NPS.

Throughout his career, Stefan has led customer experience, CRM and transformation programmes spanning more than 20 international markets. Earlier in his career, he helped establish an organisation’s first customer experience function and enterprise-wide Voice of the Customer programme, delivering a four-point improvement in NPS and a 20% increase in active users. His experience includes leadership roles across HSBC, Barclays, ABN AMRO, Kindred Group and Entain.

Stefan is particularly interested in customer intelligence, behavioural science and responsible AI, and how they can help organisations create more relevant, human experiences. He serves as a judge for the UK Customer Experience Awards and holds a Master’s degree in Marketing together with CCXP, CXAD and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certifications.

13:50 - 14:20

Customer Experience Management

Closing the Loop – How Leading Organisations Turn Customer Insight into Action

Panel Discussion

Voice of the Customer: Turning Feedback into Future Experience

Most organisations are collecting more customer feedback than ever before, but the tools and techniques available for capturing and acting on that feedback are evolving rapidly. From sentiment analysis and real-time customer signal tracking to predictive VoC capabilities that can identify emerging issues before they become widespread, the gap between organisations using cutting edge listening capabilities and those still relying on periodic surveys is growing. Customers are increasingly aware of which side of that divide their providers sit on, and the commercial consequences of getting it wrong are significant.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what a genuinely action-oriented VoC programme looks like in practice today. From building enhanced feedback loops and real-time customer signal capabilities that drive tangible change, to closing the loop with customers in a way that rebuilds trust and strengthens loyalty, panellists will explore what it takes to turn listening into a real competitive advantage rather than a reporting function.

What you'll gain:

Practical approaches to building VoC programmes that use real-time signals, and predictive insight to drive genuine change
Insight into how leading organisations are using customer signal tracking to identify and act on emerging issues faster than ever before
A clearer picture of what a genuinely action-oriented VoC programme looks like in practice
Real examples of how turning customer feedback and signals into action is strengthening loyalty and driving commercial results

Speakers:

Gabriel Ross

Homeprotect Home Insurance

Head of Customer Strategy

Gabriel Ross is Head of Customer Strategy at Homeprotect Home Insurance, where he has been driving customer-focused initiatives since September 2020. With expertise in scaling deal flow and commercial strategy, he specialises in customer acquisition, PR, content creation, and brand development. His career spans multiple high-growth ventures, including roles as Growth Lead at Muse App and Co-Founder of Nettle. Prior to his current position, Gabriel held strategic marketing and commercial roles at Growth Street, where he developed scalable customer acquisition strategies and led commercial operations. He began his career with experience at J.P. Morgan and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from the University of St Andrews.

Fleur van der Ende

Allianz UK

Head of Propositions & Customer Experience

As Head of Propositions & Customer Experience at Allianz UK, Fleur is responsible for shaping and delivering customer-led offering for commercial customers and brokers. Passionate about customer-centric decision-making and change, she focuses on using research and insight to drive innovation and continuous improvement, delivering better outcomes for customers and the business.

14:20 - 14:40

Customer Experience Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Voice of the Customer: Turning Feedback into Future Experience

14:40 - 15:05

Customer Experience Management

HM Revenue & Customs Case Study: Turning Customer Experience Strategy into Better Customer Outcomes

Case Study

Measuring and Improving Customer Outcomes

Delivering better customer outcomes starts with more than a well-defined strategy – it requires organisation-wide commitment, the right capabilities and a culture that puts customers at the centre of decision-making. In this case study, Simone Woodrow shares how HMRC is embedding customer experience across the organisation, overcoming internal resistance, embracing new technologies and developing policies that better support customers who cannot use traditional service channels. Discover the practical lessons behind driving lasting cultural change while improving outcomes for every customer

Speaker:

Simone Woodrow

HM Revenue & Customs

Head of Equalities and Extra Support for Customers and Customer Experience Strategic Lead

Simone leads Equalities and Extra Support for Customers within HMRC, driving work that helps colleagues across HMRC embed fairness, accessibility and support into the customer experience. She plays a key role in helping HMRC meet its Public Sector Equality Duties, while shaping the strategic direction for customer experience across the enterprise. As Customer Experience Strategic Lead, Simone is helping to establish the Chief Customer Officer function and build the foundations for an enterprise-wide customer experience capability that supports HMRC’s Strategic Objectives, particularly to improve day-to-day performance and customer experience.

15:30 - 16:00

Customer Experience Management

Measuring What Customers Actually Experience – The Outcomes That Matter

Panel Discussion

Measuring and Improving Customer Outcomes

Most organisations are measuring customer experience, but measurement without improvement is just reporting. As real-time customer signal tracking and predictive outcome modelling make it possible to build a far more precise picture of what customers are actually experiencing, the organisations pulling ahead are those using that insight to drive continuous, meaningful outcomes rather than simply tracking performance against a dashboard. Critically, a genuinely improvement-focused measurement framework must reflect the experience of every customer, including those in vulnerable circumstances whose interactions are often the most revealing indicator of where service quality is genuinely holding up and where it needs to change.

In this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands on using outcome-based measurement to drive real improvement. From building measurement frameworks that connect directly to action, to using VoC insight and real-time customer signals to identify where experience improvements will have the greatest commercial and customer impact, panellists will share what a genuinely improvement-focused approach to CX measurement looks like and how organisations are using better measurement to make better decisions, faster.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands on using customer outcome measurement to drive continuous improvement rather than just track performance
Practical frameworks for building measurement approaches that connect directly to improvement action across the full customer base including vulnerable customers
Insight into how leading organisations are using VoC insight and customer signals to identify and prioritise the improvements that matter most
A clearer picture of what a genuinely improvement-focused measurement framework looks like and the commercial difference it is making in leading organisations

Speakers:

Isobel Parker

Close Brothers

Customer Experience Lead

Customer Experience Lead at Close Brothers Savings - Leading on data-led customer experience analysis, voice of the customer and specialist in vulnerable customer experience and support.

Rosie Franca

NatWest Commercial and Institutional

Head of Customer Experience, Midlands & East of England

16:00 - 16:05

Customer Experience Management

Chair's Close

Closing Remarks

Measuring and Improving Customer Outcomes

Speaker:

Brian Manusama

Actionary

Executive Partner

08:55 - 09:00

Customer Relationship Management

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

Introduction

Uniting Sales, Marketing & Service for Seamless Customer Engagement

Welcome back to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 put the customer reality front and centre – the pressures in your contact centres, the gaps in journeys and data, and the honest stories of where organisations are succeeding and where they’re still under strain. Day 2 shifts gear to The Engagement Benchmark: Where Do You Stand?

In this opening address, Scott will connect yesterday’s themes with the question at the heart of today: how does your organisation compare against the best when it comes to customer engagement? From the strategies, technologies and operating models you’ve heard about, to the evidence on where real progress is being made, today’s agenda is designed to help you benchmark, prioritise and decide what needs to happen next.

A moment to reset, refocus and look ahead together – before you dive into a day built around understanding where you stand, what your peers are doing, and how to move your customer agenda forward with confidence.

Speaker:

Scott Logie

DMA

DMA Membership Advocate

09:00 - 09:25

Customer Relationship Management

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

Headliner

Uniting Sales, Marketing & Service for Seamless Customer Engagement

Speaker:

Francesca Woodhouse

Edelman

Managing Director - UK Workplace Advisory

09:50 - 10:20

Customer Relationship Management

Breaking Down the Silos – Uniting Sales, Marketing & Service Around the Customer

Panel Discussion

Uniting Sales, Marketing & Service for Seamless Customer Engagement

The most seamless customer experiences are delivered by organisations where sales, marketing, and service are working as a single, connected unit rather than separate functions with competing priorities. Yet across the industry, the gap between organisations that have genuinely aligned these teams around a shared customer engagement agenda and those where siloed working is creating friction, inconsistency, and missed commercial opportunity remains significant.I

n this panel, senior leaders will benchmark where the industry stands on cross-functional alignment across sales, marketing, and service and what it genuinely takes to close the gap. From building the shared strategy and cultural foundations that allow teams to work towards the same customer outcomes, to the commercial returns that genuine alignment is generating for the organisations getting it right, panellists will share what seamless cross-functional customer engagement looks like and how far most organisations still need to travel to get there.

