Meet the Judges

Gordon Rimmer

Gordon has over 25 years of Technology, Marketing and Business Development experience gained from working with companies like Microsoft, BOC, Hogg Robinson Financial Services (15 years) and innovative technology distributor Steljes who specialised in collaborative working. Gordon has held positions such as Marketing Director and Director of Technology Enabled Relationship Management where he looked after all the touch points across his organisation in financial services, including social media and how you use technology to enable and deliver exceptional customer experience down a variety of channels.

Laila Edy

Laila is passionate about creating amazing digital experiences as well as fostering and celebrating strong digital talent. She has over a decade of experience across media, sport and ecommerce, most of which have been spent in her specialism of product management and strategy. Laila currently splits her time between her 3 main ventures: Future First Digital (consulting), Laila Edy Coaching (coaching) and 10 Digital Ladies, where she is a co-founder helping to increase the visibility of women in digital careers.

Abhishek Verma

Abhishek Verma is Senior Director & Digital Evangelist, for Infosys leading their European Region. He regularly advises Global CxOs & Chief Digital Officers, of Fortune 500 companies, on large scale Digital Transformation programs. A Harvard Business School alumnus, he is a Cognitive Automation & AI industry expert, with 22yr of cutting edge experience in Technology & Digital industry, and has Consumer Experience Cx- in Digital Age, as his prime area of research & interest.”

Paul Blunden

Paul Blunden has spent nearly 20 years working in the digital user experience sector and is the founder and CEO of Usability24/7. Prior to this he was co-founder and CEO of Foviance (now EY Seren), one of Europe’s leading service design agencies. Paul is also an advisor and non-executive director to a number of digital agencies and a Trustee and board director of Picker Europe.

During his time in the UX industry Paul has worked with a wide range of organisations including Dixons Carphone Group, Facebook, RBS and Telefonica helping them to improve the performance of the experiences they offer their customers and users.

Paul is author of a number of papers about digital customer experience and was the driving force behind the publication of the first multichannel customer experience report. More recently he has focussed on mobile and multiplatform user experience with publications on mobile optimisation, multiscreen user behaviour and responsive web design. Paul is also a regular blogger at Usability24/7 on user experience trends and challenges.

Chris Leo

A creative entrepreneur, passionate about building profitable and scalable digital businesses.

Chris founded the digital innovation consultancy Pivot in 2017, merging it with Principles Group later that year.

Now boasting 70+ consultants across their Leeds and London offices, they partner with blue chip clients on groundbreaking international projects.

Recent work includes digital product development and strategy in Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa.

David Clamp

A senior IT professional with over 26 years experience delivering programmes in the Banking, Investment and Insurance industries. Former CIO for Hiscox Insurance (UK) leading the digital transformation of the UK retail business. David established Merlin Digital Consulting Ltd in January 2017 to provide expert digital consulting for the financial services industry. Strengths - leadership, forward thinking and innovation based on his extensive experience. Clients have access to his knowledge of transformational change, from strategy, solution selection, implementation and operations

David Taylor

David is a digital management consultant with 25 years’ experience of working with a wide range of organisations. He has a proven track record in creating multi-layered strategies to support digital transformation and business growth. Co-author of two books on digital marketing and social media he helps organisations meet the challenges and opportunities posed by today's digitally-savvy customers using his 6-step digital business model. And he has run hundreds of digital training courses for thousands of professionals in the UK as well as overseas.

Namrata Sarmah

Namrata is Senior Director of Digital at Viacom working across their key global media brands like MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon etc. She is a Virgin Start-Up Mentor and takes keen interest in advising start-ups on digital product management. Namrata is an alumnus of Cambridge Judge Business School and Manchester Business School. She has the unique expertise of working in a variety of sectors like FMCG, Telecom, Media Production, Healthcare, and Broadcast, and has successfully led digital teams in large, mid-sized and start-up companies.

