Customer Success Conversations are a series of podcasts hosted by the founder of CustomerSuccessManager.com, Adam Joseph. On each podcast he is joined by Customer Success executives from all levels who give us their views on what it takes to be successful, how to overcome challenge and the trends that will shape Customer Success in the future.
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James Lloyd is the CTO and co-founder of Redox.
Redox is a company that is changing the way healthcare vendors and providers share data.
Prior to Redox, he was an engineer and serial intrapreneur at Epic for five years. He also co-founded 100state, a non-profit co-working space in Madison, Wisc., that serves as a community and home for entrepreneurs. He has a history of creating innovative technical solutions to solve problems.
Redox is a company that is changing the way healthcare vendors and providers share data.
Prior to Redox, he was an engineer and serial intrapreneur at Epic for five years. He also co-founded 100state, a non-profit co-working space in Madison, Wisc., that serves as a community and home for entrepreneurs. He has a history of creating innovative technical solutions to solve problems.
Shreesha Ramdas is the CEO and co-founder of Strikedeck.
Previously, Shreesha was the GM of the Marketing Cloud at CallidusCloud, Co-founder at LeadFormix (acquired by CallidusCloud) & OuterJoin, and General Manager at Yodlee.
Prior to that, Shreesha led teams in Sales and Marketing at Catalytic Software, MW2 Consulting, and Tata. Shreesha advises several startups on marketing & growth hacking. You can find Shreesha on Twitter, @Shreesha.
Previously, Shreesha was the GM of the Marketing Cloud at CallidusCloud, Co-founder at LeadFormix (acquired by CallidusCloud) & OuterJoin, and General Manager at Yodlee.
Prior to that, Shreesha led teams in Sales and Marketing at Catalytic Software, MW2 Consulting, and Tata. Shreesha advises several startups on marketing & growth hacking. You can find Shreesha on Twitter, @Shreesha.
John Kelly is the VP of EMEA at Natero.
John has over 20 years of experience leading international customer operations and sales for technology companies.
Prior to Natero, John spent ten years building Intel's EMEA Customer Quality Operations, and six years leading the growth of EMEA Services at Citrix Systems. He also led worldwide Customer Support Operations at SolarWinds Software before forming CustomerLink, a Sales and Customer Success services company based in Dublin, Ireland. CustomerLink was acquired by Natero in 2019.
John holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from the National University of Ireland, Galway and an MBA from The Open University.
John has over 20 years of experience leading international customer operations and sales for technology companies.
Prior to Natero, John spent ten years building Intel's EMEA Customer Quality Operations, and six years leading the growth of EMEA Services at Citrix Systems. He also led worldwide Customer Support Operations at SolarWinds Software before forming CustomerLink, a Sales and Customer Success services company based in Dublin, Ireland. CustomerLink was acquired by Natero in 2019.
John holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from the National University of Ireland, Galway and an MBA from The Open University.
Elise Meijer is a Senior Customer Success Manager at LinkedIn.
Based in Paris, Elise is a seasoned Customer Success Professional with over 12 years of experience in client focused roles, mainly in the SaaS industry. Elise joined LinkedIn in 2012 when they launched their regional office in France and customer success was still in its early days. She has since then helped building out customer success within LinkedIn France, partnering with key business departments including sales and marketing, and supporting the growth in the region. As a Senior Customer Success Manager she spends her time driving product adoption, expansion and account retention for LinkedIn’s most strategic enterprise segment in France (including major CAC 40 companies).
Passionate about data and insights, Elise has a strong appetite for coaching, growing and nurturing team and talent, and driving group excellence. With a ‘people and customer first approach’ she has an unending drive to improve the customer experience and create customer advocacy and enjoys using her sense of curiosity and creativity to bring ideas to life and focus on strategic thinking and operational excellence.
As a working mother of three Elise has discovered a whole new concept of time management and how to use time and resources efficiently to get things done quickly!
Based in Paris, Elise is a seasoned Customer Success Professional with over 12 years of experience in client focused roles, mainly in the SaaS industry. Elise joined LinkedIn in 2012 when they launched their regional office in France and customer success was still in its early days. She has since then helped building out customer success within LinkedIn France, partnering with key business departments including sales and marketing, and supporting the growth in the region. As a Senior Customer Success Manager she spends her time driving product adoption, expansion and account retention for LinkedIn’s most strategic enterprise segment in France (including major CAC 40 companies).
Passionate about data and insights, Elise has a strong appetite for coaching, growing and nurturing team and talent, and driving group excellence. With a ‘people and customer first approach’ she has an unending drive to improve the customer experience and create customer advocacy and enjoys using her sense of curiosity and creativity to bring ideas to life and focus on strategic thinking and operational excellence.
As a working mother of three Elise has discovered a whole new concept of time management and how to use time and resources efficiently to get things done quickly!
Andy is the Founder and CEO of Taskfeed and is based in London.
Andy is the author of the B2B SaaS Customer Onboarding Handbook and the Founder and CEO of Taskfeed. Andrew has spent the last five years helping Customer Success-oriented businesses get smarter about Customer Onboarding and Implementation through a scalable and repeatable process.