What you'll gain:

An honest benchmark of where the industry stands on aligning sales, marketing, and service around a shared customer engagement agenda
Practical approaches to building the strategic and cultural foundations needed for genuine cross-functional alignment
Insight into how leading organisations are ensuring marketing, sales, and service work towards the same customer outcomes rather than separate functional goals
A clearer picture of the commercial and customer experience impact of getting cross-functional alignment right

Speakers:

Atossa Vaziri

Director, Product Marketing

Atossa Vaziri is Product Marketing Director at Checkout.com, with 18+ years building go-to-market and customer advocacy teams across AdTech, FinTech, and enterprise AI at companies including Google, Dataiku, Spendesk, and Perk. At Perk, she built the customer advocacy team from scratch, growing G2 reviews from 10 to 476 and reaching 97% customer satisfaction and launching the Customer Advisory Board. She's spent her career turning customer voice into a strategic growth lever.

Phil Ward

Cumberland Building Society

Head of Brand & Marketing

Experienced senior marketing professional in the financial services industry with a track record of planning and delivering effective multi-channel marketing campaigns to achieve strategic business goals.

Matthew Harwood

Natwest

Head of Customer Communications

Seasoned Digital Transformation Leader with a proven background in creating world leading customer experiences

10:20 - 10:50

Customer Relationship Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Uniting Sales, Marketing & Service for Seamless Customer Engagement

10:50 - 11:15

Customer Relationship Management

Sky Case Study: Creating Relationships That Drive Long‑Term Growth

Case Study

The Future of CRM: Building Relationships That Drive Long-Term Growth

CRM is shifting from campaigns and channels to relationships and journeys – and the brands that win will be those that can turn data, AI and customer insight into long‑term value, not just short‑term uplift. In this case study, Abhineet Kesarwani, Head of Customer Marketing at Sky, will share how Sky is reimagining customer and base marketing to build deeper, more profitable relationships across the lifecycle.

Drawing on nearly two decades in CRM, MarTech and digital growth, Abhineet will explore how in‑life journeys, lifecycle management and personalisation come together to create experiences customers actually value. He will show how AI and automation are being woven into CRM in a way that keeps the customer at the centre, covering the strategies, operating models and measurement frameworks that make relationship‑led growth real.

Delegates will take away:

A clear view of what “future‑ready” CRM looks like when your goal is long‑term growth and loyalty.
Practical ways to move from campaign‑centric to journey‑centric customer and base marketing.
How to use AI, data and MarTech to scale relevance while protecting trust and customer choice.
Lessons from Sky on organising teams, technology and KPIs around lifetime value and relationship strength.

Speaker:

Abhineet Kesarwani

Customer Value & Experience, Digital

Regional Director

Abhineet Kesarwani is a CRM / CVM specialist with nearly two decades of experience leading customer engagement and personalisation strategies for some of the world’s most recognised telecom brands. In his current role, he oversees customer value and digital experience across global markets, driving revenue growth, loyalty, retention, and data-led personalisation.

With career experience spanning the US, UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia, Abhineet blends a global perspective with deep regional insight. He has held both in-house leadership roles and consulting positions with major operators like Vodafone, Airtel, du, Maxis, and StarHub, as well as with IT and SaaS solution providers delivering MarTech and CRM platforms at scale.

Abhineet is passionate about helping businesses unlock customer lifetime value through data-driven decisioning, behavioural segmentation and meaningful omnichannel journeys.

11:40 - 12:10

Customer Relationship Management

The Relationship Engine – Is Your CRM Actually Building Lasting Customer Relationships?

Panel Discussion

The Future of CRM: Building Relationships That Drive Long-Term Growth

CRM has long been promised as the engine of lasting customer relationships, yet for many organisations it remains a sophisticated contact database rather than a genuine driver of relationship depth and commercial growth. The gap between organisations using CRM to build meaningful, long-term customer relationships and those using it primarily to manage transactions and campaigns is one of the most significant divides in CRM maturity across the industry today.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what genuine CRM-driven relationship growth looks like in practice. From the strategic and operational changes needed to shift from transactional to relational CRM, to the commercial returns that relationship-led strategies are generating for the organisations getting it right, panellists will share what it takes to turn CRM from a system of record into a genuine engine of long-term customer value.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what CRM-driven relationship growth looks like when it is working at its best
Practical approaches to shifting from transactional to relational CRM strategy
Insight into the commercial returns that relationship-led CRM strategies are generating for leading organisations
A clearer picture of what long-term customer relationship growth through CRM looks like in practice and what it takes to build it

Speaker:

Pete Evia-Rhodes

Workspace Group

Customer Engagement & Platform Lead

Pete Evia-Rhodes is a customer engagement and retention leader with 20 years’ experience helping global brands and scale-ups attract, engage, retain customers and talent. His career spans CRM, lifecycle marketing, loyalty, digital innovation and award-winning AI-powered personalisation, including work with BT, The Times and Workspace. As an Accredited ADHD Coach, Pete is equally passionate about building inclusive working environments where different thinkers can thrive. He combines technology, data and creativity to turn complex challenges into practical strategies that deliver measurable growth, stronger loyalty and better experiences for customers and colleagues.

12:10 - 13:00

Customer Relationship Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Future of CRM: Building Relationships That Drive Long-Term Growth

13:00 - 13:25

Customer Relationship Management

Skyscanner Case Study: Personalising Content for Millions of Travellers

Case Study

Content, Relevance & Personalisation: Delivering the Right Message Every Time

In this case study, Sam will explore how Skyscanner uses traveller behaviour insights, first‑party data and AI‑driven signals to understand what people need at different moments in the journey, from early inspiration to booking and beyond. She will show how this fuels personalised content across SEO, email, app, and paid channels, and how the team balances automation with human creativity to keep messages on‑brand, accurate and genuinely helpful.

Delegates will take away:

Principles Skyscanner uses to judge whether content is truly relevant for a traveller, not just targeted.
Practical approaches for turning data and intent signals into personalised messaging across multiple channels.
Guardrails for keeping personalisation trustworthy, respectful and useful in a fast‑moving, global environment.
Ideas to apply Skyscanner’s thinking to their own CRM, content and personalisation strategies, regardless of sector.

Speaker:

Sam George

Skyscanner

Head of Global Marketing

I am a Growth Marketing leader with 12+ years of experience leading high-performing marketing teams for high-growth Tech/Travel/E-commerce companies. I thrive in fast-paced organizations and relish the challenge of building processes and marketing strategy to scale.

Currently working on a 12-month contract with Motorway where I lead the D2C CRM team responsible for lifecycle comms to 5 million+ customers who have listed their cars on Motorway.

Previously I was also with the Expedia Group leading multi-channel demand generation and CRM life cycle automations for Expedia TAAP, a travel booking platform used by over 1 million travel agents worldwide.

13:50 - 14:20

Customer Relationship Management

Content, Relevance & Personalisation – Closing the Gap Between What's Possible and What's Delivered

Panel Discussion

Content, Relevance & Personalisation: Delivering the Right Message Every Time

The tools available for delivering personalised, relevant customer communications have never been more powerful, yet generic and mistimed messaging remains the reality for too many customers. The gap between what CRM data and content personalisation makes possible and what organisations are actually delivering is one of the most significant missed opportunities in customer engagement today, and customers are increasingly aware when brands are not using what they know about them.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what genuinely closing the relevance gap looks like in practice. From using CRM data to drive personalised content strategies that feel individual rather than automated, to ensuring the right message reaches the right customer at the right moment across every channel, panellists will share what the organisations getting it right are doing differently and what the rest of the industry can learn from them.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuinely personalised, relevant customer communications look like when data is being used to its full potential
Practical approaches to closing the gap between personalisation capability and personalisation delivery
Insight into how leading organisations are ensuring every communication feels timely, relevant, and individually meaningful
A clearer picture of the commercial impact of getting content relevance and personalisation right at scale

Speakers:

Nagendra Pandey

Nationwide Building Society

Head of Customer Communications

With a career spanning Infrastructure, Cloud, Enterprise Platforms, and Communications, Nagendra Pandey has led technology initiatives across Economic Crime, Fraud, Risk, and Business Banking. Today, they are focused on harnessing the power of AI to transform business operations, enhance customer experiences, and drive strategic outcomes.