Beverley Brown

Beverley is a Digital Content Director, experienced in implementing content best practice, directing the content element of digital transformation projects and driving operational excellence for global businesses, including PayPal, Three, and SGS, maximising their digital presence. She is focused on the delivery of customer-centric experiences for both B2B and B2C organisations, enabling teams to produce compelling content for international markets. She enjoys bringing together people and technology to provide in-context experiences for users and increase customer engagement.

Stanley Louw

Stanley Louw is part of Avanade’s Digital business in the UK, where he assists industry leaders with navigating the increasing pace of change by focusing on digital disruption, innovation, as well as customer and employee centricity. Prior to joining Avanade, Stanley spent 6 years at Accenture where he headed their Digital Mobility and Digital Financial Services practices for Africa.

Clive Hilton

Clive Hilton has 20 years experience leading global digital teams delivering complex technology programmes across Telco, Media/Broadcasting & Public Sectors. Held positions of Snr Director of Services, Director of Design & Development, Director of Programme Management, with Vodafone, Telefonica, Sky, Etisalat, Digiturk, Swisscom, China Mobile and Cosmote, to name a few of his clients. Appreciating the challenges facing todays business leaders, Clive set up DCG(UK) Ltd, to provide a ‘right-source’ partnership to nearshore software development and is a management consultant.

Kate Thompson

Kate is part of the founding team at Business 3.0 and has partnered with senior leaders across an impressive range of businesses including RBS, Aviva, BP, British Gas, Pernod Ricard, Diageo, IHG and Unilever. She brings provocative commercial and human insight to help leaders create a powerful point of view on the future and then use it to build change into the core of their business. With deep expertise in strategy, transformation, innovation and digital, Kate is also an active member of London’s tech community (inc. Tech She Can, Agora Founders Club, 10 Digital Ladies) and sits on the Advisory Boards of a range of startup and scaling businesses.

Tim Hutchinson

Tim has been designing and producing innovative digital products and experiences for over 20 years. From websites for Universal Music and ‘clever little telly’ apps for Freesat, to a visual ticket management system for the Olympic Games and social campaigns for the British Heart Foundation. With a unique blend of creative and technical knowledge, Tim possess a practical and intellectual understanding of UX and UI design, data analysis and research, agile delivery, product management, and team leadership.

Tom Bryant

Tom is a digital transformation specialist focusing on learning, culture and talent. His career started in Accenture driving global business transformation for large corporates such as Barclays, British Gas and 20th Century Fox. He was Global Head of Learning & Development for Colt Technology Services and in 2013-15 held the post of Senior Advisor in Cabinet Office, British Government, for Digital & Technology Skill. Through his successful startup, TFB Consulting, his mantra is ‘Making Digital about people, not technology…about Emotional Intelligence, not Artificial Intelligence.’

Mark Edgington

A highly driven professional with experience gained internationally in a diverse set of industries pharmaceutical, law, retail, automotive, financial services, travel and others. Renowned for defining & delivering user experience, strategy and development projects; for companies such as GSK, Vodaphone, Deutsche bank, HSBC, DeBeers, Disney, Saint Gobain , Mazda, Airmiles, Thomas Cook, Pfizer, Sky and EY. Holds a 1st class degree in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence an MSc in Human Computer Interaction (UX) and has spoken at multiple events.

James Brown

James is Managing Director of Longitude Innovation, a consultancy he founded to help SMEs adapt to the ever-changing technology-led business landscape they now operate in and to unlock their dormant innovation potential. Having recently completed his studies in Strategy & Innovation at the University of Oxford, he is now furthering his knowledge of blockchain strategy, cyber security and robotic process automation. James is also the Founder of Viribus Capital, a venture capital firm for organisations with ambitions to expand into Asia.