Andy is the author of the B2B SaaS Customer Onboarding Handbook and the Founder and CEO of Taskfeed. Andrew has spent the last five years helping Customer Success-oriented businesses get smarter about Customer Onboarding and Implementation through a scalable and repeatable process.
Laura Conrardy is the Manager of Customer Success & Scaled Programmes at Box.
Based in London, Laura has over 10 years of experience in client facing roles in EMEA from Account Management to pre-sales (including Channel Enablement to Customer Success). Laura is passionate about technology and the way it can transform lives. Over her last 4.5 years at Box, Laura has held Senior Customer Success Manager roles, acting as a strategic partner with some of Box's largest enterprise customers in Europe and managing a portfolio of over $10M. Today, she has a leadership role for the Commercial and Scaled Team and leads a multilingual team looking for scalable ways to drive more value and deeper adoption for a much larger customer base.
Based in London, Laura has over 10 years of experience in client facing roles in EMEA from Account Management to pre-sales (including Channel Enablement to Customer Success). Laura is passionate about technology and the way it can transform lives. Over her last 4.5 years at Box, Laura has held Senior Customer Success Manager roles, acting as a strategic partner with some of Box's largest enterprise customers in Europe and managing a portfolio of over $10M. Today, she has a leadership role for the Commercial and Scaled Team and leads a multilingual team looking for scalable ways to drive more value and deeper adoption for a much larger customer base.
Bob Burke is the Senior Director, Customer First, EMEA at Okta.
He leads the post sales teams focused on driving long-term value for our customers including Education Services, Professional Services, Customer Success, Support and Renewals.
Bob has spent the past 20 years managing global IT operations and started his journey with Okta as a customer. He joined Okta 5 years ago in San Francisco and moved to London in 2015 where he’s been helping to build the EMEA business and grow the CF operation internationally.
As a Californian living in London, he’s learned how to complain about the weather, drink warm beer, redefine the term football, survive without a car, and speak English properly.
He leads the post sales teams focused on driving long-term value for our customers including Education Services, Professional Services, Customer Success, Support and Renewals.
Bob has spent the past 20 years managing global IT operations and started his journey with Okta as a customer. He joined Okta 5 years ago in San Francisco and moved to London in 2015 where he’s been helping to build the EMEA business and grow the CF operation internationally.
As a Californian living in London, he’s learned how to complain about the weather, drink warm beer, redefine the term football, survive without a car, and speak English properly.
Baptiste Debever is the Co-Founder at Feedier.
Baptiste is a French Entrepreneur with a background in Software Engineering. He has a passion for user-centric products and innovative technology as a whole. He is also very keen on understanding what drives the customers’ motivations for new solutions, and how they create a better version of themselves. Although he has a background in Software Engineering with experience in web products, he is now focusing on the marketing and sales side of things at Feedier, with a taste for growth experiments.
Baptiste is a French Entrepreneur with a background in Software Engineering. He has a passion for user-centric products and innovative technology as a whole. He is also very keen on understanding what drives the customers’ motivations for new solutions, and how they create a better version of themselves. Although he has a background in Software Engineering with experience in web products, he is now focusing on the marketing and sales side of things at Feedier, with a taste for growth experiments.
Francis Cordón is the Chief Customer Officer at Rigor.
As Rigor’s Chief Customer Officer, Francis leads the various technical customer-facing teams such as pre-sales engineering, professional services, technical support and ongoing customer management focusing on creating a smooth, positive and valuable customer experience. Francis is absolutely passionate about establishing a results-oriented performance practice and creating an industry-recognised performance maturity scale to help organisations evolve and achieve clearly documented increasing levels of ROI by eliminating outages and improving application performance.
In the past Francis held roles both at Performance Management Software vendors helping Fortune 500 organisations achieve their performance goals, as well as running Performance Architecture and the Application Performance Management practice at The Bank Of New York Mellon end-to-end across the application life cycle from development to production. In his spare time, Francis enjoys travelling with his wife, practising traditional Martial Arts, and playing the guitar.
As Rigor’s Chief Customer Officer, Francis leads the various technical customer-facing teams such as pre-sales engineering, professional services, technical support and ongoing customer management focusing on creating a smooth, positive and valuable customer experience. Francis is absolutely passionate about establishing a results-oriented performance practice and creating an industry-recognised performance maturity scale to help organisations evolve and achieve clearly documented increasing levels of ROI by eliminating outages and improving application performance.
In the past Francis held roles both at Performance Management Software vendors helping Fortune 500 organisations achieve their performance goals, as well as running Performance Architecture and the Application Performance Management practice at The Bank Of New York Mellon end-to-end across the application life cycle from development to production. In his spare time, Francis enjoys travelling with his wife, practising traditional Martial Arts, and playing the guitar.
Barry Cochrane is the Head of Customer Success at ResponseTap.
Barry spent his first year at ResponseTap creating the Customer Success department which includes, Support, Onboarding, Labs and Customer Success Managers.
Barry is a Senior Customer Services/ Operations Managers with a range of experience in management from Complaints, Customer Services, Technical Support and Credit Control people management, a strong leader of people, who has an impressive history of inspiring people to develop and succeed in their careers. Barry has spent 20 years putting his people and customer first and designs and delivers the processes and initiatives with both front and centre.