David Walker

OVO

Head of Lifetime Customer Value

What does it take to make a customer engage, stay and trust your brand over time? That's the question I've always started with — and the tools, data and channels available to answer it have changed dramatically across my career.I've spent 20 years building relationships with consumers — across media and energy — with one consistent objective: make those relationships more valuable for the customer and the business.That question sits at the heart of CRM done well. The answer is rarely more communications — it's better data, sharper segmentation and a genuine understanding of what customers need at each stage of their relationship with you.I currently lead CRM value and customer lifecycle strategy across a multi-million customer base in energy — the same question, applied at scale.

14:20 - 14:40

Customer Relationship Management

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Content, Relevance & Personalisation: Delivering the Right Message Every Time

14:40 - 15:05

Customer Relationship Management

The CRM Performance Engine: Turning Consumer Signals into Revenue

Case Study

Next-Generation CRM: Building the Performance Engine of the Future

CRM is evolving from a system of record into a genuine performance engine. In this case study, Erdo Dwiputra Rakasiwi, Head of Global CRM Product Group at Philip Morris International, explores how AI and machine learning are transforming the way businesses turn consumer signals into revenue.

Erdo will unpack the practical building blocks of modern CRM – from hyper-personalisation to next-best-action – and share how data and the latest technology can drive smarter engagement and measurable commercial impact for the business.

Speaker:

Erdo Dwiputra Rakasiwi

Philip Morris International

Head of Global CRM Product Group

Most FMCG brands are still marketing to segments. I'm building the infrastructure to market to people 1:1. I'm currently the Head of CRM Product Group at Philip Morris International (PMI), leading a team of 40 across the globe AI decisioning, marketing automation, consumer data enrichment, and campaign enablement for PMI's global smoke-free portfolio. The work I'm most proud of recently is an AI-powered Next Best Action engine that autonomously identifies where each consumer sits in their lifecycle and acts on it no manual rules, no static segments. The result was a 2× improvement in consumer Conversion Rate across Convert, Bond, and Advocate lifecycle stages. The "group photo to selfie" shift from segment-level to individual-level is what I believe separates the next generation of FMCG CRM from everything that came before it. I've spent 10+ years at the intersection of CRM strategy, AI personalisation, and digital product, working with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Treasure Data, and AWS to build systems that actually scale. I write here about AI-powered CX, CRM strategy, and what it really takes to deploy personalisation at scale inside a global FMCG company the wins, the organisational messiness, and the lessons. Based in London. Building toward something bigger.

15:05 - 15:30

Customer Relationship Management

Building Sales AI That Actually Works

Presentation

Next-Generation CRM: Building the Performance Engine of the Future

How agentic AI in the workflow helps businesses close more deals, faster.

Sales teams are under more pressure than ever. Longer buying cycles, more stakeholders, more scrutiny on spend. AI was supposed to help. For most teams, it has added activity without adding revenue.

The difference is not the tool. It is where you put it, what you build into it and whether it moves deals forward or just reports on them after the fact.

In this session Raoul Monks, CEO of Flume, shares how embedding agentic AI into the workflow, with the right sales methodology built in, builds buyer confidence at every stage of the deal. That is what shortens cycles, improves win rates and makes revenue predictable.

You will leave with:

What separates revenue-driving AI from AI that just creates noise
Why the workflow, not the tool, decides whether it works
Why the methodology inside the AI matters as much as where it sits
How buyer confidence converts AI activity into profitable, predictable growth
What this is delivering for event businesses right now

Who should attend: CEOs, CROs and senior commercial leaders in events and media who want faster closes, stronger win rates and a forecast they can trust.

Speaker:

Raoul Monks

Flume

Founder and CEO

Raoul’s career has been defined by one question: why do good salespeople lose deals they should win? The answer is rarely price, product or brand. It is buyer confidence. At Flume, he has built this insight into a continuous sales performance system that helps revenue teams sell like their best people on every deal, with AI coaching in the flow of the work. He is a self-confessed geek about three things: how buyers make decisions; how behaviour really changes; and how to embed agentic AI into the workflow so good habits scale, not bad ones.

15:30 - 16:00

Customer Relationship Management

Next-Generation CRM – Are You Building for Where Customer Engagement Is Heading?

Panel Discussion

Next-Generation CRM: Building the Performance Engine of the Future

CRM technology is evolving rapidly, with new capabilities around predictive analytics, intelligent automation, and real-time customer engagement reshaping what is possible for organisations willing to invest in the next generation of platforms and approaches. Yet adoption of these capabilities is uneven across the industry, and the gap between organisations building for the future of customer engagement and those still getting the most out of what they already have is growing.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what genuinely next-generation CRM looks like in practice and what it takes to build a CRM strategy that is fit for where customer engagement is heading. From the capabilities that are delivering the strongest results for those who have already invested, to the strategic decisions organisations need to make now to future-proof their CRM without chasing technology for its own sake, panellists will share what good looks like and how to get there.

What you'll gain:

Insight into which next-generation CRM capabilities are delivering the strongest results for early adopters
Practical approaches to future-proofing a CRM strategy without chasing technology for its own sake
A clearer picture of what genuinely next-generation CRM looks like in practice
Real examples of the strategic decisions organisations are making now to ensure their CRM is built for where customer engagement is heading

16:00 - 16:05

Customer Relationship Management

Chair's Close

Closing Remarks

Next-Generation CRM: Building the Performance Engine of the Future

Speaker:

Scott Logie

DMA

DMA Membership Advocate

08:55 - 09:00

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

Introduction

Predicting, Personalising & Retaining: The Strategies Behind Modern Loyalty

Welcome back to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 put the customer reality front and centre – the pressures in your contact centres, the gaps in journeys and data, and the honest stories of where organisations are succeeding and where they’re still under strain. Day 2 shifts gear to The Engagement Benchmark: Where Do You Stand?

In this opening address, Andrew will connect yesterday’s themes with the question at the heart of today: how does your organisation compare against the best when it comes to customer engagement? From the strategies, technologies and operating models you’ve heard about, to the evidence on where real progress is being made, today’s agenda is designed to help you benchmark, prioritise and decide what needs to happen next.

A moment to reset, refocus and look ahead together – before you dive into a day built around understanding where you stand, what your peers are doing, and how to move your customer agenda forward with confidence.

Speaker:

Andrew Hough

Cranfield University

Associate Professor Sales Leadership & Performance

09:00 - 09:25

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

Headliner

Predicting, Personalising & Retaining: The Strategies Behind Modern Loyalty

Speaker:

Francesca Woodhouse

Edelman

Managing Director - UK Workplace Advisory

09:50 - 10:20

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

The Intelligence Behind Modern Loyalty – Predicting, Personalising & Retaining

Panel Discussion

Predicting, Personalising & Retaining: The Strategies Behind Modern Loyalty

The most effective loyalty strategies today are powered by data, insight, and the ability to anticipate what individual customers need before they ask for it. From predictive churn modelling and personalised loyalty experiences to intelligent engagement triggers that reach customers at the moments that matter most, the gap between organisations using data and intelligence to drive retention decisions and those still relying on broad programme mechanics is becoming a significant competitive divide.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what intelligent, data-driven loyalty looks like in practice. From the data maturity and analytical capability required to make predictive loyalty work at scale, to the personalisation strategies that are strengthening relationships and driving measurable retention outcomes, panellists will share what the most effective organisations are doing and what the rest of the industry can learn from them.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what intelligent, data-driven loyalty looks like when it is working at its best
Practical approaches to building the data maturity and analytical capability needed for predictive loyalty strategies
Insight into how leading organisations are using personalisation and intelligent engagement to strengthen relationships and drive retention
Real examples of the loyalty strategies that are delivering the strongest results for organisations that have invested in data-driven approaches

Speaker:

Adrian Evans

B&Q

Head of Digital Product: Customer Commerce

Passionate about innovation and customer focused product/propositions with real experience leading teams across operations, marketing and end to end go to market activities.

10:20 - 10:50

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Predicting, Personalising & Retaining: The Strategies Behind Modern Loyalty

10:50 - 11:15

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Virgin Media O2: Turning Loyalty on Its Head: Why Putting Customers First Wins in Commoditised Markets

Interview

The Future of Loyalty: Programmes, Emotion & the Evolving Value Exchange

In this session, Lisa will discuss:

How consistency and delivering for customers translate into sustainable growth.
Creating competitive advantage by putting customers first.
The role live entertainment, experiences and cultural moments can play in loyalty, drawing on examples of leveraging longstanding O2 sponsorship assets such as The O2 arena and England Rugby.
Predictions about how AI will accelerate the next era of loyalty, enabling contextualised, personalised engagement at scale.