Hugh Burrows

Hugh has 17 years’ experience in digital and social media. This includes Que Pasa Communications (now part of Seven C3), working on marketing campaigns for Red Bull, Nike and Sony Ericsson; and content projects for the BBC, Channel 4, RTL and Virgin Media. More recently, Hugh was at Unity, managing the social elements of major campaigns including Shwopping for Marks & Spencer. At 3 Monkeys Zeno, Hugh oversees strategy and planning across online, social and influencer channels for clients including BP Castrol, Novartis and Microsoft.

Charlotte Jay

Charlotte is an experienced and successful senior executive with extensive business development experience, having worked across a variety of industry sectors within the global B2B image market. Well-networked within leading brands across the Retail, Travel & Leisure and Airline sectors. Charlotte recently started Cherry Pigeon bringing over 25 years experience of proven strategic solution focused sales growth, marketing creativity and relationship nurturing to other businesses, with specific focus on brand image through corporate clothing and employee engagement. https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte22jay/ @cherrypigeonuk www.cherrypigeon.com

Roger Gosine

Roger specialises in technology business development & growth, most recently as founder of RMG, an advisory firm helping digital startups and service providers scale through business development, go-to-market and support services. RMG’s clients include global service providers such as GoDaddy and Telenor as well as diverse early stage tech companies including Albert (AI marketing), Beezer (mobile apps) & GMS (cloud). Roger is passionate about helping clients achieve growth by enabling the best possible customer experience and go-to-market execution across an increasingly complex omni-channel customer journey.

Stephen Foreshew-Cain

Stephen Foreshew-Cain was recently appointed COO at ThoughtWorks (UK). ThoughtWorks is a software consultancy comprised of passionate individuals whose purpose is to revolutionize digital service design, creation and delivery, while advocating for positive social change. Stephen started his career in Australia in the early 90’s as an analyst in the mobile telecommunications sector and prior to his recent appointment has held several senior executive roles including Group Digital Director at The Co-operative Group and Executive Director of the Government Digital Service.

Abigail Ireland

Abigail enables high achieving executives and teams to take performance to the next level. She delivers workshops, coaching and consulting solutions on peak performance across 3 dimensions: Business Productivity, Physiology and Psychology. Abi spent over 12 years in banking, private equity and strategy in the London and Sydney markets and has built three businesses, including an online language-learning marketplace. She is the London Ambassador for LMBDW (a network of 80,000 female entrepreneurs worldwide) and she is a Young Enterprise Business Advisor.

Miss Clare Gaba BSc (Hons)

Clare founded specialist marketing consultancy, weflourish in January of this year and has seen it go from strength to strength. weflourish had already gained 2 clients and won a client a top 3 spot in a national 2018 marketing awards before weflourish had been established. Clare is qualified in CIM Marketing Planning/Marketing Management and has 10 years of marketing experience across different industries. She has worked in fashion, charity, HR, gifting and was Communications Manager for international furniture retailer, made.com

Matt Studholme

Matt is General Manager Digital Business Europe at Mindtree. With over 25 years’ experience in customer led change Matt advises leading organizations on how to innovate, evolve and deliver growth through a broad spectrum of customer focus, digital enablement and change management. Matt is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and has led several marketing and technology businesses.

Justin Deaville

Justin is MD at Receptional, a specialist search marketing agency. We are a Google Premium Partner, nominated by Google as one of the top 30 agencies in the UK. Justin regularly delivers keynote speeches at industry events. Receptional frequently win awards - including 'Best Integrated Search Agency' and 'Best Local’ and 'Best Third Sector' campaigns at the 2017 UK Search Awards. We are finalists for ‘Biddable Team of the Year’ and 'Best Organic Search Team' at the Drum Search Awards 2018.

Ash Cripps

A Companion Member of the Institute of Customer Service and both a UK Customer Experience and UK Digital Experience Awards Judge, Ash has worked for the AA for over 7 years. Fired up about CX, change, lean, agile, culture, continual improvement and the innovative use of technology, Ash was most recently responsible for the AA’s Home Services business systems, processes, technology, BI, and led on continual improvement and change. Ash previously had operational leadership responsibility within the Contact and Operations Centre.