Barry spent his first year at ResponseTap creating the Customer Success department which includes, Support, Onboarding, Labs and Customer Success Managers.
Barry is a Senior Customer Services/ Operations Managers with a range of experience in management from Complaints, Customer Services, Technical Support and Credit Control people management, a strong leader of people, who has an impressive history of inspiring people to develop and succeed in their careers. Barry has spent 20 years putting his people and customer first and designs and delivers the processes and initiatives with both front and centre.
Jaz Broughton is a Customer Success Manager at Trint.
Joining Trint in June 2018 as the first customer success hire Jaz is focused on ensuring users are informed, empowered and engaged with the platform. A penchant for people and process has culminated in several roles establishing customer success from the ground up and introducing the mission of customer success to those who are more familiar with customer service. She chose the career path to combine skills gained in real estate, life coaching, hospitality and retail making her obsessed with the customer, diversity and non-coding tech roles.
Joining Trint in June 2018 as the first customer success hire Jaz is focused on ensuring users are informed, empowered and engaged with the platform. A penchant for people and process has culminated in several roles establishing customer success from the ground up and introducing the mission of customer success to those who are more familiar with customer service. She chose the career path to combine skills gained in real estate, life coaching, hospitality and retail making her obsessed with the customer, diversity and non-coding tech roles.
Steven Lewandowski is the Director of Global Customer Success at Signavio.
In his leading role as Director Global Customer Success at Signavio, Steven works with companies of all industries to implement change and gain the full potential from their Business Transformation projects and solutions. Steven ensures a long-lasting relationship with Signavio’s biggest clients, supporting them in achieving maximum value from their investments through his experience and expertise. He began his career in IT projects and software engineering then expanded his expertise through business intelligence consultancy before landing at Signavio.
In his leading role as Director Global Customer Success at Signavio, Steven works with companies of all industries to implement change and gain the full potential from their Business Transformation projects and solutions. Steven ensures a long-lasting relationship with Signavio’s biggest clients, supporting them in achieving maximum value from their investments through his experience and expertise. He began his career in IT projects and software engineering then expanded his expertise through business intelligence consultancy before landing at Signavio.
Paul Ferguson is a Partner Success Manager within the Global Customer Success group at Cisco.
Everyone is talking about Customer Success - yet many organisations work around or through their Partners instead of with them. Why would they do that?
Paul Ferguson is part of Cisco’s Customer Experience organisation and helps their partners to exploit the shift to a subscription world by working with them to build their own Customer Success practices. As a qualified Learning Mentor, Paul's passion is coaching and developing others, so the role of helping Cisco Partners get to grips with Customer Success was a natural fit for him when he made the switch nearly 3 years ago.
Everyone is talking about Customer Success - yet many organisations work around or through their Partners instead of with them. Why would they do that?
Paul Ferguson is part of Cisco’s Customer Experience organisation and helps their partners to exploit the shift to a subscription world by working with them to build their own Customer Success practices. As a qualified Learning Mentor, Paul's passion is coaching and developing others, so the role of helping Cisco Partners get to grips with Customer Success was a natural fit for him when he made the switch nearly 3 years ago.
Nathan Hirsch is a serial entrepreneur and expert in remote hiring and eCommerce.
He started his first eCommerce business out of his college dorm room and has sold over $30 million online. He is now the co-founder and CEO of FreeeUp.com, a marketplace that connects businesses with pre-vetted freelancers in eCommerce, digital marketing, and much more. He regularly appears on leading podcasts, such as Entrepreneur on Fire, and speaks at live events about online hiring tactics.
He started his first eCommerce business out of his college dorm room and has sold over $30 million online. He is now the co-founder and CEO of FreeeUp.com, a marketplace that connects businesses with pre-vetted freelancers in eCommerce, digital marketing, and much more. He regularly appears on leading podcasts, such as Entrepreneur on Fire, and speaks at live events about online hiring tactics.
Sue Nabeth Moore is an active member of the Customer Success (CS) movement in Europe.
After a career of partnering client-focused initiatives, she decided to dedicate her passion and energy to evangelising customer success in Europe. She has founded Success Track Enterprise, providing CS consultancy services to European recurring revenue companies. She has co-founded Customer Success Europe, a community which aims to federate CS in Europe and unite professionals via different events. She has also founded the CS meet ups in Paris and in Lisbon where she now lives. She blogs and is a regular speaker at CS events around Europe. She’s a proud mum of 3 sons and in her spare time, she is learning and enjoying everything Portuguese in Lisbon: language, culture, innovation tech scene, cuisine, sailing and wine-tasting.
After a career of partnering client-focused initiatives, she decided to dedicate her passion and energy to evangelising customer success in Europe. She has founded Success Track Enterprise, providing CS consultancy services to European recurring revenue companies. She has co-founded Customer Success Europe, a community which aims to federate CS in Europe and unite professionals via different events. She has also founded the CS meet ups in Paris and in Lisbon where she now lives. She blogs and is a regular speaker at CS events around Europe. She’s a proud mum of 3 sons and in her spare time, she is learning and enjoying everything Portuguese in Lisbon: language, culture, innovation tech scene, cuisine, sailing and wine-tasting.