Speaker:

Lisa Johnstone

Virgin Media O2

Director of Priority, Loyalty & Rewards

11:40 - 12:10

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

The Future of Loyalty – Beyond the Programme, Towards the Relationship

Panel Discussion

The Future of Loyalty: Programmes, Emotion & the Evolving Value Exchange

The organisations redefining loyalty for the next generation of customers are those moving away from transactional reward structures and towards genuine value exchanges, emotional connections, and relationship models that make customers feel understood, valued, and genuinely committed to a brand.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what the future of loyalty looks like as the value exchange between brands and customers continues to evolve. From understanding what the next generation of customers actually want from a loyalty relationship to the programme and experience innovations that are already reshaping how organisations think about retention and advocacy, panellists will share where loyalty is heading and what organisations need to do now to stay ahead of where their customers are going.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of how the value exchange between brands and customers is evolving and what it means for loyalty strategy
Practical approaches to building loyalty models that go beyond transactional mechanics and create genuine emotional connection
Insight into the programme and experience innovations that are already reshaping how leading organisations think about loyalty
Real examples of what next-generation loyalty looks like in practice and the commercial results it is generating

Speaker:

Meera Nayyar

UK Civil Service

Head Of Passenger Experience

‘Well done is better than well said’

Dynamic and engaging senior leader with a solid record of delivering transformational change. Passionate about the arts and culture and using soft influence in transformation.

Resume
• Leadership – experienced leader of high-performance teams within government and industry.
• Evidence driven – proven track record of delivering new concepts at pace to create real change.
• Strategically adept – progressive strategic thinker in novel and complex environments.
• Communication – engaging influencer at the highest levels, from CEOs to Government Ministers.
• Programme delivery – delivery of transformational change programmes to drive real world results.
• Stakeholder management – strong partnership skills and excellent relationship manager.

12:10 - 13:00

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Future of Loyalty: Programmes, Emotion & the Evolving Value Exchange

13:00 - 13:25

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Financial Times Case Study: Financial Times Case Study: How the Financial Times Is Making Staying the Easy Decision

Case Study

Retention in a Switching Economy: Strategies That Will Keep Customers Tomorrow

Customer needs change, but too often their subscription doesn't. In this case study, Andrew Gale shares how the Financial Times is rethinking retention by helping customers make the subscription decisions that are right for them as their needs evolve.

Through a real-world case study, Andrew will explore how intelligent decisioning, customer insight, and AI-powered personalisation are transforming traditional cancellation journeys into more relevant, customer-first experiences, and how the same principles are shaping the future of subscription management across the customer lifecycle.

Speaker:

Andrew Gale

Financial Times

Head of Subscription Management & Retention

Andrew leads subscription management and retention at the Financial Times, where he is responsible for maximising customer lifetime value through customer-first subscription experiences.

His work combines AI-powered decision-making, behavioural science and customer insight to create more personalised and seamless experiences, making it easier for subscribers to realise value from their subscription and stay with the FT.

Passionate about trust, transparency and long-term customer relationships, Andrew is reshaping subscription management from an operational function into a strategic capability that builds lasting loyalty while driving sustainable commercial growth.

13:50 - 14:20

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Winning the Retention Battle – Strategies Built for a Switching Economy

Panel Discussion

Retention in a Switching Economy: Strategies That Will Keep Customers Tomorrow

The economics of customer retention have changed. In a market where switching is effortless and alternatives are always visible, the retention strategies that worked in a world of higher switching friction are no longer sufficient. The organisations winning the retention battle are those that have fundamentally rethought their approach, moving from defensive tactics designed to slow defection to proactive strategies built to make staying the obvious and compelling choice.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what genuinely future-fit retention looks like in a switching economy. From the data and insight capabilities needed to identify and act on churn risk earlier, to the experience and relationship investments that are making the most meaningful difference to retention outcomes, panellists will share what is working, what is not, and what organisations need to prioritise now to build retention strategies that are genuinely built for the market they are operating in.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuinely future-fit retention looks like in a market where switching has never been easier
Practical approaches to moving from defensive retention tactics to proactive strategies that make staying the obvious choice
Insight into the experience and relationship investments that are making the biggest difference to retention outcomes right now
Real examples of how leading organisations are building retention strategies that are genuinely designed for a switching economy

Speaker:

Divya Kerslake

Utility Warehouse

Head of Customer Marketing

Divya’s career and expertise has spread across two very different industries over 15+ years, but always with the common focus of the end customer and their experience. She started at Microsoft working on Xbox and moved to Virgin to define and establish their group wide loyalty scheme Virgin Red. Her global roles and varied experience have established her as a leader within the customer growth and engagement area.

14:20 - 14:40

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Retention in a Switching Economy: Strategies That Will Keep Customers Tomorrow

14:40 - 15:05

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Bupa: From Strategy to Stickiness: How Global Marketing Turns Customers into Lifelong Relationships

Interview

Growing Customer Lifetime Value Through Personalised Engagement

Long‑term growth depends on more than great campaigns – it requires a clear strategy for how you keep customers, deepen relationships and turn everyday interactions into enduring loyalty. In this interview, Nicola Shield, Global Head of Marketing Strategy, Planning and Communications at Bupa Global, will share how she connects marketing strategy to real, measurable customer stickiness to create award-winning outcomes.

Attendees will hear:

How a global marketing strategy can be shaped explicitly around loyalty, retention and sustainable growth.
Practical ways to align planning, communications and measurement to long‑term customer value rather than short‑term hits.
Lessons from leading cross‑functional teams to keep complex propositions simple and compelling for customers over time.

Speaker:

Nicola Shield

Bupa Global

Head of Marketing Strategy, Planning and Communications

Nicki leads the Marketing Strategy, Planning and Communications Team at Bupa Global – the premium international health insurance arm of Bupa. She’s responsible for the strategic direction of Bupa Global’s marketing including brand, content, messaging, across all customer segments. With over 20 years marketing experience she has real expertise in creating customer-first strategies and campaigns that are bold, impactful, and data-driven.

Working at the intersection of creativity and strategy in a global and highly regulated industry, Nicki brings a unique perspective on how brands can cut through complexity to deliver meaningful, relevant communications.

15:30 - 16:00

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Growing Customer Lifetime Value – The Personalisation and Engagement Strategies That Are Delivering

Panel Discussion

Growing Customer Lifetime Value Through Personalised Engagement

Growing customer lifetime value through personalised engagement is one of the most commercially compelling opportunities available to customer engagement leaders. The most effective organisations are those that have connected personalisation, data insight, and engagement strategy into a coherent approach that systematically deepens relationships and grows the commercial value of every customer over time.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what genuinely CLV-growing personalised engagement looks like in practice. From the data and engagement foundations needed to make personalisation work at the individual level, to the strategies that are delivering the strongest results in terms of retention, revenue, and relationship depth, panellists will share what it takes to close the gap between CLV ambition and CLV reality.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuinely CLV-growing personalised engagement looks like when it is working at its best
Practical approaches to connecting data insight, personalisation, and engagement strategy into a coherent CLV growth model
Insight into the personalisation and engagement strategies that are delivering the strongest CLV results for leading organisations
Real examples of how closing the gap between personalisation ambition and execution is translating into measurable growth in customer lifetime value

Speakers:

Chloe Hathaway

TradeKart

Head of Merchants

I bring over five years of CX leadership across corporate and startup environments, with a proven track record of establishing new CX functions and customer experience strategies from scratch within primarily the B2B space. Skilled in CX journey mapping, insight feedback loops, and stakeholder engagement, I drive business value by bridging strategy and customer sentiment. I am super passionate about being in, and contributing to building organizations where the customer is at the center of every business decision, embedding a true "customer-first" mindset into daily and operational organisation DNA.

Nicole Fletcher-Hunt

NatWest Boxed

Head of Operational Readiness

Strategic and execution-focused leader with 20 years of experience in Financial Services, specialising in building and scaling Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) and embedded finance operations. - Trusted advisor and pragmatic complex problem-solver, skilled in managing the demands of high-growth environments within Tier-1 banking regulatory frameworks.- Proven track record in driving operational excellence, cost-efficiency, and rapid deployment in an Agile environment, while maintaining rigorous operational compliance in highly regulated environments.