Keith Jump

Keith is a leading exponent of Smart Buildings and Smart Destinations, providing thought leadership, technology direction and global partnership strategies. He founded Connect IB over 15 years ago, acquired by Redstone Connect Plc in 2016. Keith has since overseen the technical direction of OneSpace, recognised by Memoori Smart Building Research as one of the Top Six Global Workplace Management Platforms. Keith utilises his technology experience to design innovative solutions for global companies in real-estate, retail & sports destinations and the developing smart cities sector.

Adam Castleton

Adam has dedicated his career to building digital experiences for brands. Whilst a tecchie at heart, Adam believes the increasing presence of technology can distance people from ‘reality’. This can create a challenge for brands to truly connect with customers. In 2012, Adam founded Startle to showcase how technology can be used to create memorable brand experiences through unique music and technology solutions. Startle now works with thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses across the UK, USA and Australia.

Nigel Cates

Nigel is Head of Service Recovery and Complaints for HSBC UK. He joined HSBC in 2015, and previously held a range of senior public sector roles in financial regulation, strategy, policy and enforcement. He was a Senior Ombudsman with the Financial Ombudsman Service, and a Director of the Office of Fair Trading with responsibility for competition and consumer investigations and enforcement. He has also worked on international and cross-border regulatory and policy development with the European Commission and the OECD.

Mas Lavery

Having worked with online retailers, large and small, Mas has honed a true passion for giving users the best possible digital experience no matter what their reason for visiting the site. Mas is currently putting her skills and passion for outstanding customer experiences to good use at easyfundraising, who are delivering exceptional digital products to the affiliate market-place, whilst raising over £20m for good causes.

Amjad Khan

Having delivered award winning programmes during his career, Amjad has been a part of some great businesses including Centrica, British Gas, HMRC, The AA, Lloyds TSB and more recently HSBC. He has a strong background in customer service leadership, learning and development as well as human resources both here in the UK and offshore. He is particularly passionate about delivering exceptional customer experiences through the development and engagement of people and a firm believer that people are the greatest asset to any organisation.

Di Mayze

Di Mayze has recently left her role as MD of Europe at strategic marketing technology consultancy Acceleration to become a contact Consultant. Di is an entrepreneurial brand geek with proven success in finding new solutions and revenue streams in traditional companies, and has 17 years of experience across media, fmcg and retail working at companies such as Boots, dunnhumby and The National Magazine Company. Di holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and is a qualified Project Manager and a Neurolinguistic Programme Practitioner

Christelle Correia

Christelle has been involved in the global Contact Centre industry for over 15 years through her association with Contact Centre Management Group SA and ContactCentreWorld.com and was an industry judge for both associations during 2012/2013. Her progression through the ranks to the current position of Operations Director has exposed Christelle to both customer service strategies and managing the workforce to ensure maximum satisfaction for all involved. She firmly believes that employee engagement is a necessity to meet customer expectations.

Christina Ehlers

Christina has been managing and designing high-performing digital products for 20 years, with a portfolio including international blue chip organisations such as Fidelity Investments, Legal & General and HSBC. She is now Senior UX consultant for SPARCK, the Digital Design Consultancy arm of award-winning IT consultancy BJSS, where she brings her unique combination of UX, Digital Marketing and brand management skills to digital transformation projects at some of the UK’s largest organisations and government departments. She is passionate about creating outstanding customer experiences and exploring the latest digital innovations.

Nick Riggall

Nick has been working in the agency tech space for 15 years representing global brands including Mercedes-Benz, Carlsberg, Xbox and Allianz. Since joining GPJ he's been transforming our digital thinking, processes and our teams to ensure everything we do focuses on client's connecting to tech savvy audiences in meaningful ways. Nick brings a wealth of knowledge and knows exactly what it takes to continually push the boundaries as the Martech landscape evolves. Whether it’s implementing digital channels into campaigns - to create intrigue and excitement - or decoding how we use the latest trends and platforms, Nick remains committed to embracing change.