Leanne Chescoe is a career-long Business to Business marketer currently running Field Marketing for the Demandbase EMEA business.
“Kicking off an ABM strategy in any organisation can seem like a big challenge. However, once you have the roadmap and tools you can see a clear path to an increase in marketing’s contribution to pipeline and revenue".
“Kicking off an ABM strategy in any organisation can seem like a big challenge. However, once you have the roadmap and tools you can see a clear path to an increase in marketing’s contribution to pipeline and revenue".
Perry Monaco leads the Customer Success Organisation in Canada for LinkedIn, as well as a team of CSMs focused on CS activity in a pre-sales function in the USA.
His teams work with talent acquisition departments and companies building social media recruitment strategies while focusing on the end user to manage retention, customer experience, and account growth through customer success planning. Perry was one of the first 4.5 million members of LinkedIn and was previously a recruiter before helping to build the Customer Success practice at LinkedIn. Perry currently resides in the Greater Toronto Area with his wife and three children.
His teams work with talent acquisition departments and companies building social media recruitment strategies while focusing on the end user to manage retention, customer experience, and account growth through customer success planning. Perry was one of the first 4.5 million members of LinkedIn and was previously a recruiter before helping to build the Customer Success practice at LinkedIn. Perry currently resides in the Greater Toronto Area with his wife and three children.
Ben Heavens is the VP/Head of Customer Success at GlobalWebIndex, and having worked there since the inception of Customer Success, has really seen and enabled the team to grow and evolve alongside a rapidly growing business.
Heading up both Customer Success and Support, Ben has a solid understanding of how both proactive and reactive best practice can make a user base successful. Coming from a diverse client-facing background (from world-leading telcos, software companies and start ups) and working with some of the world’s biggest and best known brands gives Ben a great edge in understanding and driving Customer Success in any environment or situation.
Heading up both Customer Success and Support, Ben has a solid understanding of how both proactive and reactive best practice can make a user base successful. Coming from a diverse client-facing background (from world-leading telcos, software companies and start ups) and working with some of the world’s biggest and best known brands gives Ben a great edge in understanding and driving Customer Success in any environment or situation.
Shannon is Global Head of Customer Success for the Financial Times where she leads a team of 27 based out of London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Manilla.
She joined the FT in 2016 from Reed Business Information where she launched Customer Success within their HR strategy product and chaired RBI's data forum. Shannon has 10 years experience in customer success and sales roles and credits her success to an innate sense of curiosity - curiosity about how to make customers succeed, how teams are working (and could work!) and how products add value. When not taking things apart to see how they work she can be found spending time with her daughter, walking the dog and enjoying good South African wine.
She joined the FT in 2016 from Reed Business Information where she launched Customer Success within their HR strategy product and chaired RBI's data forum. Shannon has 10 years experience in customer success and sales roles and credits her success to an innate sense of curiosity - curiosity about how to make customers succeed, how teams are working (and could work!) and how products add value. When not taking things apart to see how they work she can be found spending time with her daughter, walking the dog and enjoying good South African wine.
Jason is the Director of Customer Success at Goodlord, based in London.
He is an established figure in the world of Customer Success and SaaS, with over 20 years experience in technology start-ups, financial services and digital media, working across customer success, account management, support, service delivery and professional services operations, with major global brands and more niche technology startups.
He is an established figure in the world of Customer Success and SaaS, with over 20 years experience in technology start-ups, financial services and digital media, working across customer success, account management, support, service delivery and professional services operations, with major global brands and more niche technology startups.
Laura is the Head of Research at TSIA's Product Management Practice.
Laura is a customer-centric business executive with over 25 years’ experience driving enterprise solution growth via leadership roles in customer success, product management and business operations. Over the course of her career, Laura has lived the XaaS transformation journey at multiple companies and in multiple forms. Past tenures include Good Technology, Salesforce.com, E*TRADE Financial, IBM and a number of early stage companies. Ms. Fay brings her career of experience to her XaaS practice at TSIA. Laura holds a Bachelors in Computer Science (Honors) from Trinity College, Dublin University, Ireland, and an MBA from Santa Clara University, California.
Laura is a customer-centric business executive with over 25 years’ experience driving enterprise solution growth via leadership roles in customer success, product management and business operations. Over the course of her career, Laura has lived the XaaS transformation journey at multiple companies and in multiple forms. Past tenures include Good Technology, Salesforce.com, E*TRADE Financial, IBM and a number of early stage companies. Ms. Fay brings her career of experience to her XaaS practice at TSIA. Laura holds a Bachelors in Computer Science (Honors) from Trinity College, Dublin University, Ireland, and an MBA from Santa Clara University, California.
Jeff Gardner has spent the last 5+ years building Intercom’s Customer Support and Success teams from himself to nearly 100 people across 3 offices and several remote locations worldwide.
As the first customer support hire (and the 4th hire in Intercom), Jeff helped define what customer support at Intercom stands for which included building and managing the hiring processes that were instrumental in growing the team from 1 to ~100. Jeff also built Intercom's first iPhone app and contributed regularly to the codebase both writing new features and fixing bugs. Prior to Intercom, Jeff worked as a software engineer for Bonobo.