16:00 - 16:05

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Chair's Close

Closing Remarks

Growing Customer Lifetime Value Through Personalised Engagement

Speaker:

Andrew Hough

Cranfield University

Associate Professor Sales Leadership & Performance

13:25 - 13:50

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Workspace Group Case Study: The Retention Moat

Case Study

Retention in a Switching Economy: Strategies That Will Keep Customers Tomorrow

How to keep the customers and people your growth depends on.

When products can be launched faster, competitors can appear overnight and almost anything can be copied, retention is one of your genuine competitive advantages.

Drawing on 20 years in customer engagement, Pete shares the successes, failures and battle scars behind building experiences that customers value and that talented people want to stay.

He’ll explore what customer and employee retention have in common, plus how he uses AI without losing brand identity or humanity.

Expect practical evidence to strengthen your investment cases, honest lessons from what failed spectacularly, and three strategies you can take away and test straight away.

Speaker:

Pete Evia-Rhodes

Workspace Group

Customer Engagement & Platform Lead

08:55 - 09:00

Data, Insights and Analytics

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

Introduction

First-Party Data & the Privacy-First Future

Welcome back to the Engage Customer Summit 2026.

Day 1 put the customer reality front and centre – the pressures in your contact centres, the gaps in journeys and data, and the honest stories of where organisations are succeeding and where they’re still under strain. Day 2 shifts gear to The Engagement Benchmark: Where Do You Stand?

In this opening address, Gerry will connect yesterday’s themes with the question at the heart of today: how does your organisation compare against the best when it comes to customer engagement? From the strategies, technologies and operating models you’ve heard about, to the evidence on where real progress is being made, today’s agenda is designed to help you benchmark, prioritise and decide what needs to happen next.

A moment to reset, refocus and look ahead together – before you dive into a day built around understanding where you stand, what your peers are doing, and how to move your customer agenda forward with confidence.

Speaker:

Gerry Brown

Customer Lifeguard

Chief Customer Officer

09:00 - 09:25

Data, Insights and Analytics

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

Headliner

First-Party Data & the Privacy-First Future

Speaker:

Francesca Woodhouse

Edelman

Managing Director - UK Workplace Advisory

09:50 - 10:20

Data, Insights and Analytics

First-Party Data – Building the Foundation Your Future Strategy Depends On

Panel Discussion

First-Party Data & the Privacy-First Future

First-party data is becoming the most important foundation for the personalised, relevant, and proactive customer engagement strategies that customers increasingly expect. Yet building a sustainable, trust-based first-party data foundation that customers are genuinely willing to contribute to requires more than compliance, it requires a genuine commitment to the value exchange that makes customers feel their data is being used to serve them rather than simply to target them.

In this panel, senior leaders will share what building a robust, sustainable first-party data strategy looks like in practice. From the consent and value exchange models that are genuinely working to the gap between regulatory compliance and the genuine customer trust that makes first-party data a long-term foundation for meaningful customer engagement, panellists will explore what it takes to build a data strategy that serves customers well and stands up to the scrutiny of an increasingly privacy-conscious world.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what a robust, sustainable first-party data strategy looks like and what it enables in terms of customer engagement quality
Practical approaches to building consent and value exchange models that customers genuinely engage with and that feel fair and transparent
Insight into the gap between regulatory compliance and the genuine customer trust that makes first-party data a lasting foundation for meaningful engagement
Real examples of how leading organisations are building first-party data strategies that serve their customers well and position them strongly for the future of customer engagement

Speaker:

Teddy Tepavicharova

The Telegraph

Head of Programmatic Sales

Teddy is an award-winning strategist and commercial leader in marketing and advertising, currently heading the Telegraph’s Programmatic Sales, while managing a growing global client portfolio. Her work has earned widespread recognition, including accolades such as Forbes 30 Under 30, Outstanding Transformation of the Year, BIMA100 and The Future 100 Club.

10:20 - 10:50

Data, Insights and Analytics

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

First-Party Data & the Privacy-First Future

10:50 - 11:15

Data, Insights and Analytics

Depop Case Study: Support as a Retention Moment, Not a Journey Failure

Interview

The Future of Journey Orchestration

Depop managed to close the customer retention gap through support. This session explores how, and why it means support has been measured against the wrong metrics all along. SLAs, handle times and deflection tell you how quickly a ticket was closed, not whether the customer came back. Drawing on real work within a two-sided marketplace, we will show what retention depends on and how to translate that insight into the product and operations roadmap across self-solve, AI-solve and human-solve.

Speaker:

Anna Gradil

Depop

Senior Director, Seller Growth & Support

Anna Gradil is a senior technology leader with over 16 years of experience scaling marketplace and media businesses globally. As Senior Director of Seller Growth & Support at Depop, she leads the functions that help sellers thrive and make every customer interaction feel seamless, human, and trustworthy, built on the belief that exceptional support is not a cost centre but a growth lever.

Anna has led the transformation of Depop's support operations at scale, navigating complex BPO partnerships and deploying AI-powered agent technology. Before Depop, she held senior roles at YouTube and Google across EMEA, and as COO of Yoola she cut customer churn by 16 points and grew NPS from 30 to 55 by embedding customer centricity at the heart of the organisation.

11:15 - 11:40

Data, Insights and Analytics

Virgin Media Case Study: Driving Data Adoption Through Champions and Communities

Case Study

The Future of Journey Orchestration

Beautiful journey maps don’t change much unless people across the business actually use data to run and refine those journeys every day. In this case study, Danny will share how he is building champion programmes and communities to turn journey orchestration from a concept into a lived practice.

Danny will explore how Virgin Media O2 is evolving its approach to journey orchestration in a complex, omnichannel environment, and why data enablement is just as important as data engineering. He will unpack the structures, rituals and tools that help non‑data specialists adopt analytics, experiment with journeys and feed insight back into design – from champion networks and learning programmes to gamification and storytelling.

Attendees will hear:

What “next‑generation” journey orchestration looks like inside a large telco where AI, data platforms and omnichannel CX are all in play.
Practical ways to use champions, communities and engagement tactics to drive data adoption across marketing, service and operations.
How to measure and demonstrate the impact of better data use on journey performance, customer experience and commercial outcomes.

A grounded, people‑focused look at the future of journey orchestration – not just the technology, but the behaviours and communities that make it work at scale.

Speaker:

Danny Bradley

Virgin Media O2

Senior Data Engagement & Execution Lead

11:40 - 12:10

Data, Insights and Analytics

From Promise to Practice in Customer Journey Orchestration

Panel Discussion

The Future of Journey Orchestration

Customer journey orchestration promises seamless, personalised customer engagement at scale, dynamically adapting to individual customer behaviour across every channel and touchpoint in real time. The potential is significant, but so is the gap between what orchestration promises and what most organisations are actually achieving with it. The complexity of implementation, the data and integration requirements, and the organisational changes needed to make orchestration genuinely work mean that many programmes are still far from delivering the connected, consistent customer experiences they set out to create.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what journey orchestration looks like when it is genuinely working in practice. From the implementation lessons that only come from live deployment experience to the data, integration, and organisational foundations that separate orchestration programmes that deliver from those that stall, panellists will share what it takes to move from journey orchestration as a concept to journey orchestration as a genuine driver of better, more connected customer experiences at scale.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what journey orchestration looks like when it is genuinely delivering personalised, connected customer experiences at scale
Practical approaches to building the data and integration foundations needed for effective orchestration
Insight into the implementation lessons that are most valuable for organisations at different stages of their orchestration journey
Real examples of how effective journey orchestration is improving customer experience consistency and the quality of engagement across every touchpoint

Speakers:

Julie Su

Global Customer Journey & E-commerce Manager

I am a Senior Product Manager specialising in growth, experimentation, and customer experience (CX), with 8+ years of experience delivering scalable digital products across global markets.

I have led product strategy and optimisation initiatives across 40+ markets, improving conversion by up to 50% and driving measurable growth through data-driven experimentation and customer journey design.

David Trevithick

LCP Delta

Head of Customer Insight

David leads Customer Insight across LCP Delta’s residential research portfolio (clean energy technology and smart energy topics). His role involves developing research programmes that inform must-have residential customer propositions. As the energy transition progresses from strategy to implementation, understanding the evolving role, needs and perceptions of energy customers is crucial. This insight is vital for shaping client strategy, proposition development, marketing, and customer experience. With over 30 years of consumer insight experience, including more than a decade in the energy sector, he is committed to providing valuable strategic and customer engagement insight for his clients.