Lorraine Day

A dynamic results driven customer experience focused leader, with proven capability to succeed and deliver at a strategic, commercial and operational level, across varied sectors over the years – such as BPO, financial services, service, gas, electricity, utilities, TV, retail and more Digital, contact centre, inbound and outbound, webchat, front and back office, creating the right solution to serve your customers – utilizing people, process and technology while adding the right culture mix Stretches the norm while making a difference

Paul Weald

Paul is a consultant and a multi-channel contact centre specialist. Having worked in the industry for 25 years, his experience covers all aspects of people, process, technology, digital operations and customer experience. Since 2007, Paul has been a judge in both the European Contact Centre Awards and for UK Customer Experience Awards. He believes that every organisation can excel in how it serves its customers – how well you deliver customer service is a true differentiator.

Laricea Roman-Halliday

Digital native, been working across all digital channels with a strong focus on brand strategies and activations. My client portfolio includes brands from various verticals such as tech, automotive and travel. Google, Microsoft, Hyundai, BA, Skyteam and Huawei have been some of the biggest international clients I’ve collaborated with on both performance led activities and launch campaigns. I joined TSW 8 months ago, overseeing 6 digital channels and really enjoying the challenges and spoils of working for an independent, different breed of media agency.

Jake Third

Jake is the Sales and Marketing Director of the multi-award winning digital agency, Hallam. Having driven 4-fold revenue growth in as many years, he has helped create digital strategies for over 100 clients, including Saint Gobain, Speedo, and Suzuki. Jake brings a wealth of knowledge in search marketing, sales, and customer experience optimisation. His personal goal is to facilitate individual, agency, and client growth.

Dharmesh Mistry

Dharmesh has worked with Banks for over 30 years with a focus on UX solutions. Starting with green screen apps, then the first rollout of windows applications to branch users in the late 80’s. He rolled out internet banking applications for a number banks in the late 90’s and was involved in delivering the UK’s first mobile bank in 2000. Since then he has worked with AR, VR, Ai and Voice solutions as well as pioneering the first User Experience Platforms (UXP) for banks.

Tom Lawson

Tom is a Principal Consultant at Capgemini, where he leads the Digital Delivery, Innovation and Transformation activity for Capgemini on a Major Government Account. He has over fourteen years’ experience delivering high profile programmes of technology and business change which have addressed a wide range of customer challenges and opportunities. These have required management of diverse stakeholder expectations from developer to board level, creating and working within a variety of sourcing and partnering models, developing talent and high performing teams.

Joseph Bachman

Joseph is a mentor, innovator and proponent for emerging and established companies. Since May 2010, when he co-founded the luxury label Paolita, Joseph has worked with 200+ global brands. His remit with clients is all encompassing – creation and execution of business plans, devising operating budgets, establishing digital marketing, sourcing sales agents and logistics, as well as project management. Regarding digital marketing, Joseph has interviewed as well as conducted due diligence on over 100 agencies worldwide on behalf of his clients.

Lisa Garthside

Lisa joined Confirmit in 2014 with a focus on the whole customer experience. She has a keen experience in the digital customer experience. At Confirmit Lisa has a focus on ensuring we ask the right people the right questions to provide real, usable information. She is committed to working with customers and their employees to harness insight and to drive culture change across the organisation.

Rav Punia

Rav brings a wealth of digital experience from both client and agency side. Delivering digital strategies and complex technical projects for organisations including Motability Operations, Porsche, Vodafone, Rio Tinto and Land Securities. His consultancy, Butterfly, exists to simplify the digital landscape for its clients and they specialise in digital strategy and user experiences for organisations operating in regulated environments. With industry expertise in FinServices, Automotive, Telecommunications, Extractive Industries, and Retail.