As the first customer support hire (and the 4th hire in Intercom), Jeff helped define what customer support at Intercom stands for which included building and managing the hiring processes that were instrumental in growing the team from 1 to ~100. Jeff also built Intercom's first iPhone app and contributed regularly to the codebase both writing new features and fixing bugs. Prior to Intercom, Jeff worked as a software engineer for Bonobo.
Emilie is the Manager of Customer Success at Sana Commerce, a Rotterdam-based eCommerce software company.
She joined the company in March 2017 to help with the development of Sana’s newly created Customer Success team. Prior to this, Emilie lead the EMEA Customer Success team for mobile event app provider, DoubleDutch. Although she had similar roles before she discovered and fell in love with Customer Success in 2013, and has since then tried to share her passion with fellow Customer Success professionals with the creation of a Customer Success community in Amsterdam in 2015 and more recently in Rotterdam.
Follow the link to view Emilie's Pulse Presentation on "How to Align Functions around Onboarding & Training".
She joined the company in March 2017 to help with the development of Sana’s newly created Customer Success team. Prior to this, Emilie lead the EMEA Customer Success team for mobile event app provider, DoubleDutch. Although she had similar roles before she discovered and fell in love with Customer Success in 2013, and has since then tried to share her passion with fellow Customer Success professionals with the creation of a Customer Success community in Amsterdam in 2015 and more recently in Rotterdam.
Follow the link to view Emilie's Pulse Presentation on "How to Align Functions around Onboarding & Training".
Katy Bately is a Customer Success evangelist; currently Global Head of Success at Avecto but also shares her thoughts and experiences with the Customer Success network.
Her years spent working alongside customers to ensure that they successfully adopt, implement and obtain the original benefits sought from security solutions means that she is an experienced voice on every aspect of the customer journey. Katy has been with Avecto 7 years and has built their Global Customer Success department from the ground up.
Her years spent working alongside customers to ensure that they successfully adopt, implement and obtain the original benefits sought from security solutions means that she is an experienced voice on every aspect of the customer journey. Katy has been with Avecto 7 years and has built their Global Customer Success department from the ground up.
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Jan Schlosser is a Customer Success activist living in Switzerland and helping organisations to build their own Customer Success practices in Europe and the Middle East with his Customer Success Enablement (CSE) consultancy.
Before he started his firm as an entrepreneur a year ago, he pioneered the Customer Success project in Cisco with hiring the first Customer Success Managers that the company had employed globally about six years ago and led the fast growing and successful EMEAR (Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Russia) part of Cisco’s Customer Success organization as Director of Customer Success EMEAR.
In 2017 he trademarked his “Customer Success VIM framework” and made it available to accelerate time-to-success for his clients and customers to make “Customer Success” work in practice, fast, and with measurable results. Jan is a public speaker at conferences, is actively engaging with his human network, practices as an active coach, and strongly believes in the value of the human touch in Customer Success to connect people and cultures to generate business outcomes through trusted relationships and culture-aligned scalable processes. Jan holds an Executive MBA from the Robert H. Smith School at the University of Maryland and an equivalent of a Masters (Dipl-Ing.) in Electronics and Informatics from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.
Before he started his firm as an entrepreneur a year ago, he pioneered the Customer Success project in Cisco with hiring the first Customer Success Managers that the company had employed globally about six years ago and led the fast growing and successful EMEAR (Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Russia) part of Cisco’s Customer Success organization as Director of Customer Success EMEAR.
In 2017 he trademarked his “Customer Success VIM framework” and made it available to accelerate time-to-success for his clients and customers to make “Customer Success” work in practice, fast, and with measurable results. Jan is a public speaker at conferences, is actively engaging with his human network, practices as an active coach, and strongly believes in the value of the human touch in Customer Success to connect people and cultures to generate business outcomes through trusted relationships and culture-aligned scalable processes. Jan holds an Executive MBA from the Robert H. Smith School at the University of Maryland and an equivalent of a Masters (Dipl-Ing.) in Electronics and Informatics from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.
Alan Armstrong is founder and CEO of Eigenworks, a boutique strategy and research firm that services B2B software companies ranging from series-B startups through large public companies. Eigenworks currently employs 10 people and has demonstrated 35% CAGR for the past 5 years. Eigenworks clients include industry giants such as Oracle and Cisco, mid-size companies such as Blackbaud and ReturnPath, and rocket-ship startups including Gainsight and VictorOps.
Alan is a regular contributor of articles and expertise to industry publications including Pragmatic Marketing, Gainsight's Pulse series, and the popular blog OnProductManagement, of which Alan is a co-founder. Alan speaks regularly at industry events, including Pulse (San Francisco 2015, 2016, 2017), TSIA (Las Vegas 2016), Strategy & Competitive Intelligence Professionals (Atlanta 2017), and Product Marketing Community (Toronto & San Francisco 2016, Boston 2017).
Prior to founding Eigenworks, Alan held senior director and vice president roles in three startups and participated in three successful exits including Fortiva (to Proofpoint, 2008), Wily Technology ($400M to CA in 2006), and Canada's largest self-funded exit of Sitraka to Quest Software, where Alan was Director of New Products and Innovation. Alan's experience includes Vice President-level positions covering Product Management, Business Development, and Sales.