12:10 - 13:00

Data, Insights and Analytics

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

The Future of Journey Orchestration

13:00 - 13:25

Data, Insights and Analytics

Anglian Water Services Case Study: Using AMI Data to Engage Customers and Drive Demand Reduction

Case Study

Predictive Insight & Shaping Customer Behaviour

The UK AMI rollout is driven by the need to reduce demand-side consumption and leakage. For the majority of UK water companies, customer supply pipe leaks are repaired by the customers themselves, as well as any internal leaks. Any behavioural reductions in water use in homes and businesses are also delivered by the customers.

If we are to help maximise these savings, we have to use AMI metering to engage customers to complete repairs and adapt behaviours. Doing so relies on a holistic approach to both the physical hardware rollout, the reliability and accessibility of data, and value-adding services:

How we set up our rollout strategies to create momentum and interest among our customers
How we provide access to consumption data for customers to actively use it
How we design value-added services from the AMI frameworks
How we measure success and use it to update our strategies
How we drive changes in legislation to enhance the benefits
How we protect our customers’ privacy and respond to any other concerns

Speaker:

Doug Spencer

Anglian Water Services

Smart Metering Lead

Doug is Smart Metering Lead for Anglian Water where he has worked for over 35 years, primarily on water distribution; quality, leakage and water use monitoring and analysis. Over the last 9 years he has led the programme to take Anglian from proof of concept to company-wide rollout of AMI. He is co-programme lead on UKWIR BQ02 zero leakage and chairs the Croydon group and OFWAT’s ‘use the data group’, he is also a former member and chair of the CIWEM Scientific Group Committee.

13:25 - 13:50

Data, Insights and Analytics

AutoTrader Case Study: Prediction Aids Conversion

Case Study

Predictive Insight & Shaping Customer Behaviour

Speaker:

Nick King

AutoTrader

Insights Director

A consumer psychologist and expert in digital media and marketing, possessing the experience to analyse and interpret trends in consumer adoption of technology and develop strategies for customer acquisition and retention through digital and offline channels.

Nick joined Auto Trader in January 2007 running Business Intelligence and in 2010 built the retailer insight team running master classes and webinars. He also makes short films to evangelise about data and Insight and speaks regularly at conferences in Europe, Canada and North America.

Nick is also a visiting lecturer in consumer psychology at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.

After graduating from Loughborough in 1986 , Nick spent years in advertising and planning at Dorlands and Lintas, was a guitarist with Great Northern Electrics, a publisher on HiFi magazines at Petersen/EMAP and a research Director at Media agency Carat/Difiniti responsible for a team of researchers advising a range of Blue-chip clients on the development of their marketing and communications strategies in the Digital arena.

13:50 - 14:20

Data, Insights and Analytics

Predictive Insight – Getting Ahead of What Customers Will Do Next

Panel Discussion

Predictive Insight & Shaping Customer Behaviour

The most effective customer engagement strategies are those that anticipate what customers will do next rather than simply responding to what they have already done. Predictive insight is moving from competitive advantage to strategic necessity, yet the gap between organisations genuinely using predictive analytics to shape their engagement strategies and those still working primarily from historical data remains significant. The organisations pulling ahead are those that have built the capability to understand not just who their customers are today but where they are heading and what they will need next.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore what genuinely predictive customer insight looks like in practice. From the data maturity and analytical foundations needed to make prediction work reliably at scale, to the customer engagement strategies that predictive insight is enabling across retention, personalisation, and proactive service, panellists will share what it takes to move from descriptive to genuinely predictive customer understanding and what that shift means for the quality of every customer engagement.

What you'll gain:

A clear picture of what genuinely predictive customer insight looks like and what it takes to build it
Practical approaches to building the data maturity and analytical foundations needed for reliable prediction at scale
Insight into how leading organisations are using predictive analytics to shape more effective retention, personalisation, and proactive customer engagement strategies
Real examples of how predictive insight is changing the quality and relevance of customer engagement across the industry

Speakers:

Naba Elsaid

Durham university

Consultant, Durham University

Dr Elsaid specialises in enabling executive leaders to transform predictive analytics into an organisation-wide strategic capability. Her expertise focuses on critically evaluating AI-generated insights, scaling data-driven decision-making across complex organisations, and embedding predictive intelligence into executive strategy. She advises on AI-predictive insights and robust governance to drive customer outcomes, organisational performance, and sustain a long-term competitive advantage.

David Trevithick

LCP Delta

Head of Customer Insight

14:20 - 14:40

Data, Insights and Analytics

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

Break

Predictive Insight & Shaping Customer Behaviour

14:40 - 15:05

Data, Insights and Analytics

London Borough of Hackney Case Study: Hyper-Personalisation Without Losing the Human

Case Study

Hyper-Personalisation: Using Data to Deliver Experiences That Feel Individual

Speaker:

Dan O'Sullivan

London Borough of Hackney

Transforming Customer Experience. Empowering Communities. Delivering Public Value.

15:30 - 16:00

Data, Insights and Analytics

Hyper-Personalisation at Scale – Where Is the Industry Really?

Panel Discussion

Hyper-Personalisation: Using Data to Deliver Experiences That Feel Individual

True hyper-personalisation remains out of reach for most organisations, yet it represents one of the most significant opportunities to improve the quality and relevance of customer engagement today. The promise of delivering experiences that feel genuinely individual to every customer at scale is compelling, and the customers who experience it notice the difference. Yet the gap between organisations making genuine progress and those still working at broad segment level is one of the clearest indicators of customer engagement and data maturity across the industry.

In this panel, senior leaders will explore where the industry genuinely is on the hyper-personalisation journey and what it takes to make meaningful progress. From the most common barriers standing between personalisation ambition and personalisation delivery, to the strategies and investments that are making the biggest difference for the organisations pulling ahead, panellists will share what real progress looks like and what the rest of the industry can do to accelerate its own journey towards customer engagement that feels genuinely individual.

What you'll gain:

An honest picture of where the industry genuinely is on the hyper-personalisation journey and what is driving the gap between leaders and the rest
Practical approaches to closing the gap between personalisation ambition and what customers are actually experiencing in their engagement with a brand
Insight into the strategies and investments that are making the biggest difference for organisations making genuine hyper-personalisation progress
Real examples of what individual-level personalisation at scale looks like when it is working and the difference it makes to customer engagement quality

Speakers:

Zack Wragg

Merlin Entertainments

Senior Global Digital Commerce Product Owner

Zack is a digital and ecommerce leader passionate about using personalisation and customer experience as levers for driving sustainable long-term commercial growth.

His career spans hospitality and retail brands such as Hilton, Crabtree & Evelyn and Merlin Entertainments. He is currently working as the Senior Global Digital Commerce Product Owner at Merlin with a focus on driving using digital transformation to improve the guest experience.

Abs Owdud

Pharmacy2U Ltd

Head of Customer Insight

Hi, I’m Abs – a human-centred insight leader who’s spent the last 15+ years turning chaotic data environments into places where people can actually breathe. I build insight functions, semantic layers, KPI frameworks and teams… but I promise I’m more fun at parties than that sentence suggests. I’ve been lucky enough to go through advertising, agency life, software, healthcare and social care – basically a career buffet that taught me how to make sense of complicated situations. When you’ve worked everywhere from creative studios to clinical workflows, creating clarity feels a lot like threading a needle… on a rollercoaster… during a fire drill. Weirdly, that’s where I do my best work. I love insight, but I love people even more. Data doesn’t change organisations – humans do. I do believe deeply in communication. A good analogy, delivered at the right moment, can land a message better than 20 dashboards and a 40-slide deck. If I can explain a metric using cooking, football, or a malfunctioning IKEA wardrobe, trust me, I will.
I’m known for:
• Building insight teams from scratch (the fun, slightly chaotic kind of scratch)
• Turning “we’ve got dashboards” into “we actually understand what we’re doing now”
• Creating KPI frameworks that don’t require a translator, decoder ring or séance
• Reducing burnout by building calmer, more humane ways of working
• Carrying far too much workload with a smile until someone tells me to stop
• Using humour to deliver hard truths without anyone crying (including me)

16:00 - 16:05

Data, Insights and Analytics

Chair's Close

Closing Remarks

Hyper-Personalisation: Using Data to Deliver Experiences That Feel Individual

Speaker:

Gerry Brown

Customer Lifeguard

Chief Customer Officer

10:50 - 11:50

Focus Groups

AI Agent Washing: How Much of What You Bought Is Actually an Agent?