Charlotte Childs

Charlotte Childs is a creative brand strategist with 20 years marketing experience. She has worked with some of the World’s best known brands, including Unilever, American Airlines, Ford, Microsoft, Samsung and Bloomberg. Charlotte is fascinated by human behaviour and finds working in the digital environments feeds her curiosity as human understanding underpins true innovation. Charlotte acts as a creative consultant for Onyx Comms, heads up Strategy for UP THERE EVERYWHERE and works with start-ups under her own company All is Well.

Mark Jones

Founder of award-winning digital solutions company supplying Giant Smartphones and Giant Tablets for exhibitions and events, retail, corporate, education, health, banking and gaming clients looking to magnify their brand experience in a simple but extremely effective way. Improved Engagement, Collaboration and Transformation through Digital, Technology, Touchscreen and Mobile Solutions. Global reach supplying interactive technology and solutions to Blue Chip clients around the world with growing global partner network across 5 continents. https://www.giantitab.com/

Dawn McGruer MCIM FRSA MIoD

Dawn is an award winning digital marketing trainer, practitioner, consultant, author and speaker who has become a key influencer in the world of digital over the past 20 years having amassed over 5 million subscribers and a 45,000 strong LinkedIn network. She is the Founder of Business Consort which is accredited by The Chartered Institute of Marketing and was established in 2005. The academy has developed it into a world leading training organisation having trained & certified over 20,000 students to date. She has over 10 commendations from the CIM for outstanding results achieved by her students achieving worldwide recognised qualifications such as the CIM Digital Diploma in Professional Marketing. In addition, she also was shortlisted for the CIM Marketing Excellence Award ‘Marketer of the Year’ earlier this year. Dawn has trained 1000’s or organisations including some of the world’s largest Global brands across most industries and was invited as a lifetime Fellow of the RSA – The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce founded in 1754. This invite comes as recognition of her expertise in the field of social media marketing and her work to raise awareness of the advantages of social media to business owners.

Donna O'Toole

Donna O’Toole is an experienced awards expert who has helped hundreds of household brands, businesses, and leaders to grow their profile through winning prestigious industry awards. As founder of ‘August’ a unique recognition agency that helps business leaders and their companies to raise their profile, Donna has proved her expertise through an outstanding success rate in The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise competition. Donna has now launched a unique digital training platform designed specifically to help small businesses, comms teams, and entrepreneurs to win the awards they enter.

Becky Simms

Becky is a creative digital leader with over 10 years experience in the field. Becky’s agency, Reflect Digital employs 24 team members across design, development, SEO and PPC. Reflect Digital have won a number of awards and Becky has personally been awarded Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the KEIBA awards and runner-up Digital Leader at the Wirehive Awards. Becky often speaks at industry events and regularly works with schools and universities to help promote the digital sector as a career choice.

Clare Cracknell

Clare is a Digital Product Manager at Direct Line Group working with 3 dedicated scrum teams building the Digital Customer Servicing proposition across the Group’s own brands. Clare has a wealth of experience across a number of sectors and from Strategy Development through to Implementation. Clare always works with a passion for delivering a seamless and amazing customer experience. Away from DLG, Clare teaches emotional intelligence using a methodology that sees horses as co-facilitators in the process.

Rebecca Coldicott

Rebecca has a track record of planning and delivering highly effective digital marketing campaigns that transform online presence, increase brand awareness, encourage customer retention, drive business development and maximise return on investment. After establishing her marketing career client-side and working up to Head of Strategy agency-side, Rebecca founded Realise Marketing in 2014 as a digital marketing consultancy. As well as gaining her CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) Professional Diploma, Rebecca is a marketing tutor / lecturer for CIM courses.