Alan is a regular contributor of articles and expertise to industry publications including Pragmatic Marketing, Gainsight's Pulse series, and the popular blog OnProductManagement, of which Alan is a co-founder. Alan speaks regularly at industry events, including Pulse (San Francisco 2015, 2016, 2017), TSIA (Las Vegas 2016), Strategy & Competitive Intelligence Professionals (Atlanta 2017), and Product Marketing Community (Toronto & San Francisco 2016, Boston 2017).
Prior to founding Eigenworks, Alan held senior director and vice president roles in three startups and participated in three successful exits including Fortiva (to Proofpoint, 2008), Wily Technology ($400M to CA in 2006), and Canada's largest self-funded exit of Sitraka to Quest Software, where Alan was Director of New Products and Innovation. Alan's experience includes Vice President-level positions covering Product Management, Business Development, and Sales.
Russell Gray started his professional career as a litigation attorney. He was drawn to the practice of law to fulfil a desire to help people solve their problems. After a few years, Russell left the practice of law to consult with large law firms on software solutions for LexisNexis. In this position, Russell played a crucial role in helping attorneys utilise technology to streamline their practice and manage their e-discovery needs. As the practice of law moved into the digital age, Russell played a crucial role in educating his customers in how to use litigation solutions to manage and grow a successful practice.
In 2016, with almost a decade of experience helping customers achieve their business goals through the use of technology, Russell transitioned this expertise to build a team of Customer Success Managers at LogicMonitor, a SaaS-based IT performance monitoring solution. At LogicMonitor Russell built a Customer Success program focused on helping customers achieve their business goals and eliminating the frustrations that come with adopting new technology.
Russell lives in Santa Barbara, California with his wife (a SaaS sales leader), two boys and a German Shepherd named Oliver.
In 2016, with almost a decade of experience helping customers achieve their business goals through the use of technology, Russell transitioned this expertise to build a team of Customer Success Managers at LogicMonitor, a SaaS-based IT performance monitoring solution. At LogicMonitor Russell built a Customer Success program focused on helping customers achieve their business goals and eliminating the frustrations that come with adopting new technology.
Russell lives in Santa Barbara, California with his wife (a SaaS sales leader), two boys and a German Shepherd named Oliver.
Dan Steinman is the General Manager of Gainsight EMEA and, and is based out of London, UK. He leads Gainsight's regional growth initiatives from the company’s regional headquarters located in London and helps Gainsight's European customers successfully understand and adopt Customer Success technology. Previously, Dan held the position of Chief Customer Officer, where his ultimate responsibility was the satisfaction and success of Gainsight's customer base.
Customers are his passion - going all the way back to his days as an SE at IBM. Dan's career includes being a very early employee at Epiphany, Co-Founder at NearbyNow, and VP of Customer Success at both Mozes and Marketo before joining Gainsight.
Dan is a recognised expert and thought leader in the Customer Success field and brings that thought leadership into execution at Gainsight both with the Customer Success organisation and with our products. Dan recently co-authored the best-selling book "Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue".
Customers are his passion - going all the way back to his days as an SE at IBM. Dan's career includes being a very early employee at Epiphany, Co-Founder at NearbyNow, and VP of Customer Success at both Mozes and Marketo before joining Gainsight.
Dan is a recognised expert and thought leader in the Customer Success field and brings that thought leadership into execution at Gainsight both with the Customer Success organisation and with our products. Dan recently co-authored the best-selling book "Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue".
With over 15 years of Customer Success experience, Customer Success truly runs through Marc Sason’s veins. A San Francisco Bay Area Native, Marc’s professional background includes 15 years of Client Services and Engagement in many different industries, including corporate training/consulting, audio and web conferencing, and targeted marketing (both digital and direct-mail).
He is currently a Customer Success Manager at CoSo Cloud (formerly ConnectSolutions), a managed service provider and strategic partner for Adobe Connect, where he works with large US Federal Government accounts on their training and virtual meeting initiatives.
Previously, he helped create and implement the Customer Success team at Sitecore (which specialises in Content Management and Customer Experience/Predictive Marketing Analytics software), where he worked to implement processes, workflows, and success metrics to ensure their 1800 North American clients were successful with their current implementations (and also reduced churn by over 12% and increased up-sells and cross-sells within the customer base by over half a million dollars!). Also, for the past two years, he has been a Customer Success advisor and consultant with The Luft Group (based in New York) and Tenbound (based in San Francisco), working with several clients on Customer Success best practices and helping them to create Customer Success and Lead Development teams within their organisation.
When not fostering long-term customer relationships, Marc is a huge James Bond fan, enjoys running, swimming, fitness classes (especially OrangeTheory and SoulCycle), wine tasting & chasing after his 7-year-old daughter Chloe! You can find Marc on LinkedIn and Twitter (@jamesbond7377).
He is currently a Customer Success Manager at CoSo Cloud (formerly ConnectSolutions), a managed service provider and strategic partner for Adobe Connect, where he works with large US Federal Government accounts on their training and virtual meeting initiatives.