Roundtable

The market is flooded with AI agents. The problem is that most of them are not agents at all, they are chatbots and RPA scripts wearing a new label.

This roundtable is a candid, neutral conversation for leaders who have bought the promise and want to know what actually delivers. We will separate real autonomy from marketing gloss, compare what has resolved cases end to end against what only deflects, and build the shortlist of questions every buyer should put to a vendor before they sign.

Speaker:

Niamh Savill

Halo

Senior Solutions Architect

Niamh Savill is a Senior Solutions Architect at Halo, working across consultancy, product development and customer solutions to help service teams get real value from the technology they invest in. With a languages background and a people-first approach to complex tech, she helps service leaders cut through vendor hype and ask the questions that matter.

No results for current selection

Wednesday 07 October 2026

Main Stage

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

08:55 - 09:00

The UK CX Report 2026: The Opportunity for Delight: Rising Above the Mediocre

09:00 - 09:25

The Growth Conversation Every Organisation Should Be Having

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 11:00

DHL Express Case Study: What Transformation Setbacks Taught Me About Scaling AI, Change and Customer Operations

11:00 - 11:25

Ahead of the Curve – What It Really Takes to Be Industry-Leading

11:50 - 12:20

Why Customer Conversations Are Won Before an Agent Says Hello

12:20 - 12:45

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:45 - 14:00

From Optimisation to Reinvention: How END. Is Harnessing AI to Transform

14:00 - 14:25

The Culture Problem Nobody Talks About

14:50 - 15:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

15:45 - 16:05

Inside Bel: Building the Capability Behind Babybel, The Laughing Cow and Beyond

16:05 - 16:30

The State of Customer Engagement – What the Data Is Really Telling Us

16:30 - 17:00

Closing Remarks

17:25 - 17:30

Summit After-Party

17:30

Future of The Contact Centre

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Opening Keynote: The Future of the Contact Centre – What the Data Is Really Telling Us

09:00 - 09:25

Scaling Service – How Are You Really Holding the Line?

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 11:00

Cambridge University Press & Assessment Case Study: Modernising Customer Service at One of the Worlds Oldest Institutions

11:00 - 11:25

It’s Not About AI, It’s About the Customer Stupid!

11:25 - 11:50

Digital Transformation in the Contact Centre – Closing the Gap Between Ambition and Reality

11:50 - 12:20

AI in UK Contact Centres - What's Really Happening?

12:20 - 12:40

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:40 - 14:00

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Case Study: Architecting AI Capacity: Executive Governance & Leadership ROI vs. ROE

14:00 - 14:25

The Efficiency Equation – Finding the Balance That Actually Work

14:50 - 15:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

15:45 - 16:05

Adanola: The Agent Experience Behind High Growth Customer Operations

16:05 - 16:30

The Human Edge: Why Leadership Excellence is the True Driver of Customer Experience

16:30 - 16:55

The Agent Experience – Engaging Your Most Valuable CX Asset

16:55 - 17:25

Chair's Close

17:25 - 17:30

Summit After-Party

17:30

Customer Contact

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

08:55 - 09:00

Opening Keynote: Adapting to the Rapid Evolution of the Contact Centre

09:00 - 09:25

After the Helpdesk: Why the Ticket Queue Won't Survive AI

09:25 - 09:50

The Omnichannel Reality – Are You Truly Connected or Just Multi-Channel?

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 11:00

Xero Case Study: The Future of CX: The Human and AI Partnership

11:00 - 11:25

One AI Agent, Every Market: Personalising Support Across Markets

11:25 - 11:50

Self-Service That Actually Works – Empowering Customers Without Losing Them

11:50 - 12:20

Audience Q&A: Your Customer Contact Reality

12:20 - 12:40

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:40 - 14:00

Small Features, Big Shifts – How Digital Products Move the CX Needle at Scale

14:00 - 14:25

Smarter Contact – How Intelligent Technology Is Changing the Game

14:50 - 15:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

15:45 - 16:05

Barclays Case Study: Customer Expectations and Technology Approaches

16:05 - 16:30

Channel Strategy – Putting Customer Outcomes at the Centre

16:55 - 17:25

Closing Remarks

17:25 - 17:30

Summit After-Party

17:30

Customer Experience Management

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

08:55 - 09:00

The State of CX Management – What the Latest Evidence Is Telling Us

09:00 - 09:25

Customer-Centricity – Closing the Gap Between Claim and Reality

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 11:00

Philip Morris International: From Experimentation to Transformation: Our AI Journey in the UK

11:00 - 11:25

Voice of the Customer – From Feedback to Action

11:50 - 12:20

NHS: Access, Experience, Outcomes, Improvement

12:20 - 12:40

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:40 - 14:00

The Royal College of Surgeons of England Case Study: The CX Paradox: How AI Is Helping Us Deliver More Human Experiences

14:00 - 14:25

CX Transformation – Leading Change That Actually Sticks

14:50 - 15:20

Trusted AI in CX: What Transformation Actually Requires

15:20 - 15:45

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

15:45 - 16:05

Experian Case Study: From Feel-Good to Bottom Line: The Business Impact of CX

16:05 - 16:30

Making the Business Case – The Metrics That Actually Move Boards

16:55 - 17:25

Closing Remarks

17:25 - 17:30

Summit After-Party

17:30

Customer Relationship Management

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

08:55 - 09:00

The Customer Data, CRM and Marketing Benchmark

09:00 - 09:25

The Campaign That Actually Lands – Smarter Marketing for Better Customer Outcomes

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 11:00

Landmark Information Group Case Study: Landmark’s One Team Approach Means Success for Customers

11:00 - 11:25

Breaking Down the Walls – How Cross-Functional Teams Are Transforming CX

11:50 - 12:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:20 - 13:40

Audience Q&A: Inside Your CRM and Marketing Strategy

13:40 - 14:00

Gebr. Heinemann Case Study: The Connected Customer Journey – Why Data Is the Engine, Not the Add-On

14:00 - 14:25

CRM as the Engine of the Connected Customer Journey

14:50 - 15:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

15:45 - 16:05

The CRM Reality Check – Are You Getting the Return You Should

16:30 - 17:00

Closing Remarks

17:00 - 17:05

Summit After-Party

17:05

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

08:55 - 09:00

From Contacts to Confidence: How Customer‑Led Growth Really Happens

09:00 - 09:25

Beyond the Points Card – What Loyalty Really Means Today

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 11:00

Serco Case Study: Retention Under Pressure: Why People Leave Emotionally Before They Leave Commercially

11:00 - 11:25

Retention Under Pressure – Keeping Customers When Switching Has Never Been Easier

11:50 - 12:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:20 - 13:40

Audience Q&A: Beyond Points and Perks: Real Talk on Loyalty and Retention

13:40 - 14:00

The Future of Subscriber Retention: AI, Personalisation and the Next Best Action: In Conversation With Charlotte Vlahavas from The Economist

14:00 - 14:25

Personalisation as a Growth Driver – Turning Customer Understanding into Commercial Results

14:50 - 15:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

15:45 - 16:05

Turning Customer Insight Into Business Impact: In Conversation With Linzi Hindle at DHL Supply Chain

16:05 - 16:30

The CLV Growth Opportunity – Are You Measuring the Right Things to Drive Long-Term Growth?

16:30 - 17:00

Closing Remarks

17:25 - 17:30

Summit After-Party

17:05

Data, Insights and Analytics

Welcome to the 2026 Engage Customer Summit

08:55 - 09:00

The Customer Truth: Turning Data into Decisions Across the Journey

09:00 - 09:25

Customers Remember. Does Your Business?