Helen Fennell

Helen is co-founder of lens, a customer consultancy dedicated to helping clients to drive customer-led change. Helen’s passion for all things customer began when she started out as a qualitative researcher and this has grown since working across various consultancy roles. Now, as Director at lens, Helen works with brands across various industries, including Financial Services, Travel, Telecoms, Retail, and Utilities. She supports clients to put the customer at the forefront of business decisions through the development of a customer experience strategy, adoption of a customer journey approach, and a focus on connecting customer insight.

Erica Hodgson

A change manager specialising in developing and implementing large-scale organisational transformation, ensuring the change is effectively implemented and sustainable. Demonstrated success in developing strategic approaches and adopting tactical methodologies to deliver effective and sustainable change while cultivating step-change to ways of working and increasing customer satisfaction.

Rod Alderton

I created Alderton Digital in January 2018 following 25 years of permanent employment in the Financial Services industry to use the experience gained to offer IT, Digital, Transformation and Change consultancy services. My career includes CIO roles for Equiniti, RSA, AXA/swiftcover.com and senior roles for Direct Line and Accenture. Digital technology has been a key features of my career having had the opportunity to create and enhance various products such as directline.com, privilege.com, seeboard.co.uk, jamjar.com, swiftcover.com, morethan.com, axainsurance.co.uk and selftrade.co.uk. The journey has spanned working with companies at start-up stage through to large scale corporate environments.

Kelly Whalley

Kelly has spent the last 15 years bringing marketing strategy and digital transformation to the B2B sector, specifically the managed services, manufacturing and construction sectors. She specialises in large global digital estate transformation programmes. Kelly has delivered cross-continent consolidation, platform reengineering and cost efficiencies whilst giving local control and customisations. With a strong strategic marketing and brand background and as a CIM Member, Kelly ensures all digital developments support the ultimate growth of the company and enrichment of the brand.

Larysa Chaplin

Award winning marketer who prior to setting up a unique knowledge portal for best practices in sales and marketing, was an integral part of growing a UK tech start up from £50k per annum to nearly £1m turnover in a five year timeframe. Her personal speciality is in ZBB digital marketing, so utilizing techniques to grow businesses that don’t have a marketing budget, but also has extensive experience in organising events and corporate hospitality.

Rebecca Lawrence

Rebecca Lawrence is a Head-hunter and Specialist Recruitment Consultant at Douglas Jackson. Working at a strategic and senior management level Rebecca places senior executives, Directors, Senior Management and subject matter experts across the Customer and Experience Landscape. Rebecca is involved with sourcing digital and multi-channel skills and is currently helping organisations to shape their customer strategy, drive business and digital transformation and deliver improved customer and employee results, by placing key individuals across their business.

Kin Cheung

With 20 years as an Experience Design professional, Kin Cheung is a firm believer in applying human centred design to deliver result focused outcomes and business transformation. As an Experience Design Principal at Slalom, Kin looks to incorporate data, technology and design thinking to help organisations like BP and PayPal to improve internal IT work practices, push service innovation, and deliver meaningful experiences to users. Kin has worked with a number of organisations including Audi, TUI, Yoox Net-a-Porter, Rolls-Royce, BT and RBS; where he was part of the team that brought Get Cash to retail customers, at the time a much needed innovation in financial services sector.

Paul Hickey

Paul is Director of Digital Solutions at TwentyCi and a digital precision marketing specialist. With 20+ years in advertising, Paul has driven great user experience from helping advertisers connect with customers. Highly experienced in digital data management, programmatic platforms, and agency and publisher business development. A digital expert with experience in management, business strategy, and digital performance management.

Luke Konior

Co-founder of All in Mobile - a digital product agency. Over the last 4 years, he has worked with various enterprise and tech companies from sectors such as sports, fintech, and retail. All in Mobile' s past an current clients include, among many others, Nordic telecom providers, sports associations, and the UK's largest retailers.