Previously, he helped create and implement the Customer Success team at Sitecore (which specialises in Content Management and Customer Experience/Predictive Marketing Analytics software), where he worked to implement processes, workflows, and success metrics to ensure their 1800 North American clients were successful with their current implementations (and also reduced churn by over 12% and increased up-sells and cross-sells within the customer base by over half a million dollars!). Also, for the past two years, he has been a Customer Success advisor and consultant with The Luft Group (based in New York) and Tenbound (based in San Francisco), working with several clients on Customer Success best practices and helping them to create Customer Success and Lead Development teams within their organisation.
When not fostering long-term customer relationships, Marc is a huge James Bond fan, enjoys running, swimming, fitness classes (especially OrangeTheory and SoulCycle), wine tasting & chasing after his 7-year-old daughter Chloe! You can find Marc on LinkedIn and Twitter (@jamesbond7377).
Lauren Denault is the VP of Customer Success at Skupos and is based in San Francisco where she helps her customers in the convenience retail industry streamline their ordering and operations.
Previously Lauren was the Senior Manager of Customer Success at Demandforce where she was responsible for retention, health, and product adoption across 25,000 small business accounts through one-to-many interactions with a CSM as well as automated marketing based on usage and health metrics. Lauren created a team that surged to 65 employees to increase billable retention by 6% and Net Promoter by 22 points and developed a new Customer on-boarding program responsible for a 5% lift in trial retention.
Previously Lauren was the Senior Manager of Customer Success at Demandforce where she was responsible for retention, health, and product adoption across 25,000 small business accounts through one-to-many interactions with a CSM as well as automated marketing based on usage and health metrics. Lauren created a team that surged to 65 employees to increase billable retention by 6% and Net Promoter by 22 points and developed a new Customer on-boarding program responsible for a 5% lift in trial retention.
Jeff is an innovative Customer Success Executive whose current role is Pre-sale Practice Lead for SaaS Deployments at ServiceSource International. During his tenure Jeff has worked over 100 client engagements helping SaaS, Hardware, Software, and Healthcare clients build and deploy top notch Customer Success practices.
Driving excellence throughout Customer Success organisations has been a centrepiece of Jeff’s career. As one of the first members of the ServiceSource International’s management team, Jeff built the Customer Success practice from the ground up. His customer-first focus and codified Customer Success best practices ensures that every engagement meets both internal benchmarks and external expectations. Jeff is also writing a series of articles based on the 6 Pillars of Customer Success he developed.
Driving excellence throughout Customer Success organisations has been a centrepiece of Jeff’s career. As one of the first members of the ServiceSource International’s management team, Jeff built the Customer Success practice from the ground up. His customer-first focus and codified Customer Success best practices ensures that every engagement meets both internal benchmarks and external expectations. Jeff is also writing a series of articles based on the 6 Pillars of Customer Success he developed.
Gerard Dunne is the co-founder of the Customer Success Network, which was set up in June 2017 with the aim of developing Customer Success as a profession and provide an outlet for people to meet and share ideas, experiences and knowledge.
Prior to setting up the Customer Success Network, Gerard worked as the Engagement Director at OpenLink Financial where he operated as a senior member of their Professional Service / Customer Success team in EMEA. Gerard supported the client engagement life cycle from a Professional Services perspective, ensuring a successful delivery of business outcomes for trading houses, both established and new initiatives, and major tier one organisations where trading is a key function of their operation.
Previously to his role at OpenLink, Gerard was based "down under" in Australia in a number of senior customer-facing roles at companies such as Elite International, QGC and Origin Energy.
Prior to setting up the Customer Success Network, Gerard worked as the Engagement Director at OpenLink Financial where he operated as a senior member of their Professional Service / Customer Success team in EMEA. Gerard supported the client engagement life cycle from a Professional Services perspective, ensuring a successful delivery of business outcomes for trading houses, both established and new initiatives, and major tier one organisations where trading is a key function of their operation.
Previously to his role at OpenLink, Gerard was based "down under" in Australia in a number of senior customer-facing roles at companies such as Elite International, QGC and Origin Energy.
Raman Bindra is a Customer Success Manager at Sentieo who has 7+ years of extensive Customer Success and Account Management Experience in Indian and global markets.
Raman has worked with some premium clients throughout his career (e.g. Dell, Jabra, WMG, Microsoft, Wargaming) to help them achieve success using SaaS solutions. Currently as part of the Customer Success (India) Team at Sentieo, Raman is laying down the foundations of building and maintaining long-lasting professional relationships with his clients.
A strong believer of Customer Advocacy and making sure that the standards for Customer Delight Factor are always high, Raman is a highly driven individual who finds passion in collaboration and delivering positive results. He believes in utilising strong analytical skills to look over any critical customer service issue and also, chalk out a Customer Journey roadmap which involves on-boarding and adoption and ensuring that revenue is maximised and all customer expectations are exceeded. As Raman correctly points out, "At the end it’s not the Satisfied or Happy customer we want, WE SHOULD STRIVE FOR DELIGHTED CUSTOMERS".
Raman has worked with some premium clients throughout his career (e.g. Dell, Jabra, WMG, Microsoft, Wargaming) to help them achieve success using SaaS solutions. Currently as part of the Customer Success (India) Team at Sentieo, Raman is laying down the foundations of building and maintaining long-lasting professional relationships with his clients.