09:25 - 09:50

From Data Rich to Insight Led – Making Customer Data Work Harder

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 11:00

HSBC Case Study: From Understanding to Action, How the Right Customer Mapping Impacts the Business

11:00 - 11:25

Customer Journey Mapping That Drives Impact

11:50 - 12:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:20 - 13:40

Audience Q&A: Beyond Dashboards: Real-Talk on Data, Insight and Customer Journeys

13:40 - 14:00

E.ON Next Case Study: Identifying the Silent Customer With AI Driven Insights

14:00 - 14:25

Reading the Signals – How Leading Organisations Are Acting on Customer Behaviour

14:50 - 15:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

15:45 - 16:05

Building CX From the Ground Up: Launching London’s Newest International Convention Centre

16:05 - 16:30

Why Your AI Investment Isn’t Compounding and What to Do About It

16:30 - 16:55

Every Customer, Every Time – The Reality of Hyper-Personalisation at Scale

16:55 - 17:25

Closing Remarks

17:25 - 17:30

Summit After-Party

17:30

Focus Groups

The Hard Part Isn't Buying the AI: Pricing, Stack, and Org Chart

11:00 - 12:00

Thursday 08 October 2026

Main Stage

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

08:55 - 09:00

Investing in People - The Competitive Advantage Driving Next-Generation Engagement

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 10:50

Rail Europe: From Intent to Confidence: Building Intelligent Customer Experiences

10:50 - 11:15

Clarity Environmental Case Study: Customer Adversity into Customer Advocacy

11:15 - 11:40

From First Click to Loyal Customer: Leading the End-to-End Experience

11:40 - 12:10

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:10 - 13:00

Cumberland Case Study: Trust Is a Growth Strategy: What Customer-Owned Businesses Can Teach Us About Winning Loyalty

13:25 - 13:50

Why Are Customers Really Leaving?

13:50 - 14:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

14:20 - 14:40

The Quiet Tech Giant: How Auto Trader Turned Data and AI into Competitive Advantage

14:40 - 15:05

A Strategic Lens on the Customer of Tomorrow

15:30 - 16:00

Closing Remarks

16:00 - 16:05

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

09:00 - 09:25

Future of The Contact Centre

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

08:55 - 09:00

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

09:00 - 09:25

Raising the Bar – What High-Performance Contact Centres Do Differently

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 10:50

The Telegraph: The Best of Both: Blending Human Insight and AI in Customer Service

10:50 - 11:15

Human or Digital – Getting the Blend Right for Every Customer

11:40 - 12:10

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:10 - 13:00

NatWest Case Study: The Future of Contact Centres & AI

13:00 - 13:25

The Excellence Standard – Raising the Bar Across Quality, Innovation & Duty of Care

13:50 - 14:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

14:20 - 14:40

Transport for Wales Case Study: Empowering Colleagues and Customers Using Technology

14:40 - 15:05

How Agentic Self-Learning Is Transforming Customer Experiences. True Agentic AI Doesn’t Wait to Be Retrained — It Improves Itself.

15:05 - 15:30

The Contact Centre of the Future – Are You Ready for What's Coming?

15:30 - 16:00

Chair's Close

16:00 - 16:05

Customer Contact

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

08:55 - 09:00

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

09:00 - 09:25

The New Service Standard – Are You Keeping Pace With What Customers Expect

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 10:50

Holiday Extras Case Study: What If Your Next AI Team Is Already Sitting in Your Contact Centre?

10:50 - 11:15

Frictionless by Design – The Future of Self-Service & Customer Journeys

11:40 - 12:10

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:10 - 13:00

Movianto UK Case Study: The Journey to Future‑Ready Customer Care

13:00 - 13:25

People, Innovation & the Future of Customer Contact

13:50 - 14:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

14:20 - 14:40

Beyond Reactive: The Open University's Journey to Proactive Service

14:40 - 15:05

Getting There First – The Case for Predictive Customer Engagement

15:30 - 16:00

Chair's Close

16:00 - 16:05

Customer Experience Management

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

08:55 - 09:00

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

09:00 - 09:25

The Future of Service Delivery – How Ready Is Your Organisation Really?

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 10:50

Forge Holiday Group: Unreasonable Hospitality by Design How Focus, People, AI, Technology and Ways of Working Create Exceptional Guest Experiences Across Hospitality and Contact Centres

10:50 - 11:15

Designing for Delight – What Genuinely Great Customer Experience Looks Like

11:40 - 12:10

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:10 - 13:00

HSBC Private Bank Case Study: Voice of the Customer: Lessons from Private Banking That Every CX Leader Can Apply

13:00 - 13:25

Closing the Loop – How Leading Organisations Turn Customer Insight into Action

13:50 - 14:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

14:20 - 14:40

HM Revenue & Customs Case Study: Turning Customer Experience Strategy into Better Customer Outcomes

14:40 - 15:05

Measuring What Customers Actually Experience – The Outcomes That Matter

15:30 - 16:00

Chair's Close

16:00 - 16:05

Customer Relationship Management

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

08:55 - 09:00

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

09:00 - 09:25

Breaking Down the Silos – Uniting Sales, Marketing & Service Around the Customer

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 10:50

Sky Case Study: Creating Relationships That Drive Long‑Term Growth

10:50 - 11:15

The Relationship Engine – Is Your CRM Actually Building Lasting Customer Relationships?

11:40 - 12:10

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:10 - 13:00

Skyscanner Case Study: Personalising Content for Millions of Travellers

13:00 - 13:25

Content, Relevance & Personalisation – Closing the Gap Between What's Possible and What's Delivered

13:50 - 14:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

14:20 - 14:40

The CRM Performance Engine: Turning Consumer Signals into Revenue

14:40 - 15:05

Building Sales AI That Actually Works

15:05 - 15:30

Next-Generation CRM – Are You Building for Where Customer Engagement Is Heading?

15:30 - 16:00

Chair's Close

16:00 - 16:05

Loyalty, Retention & Growth

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

08:55 - 09:00

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

09:00 - 09:25

The Intelligence Behind Modern Loyalty – Predicting, Personalising & Retaining

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 10:50

Virgin Media O2: Turning Loyalty on Its Head: Why Putting Customers First Wins in Commoditised Markets

10:50 - 11:15

The Future of Loyalty – Beyond the Programme, Towards the Relationship

11:40 - 12:10

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:10 - 13:00

Financial Times Case Study: Financial Times Case Study: How the Financial Times Is Making Staying the Easy Decision

13:00 - 13:25

Winning the Retention Battle – Strategies Built for a Switching Economy

13:50 - 14:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

14:20 - 14:40

Bupa: From Strategy to Stickiness: How Global Marketing Turns Customers into Lifelong Relationships

14:40 - 15:05

Growing Customer Lifetime Value – The Personalisation and Engagement Strategies That Are Delivering

15:30 - 16:00

Chair's Close

16:00 - 16:05

Workspace Group Case Study: The Retention Moat

13:25 - 13:50

Data, Insights and Analytics

Welcome to Day 2 of the Engage Customer Summit!

08:55 - 09:00

Research Reveal: The Customer Agenda and the Trust Imperative

09:00 - 09:25

First-Party Data – Building the Foundation Your Future Strategy Depends On

09:50 - 10:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

10:20 - 10:50

Depop Case Study: Support as a Retention Moment, Not a Journey Failure

10:50 - 11:15

Virgin Media Case Study: Driving Data Adoption Through Champions and Communities

11:15 - 11:40

From Promise to Practice in Customer Journey Orchestration

11:40 - 12:10

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

12:10 - 13:00

Anglian Water Services Case Study: Using AMI Data to Engage Customers and Drive Demand Reduction

13:00 - 13:25

AutoTrader Case Study: Prediction Aids Conversion

13:25 - 13:50

Predictive Insight – Getting Ahead of What Customers Will Do Next

13:50 - 14:20

Networking Break: Dedicated Time for 1:1 Discussions

14:20 - 14:40

London Borough of Hackney Case Study: Hyper-Personalisation Without Losing the Human

14:40 - 15:05

Hyper-Personalisation at Scale – Where Is the Industry Really?

15:30 - 16:00

Chair's Close

16:00 - 16:05

Focus Groups

AI Agent Washing: How Much of What You Bought Is Actually an Agent?

10:50 - 11:50

EBM - Customer Engagement Summit - 09-10-2025-0070

Main stage

The Main Stage proudly showcases industry trailblazers presenting their insights on the future of customer engagement. These forward thinking experts delve into anticipated industry trends and technological advancements that demand our attention.

A must attend for those wanting to gain valuable foresight into evolving customer dynamics, innovative strategies, and cutting edge tools that will shape the landscape of customer interactions in the coming years.

FUTURE OF THE CONTACT CENTRE

Contact centres are rapidly changing and becoming more digital to meet evolving customer expectations for quick, efficient service. Advances in technology, such as AI, chatbots, and cloud solutions, enable personalised, seamless interactions and 24/7 support, improving operational efficiency and enhancing the overall customer experience.