Augusto Schmidt

Augusto has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing, gained through a progression from web development, project management, to global SEO and paid campaigns. His working experience is based on companies such as ITV, Telefonica, Inesting and Chubb Insurance. Whilst working on the Agency side, he managed brands like Vileda, Unibank, and Deutsche Bank. At Bitdefender, Augusto acts as Enterprise Worldwide Digital Marketing Manager and oversees the global Search Marketing strategy, from Paid Media campaigns, SEO and Content Syndication.

Helen Evans

Helen has worked at a senior level across digital marketing and ecommerce operations for brands including Honda, Lloyds Banking Group, Premier Farnell, RS Components and Lebara. She’s led in-house global teams of digital marketing specialists driving direct response and brand engagement strategies via ad management platforms, PPC, SEO, Social and Content marketing. Her passion is using data to drive ROI and actionable insight. She has also been actively engaged with the industry as a member of boards for both ISBA and the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Pauline Egan

Pauline is a Strategy and Client Experience consultant, with over 25 years’ experience gained in the financial services sector. Alongside her consultancy work, Pauline currently sits on the boards of Pinsent Masons International LLP and Morley College. In 2017, Pauline rotated off the AIB Group (UK) plc board, where she was their designated “Digital NED”. Pauline’s early career with ABN AMRO brought her from Dublin to Amsterdam. When she later joined the Wealth Management business of Royal Bank of Canada, she worked between the Channel Islands and London. During her 17years at RBC, Pauline variously led their Affluent Business across EMEA, was RBC’s Head of London and latterly was Head of Strategy & Business Management with executive responsibility for Marketing and Communications. Pauline was included in the “Cranfield’s 2015 Women to Watch” list.

Tom Winstanley

Tom leads consulting and innovation within our Digital practice. With almost 20 years of consulting and programme delivery experience on the interface between business, customer experience and technology, alongside his practice management role, Tom remains highly active in consulting engagements helping to enable digital transformation, deliver top and bottom-line business improvements and create outstanding experiences for his clients and their customers. Tom’s experience spans the telecommunications, retail and financial services industries across Europe. In recent years, he has overseen NTT DATA’s UK innovation investment programme, co-creating with clients in the areas of immersive experience, artificial intelligence, automation, data-driven personalisation, complex data visualisation and applications of IoT.

Tom Leigh

Tom has been with the Co-operative Bank for 6 years, working closely with their Executive team to drive the operational and cultural change required to deliver exceptional customer experiences. He is responsible for all aspects of the Bank’s strategic customer agenda including Continuous Improvement, Customer Measurement, Performance Benchmarking and Root Cause Analysis. Through the development of award winning Customer Feedback Strategy’s, Tom has supported The Co-operative Bank’s journey in becoming a leading brand in customer service within the Banking Sector.

Julia Fearn

Julia has worked in the ecommerce and digital marketing space for the last 12 years across multiple industries like fashion, health and beauty, lifestyle, software and consumer electronics. She has worked with global brands like Microsoft, Nokia and Volvo. More recently, Julia has been working for Digital River, a global commerce cloud provider, as Senior Account Director in their client services team, where she is working with blue-chip clients to help them deliver a shopper experience that delivers frictionless conversion and optimum customer retention.

Richard Hallewell

Richard is a serial disrupter and innovator in the Financial Services sector. He is the creator of the Universal Pricing Model for card payments, which determines transaction costs for about 30% of UK card transactions. Richard also designed the highly innovative EU Payment Services Framework. Richard's Optimiser software & sector expertise underpin the business, enabling Local Councils & businesses to improve efficiency, to gain & maintain compliance and to reduce costs.

Christina Liciaga

Entrepreneur turned international finance executive with experience in emerging and mature markets across Asia, Europe, Latin and North America. High Net Worth business development influencer, advising large corporates on people-first post-merger integration opportunities, developing client segmentation strategies, and building and leading the global award-winning wealth proposition, Jade by HSBC Premier. Passionate leader who builds and transforms teams through authenticity and curiosity to embrace innovation, embed change, and deliver commercial growth; translating strategy into reality.