A strong believer of Customer Advocacy and making sure that the standards for Customer Delight Factor are always high, Raman is a highly driven individual who finds passion in collaboration and delivering positive results. He believes in utilising strong analytical skills to look over any critical customer service issue and also, chalk out a Customer Journey roadmap which involves on-boarding and adoption and ensuring that revenue is maximised and all customer expectations are exceeded. As Raman correctly points out, "At the end it’s not the Satisfied or Happy customer we want, WE SHOULD STRIVE FOR DELIGHTED CUSTOMERS".
Gerry Sweeney is the founder, CEO and CTO of Hornbill and has revolutionised his business by putting Customer Success at the heart of everything they do.
Gerry set up Hornbill in 1995 as he felt that the helpdesk market needed a new and innovative tool to enable IT service management success. Today, more than 30,000 analysts at thousands of public and private sector organisations use Hornbill's service management solutions every day with the aim of helping people at work communicate and share information across business, geographical and cultural boundaries while simplifying the process of getting things at work done.
Building on the success of their service management solutions, Hornbill have developed and brought to market its next generation products delivering collaborative applications that are modern, simple, intuitive and easy to use, expanding its portfolio of products and solutions to meet a broader range of business needs.
In this podcast Gerry discusses how he fundamentally changed Hornbill's business models so that it is centred around a Customer Success framework and as a result, has seen some fantastic returns in both client satisfaction and commercial growth. You should also check out Hornbill's fantastic blogging platform and to find out more about Gerry, you can check out his LinkedIn profile.
Gerry set up Hornbill in 1995 as he felt that the helpdesk market needed a new and innovative tool to enable IT service management success. Today, more than 30,000 analysts at thousands of public and private sector organisations use Hornbill's service management solutions every day with the aim of helping people at work communicate and share information across business, geographical and cultural boundaries while simplifying the process of getting things at work done.
Building on the success of their service management solutions, Hornbill have developed and brought to market its next generation products delivering collaborative applications that are modern, simple, intuitive and easy to use, expanding its portfolio of products and solutions to meet a broader range of business needs.
In this podcast Gerry discusses how he fundamentally changed Hornbill's business models so that it is centred around a Customer Success framework and as a result, has seen some fantastic returns in both client satisfaction and commercial growth. You should also check out Hornbill's fantastic blogging platform and to find out more about Gerry, you can check out his LinkedIn profile.
Stuart Pocock is a Director at Kompass UK (a leading business intelligence firm) and has spent his career in customer facing roles within the B2B environment.
Stuart has had an illustrious career within the business information world, working at senior level positions at such organisations as Dun & Bradstreet, Perfect Information, OneSource, WoltersKluwer and Graydon. From working with Stuart, I can personally vouch that he is the consummate professional and always puts the customer at the heart of whatever he does to ensure that they get maximum value and return on investment.
In this podcast, Stuart shares his thoughts about the importance of working with customers in the right way and how he has implemented this same ideology at Kompass. This encompasses the entire customer journey, from pre-sale (i.e. selling to the right customer) all the way through to ensuring a successful renewal and identifying up-sell opportunities along the way.
Stuart has had an illustrious career within the business information world, working at senior level positions at such organisations as Dun & Bradstreet, Perfect Information, OneSource, WoltersKluwer and Graydon. From working with Stuart, I can personally vouch that he is the consummate professional and always puts the customer at the heart of whatever he does to ensure that they get maximum value and return on investment.
In this podcast, Stuart shares his thoughts about the importance of working with customers in the right way and how he has implemented this same ideology at Kompass. This encompasses the entire customer journey, from pre-sale (i.e. selling to the right customer) all the way through to ensuring a successful renewal and identifying up-sell opportunities along the way.
Leanne Spencer is an award-winning entrepreneur and founder of Bodyshot Performance.
Leanne is a popular and engaging speaker, and recently delivered her first TEDx talk on 'Why fitness is more important than weight'. Leanne is the author of the bestselling books 'Remove the Guesswork: the highly personalised approach to health, fitness and nutrition that puts you first' and 'Rise and Shine: Recover from burnout and get back to your best'. She is one of the leading authorities on using exercise, biohacks and lifestyle interventions to recover from chronic stress and burnout, and frequently delivers workshops to companies and corporates on how to promote employee wellbeing in innovative and exciting ways.
Prior to setting up Bodyshot Performance, Leanne had a career in sales spanning 17 years, and in that time has worked for several large corporate and financial services companies based in the City of London. She has managed some of her company’s largest customers, and closed deals worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. In both her previous corporate dealings and now as a fitness entrepreneur, Leanne has demonstrated that having an effective customer journey (whether corporate or direct to consumer) is vital in making sure that her customers are successful and keep coming back for more.
Leanne is a popular and engaging speaker, and recently delivered her first TEDx talk on 'Why fitness is more important than weight'. Leanne is the author of the bestselling books 'Remove the Guesswork: the highly personalised approach to health, fitness and nutrition that puts you first' and 'Rise and Shine: Recover from burnout and get back to your best'. She is one of the leading authorities on using exercise, biohacks and lifestyle interventions to recover from chronic stress and burnout, and frequently delivers workshops to companies and corporates on how to promote employee wellbeing in innovative and exciting ways.
Prior to setting up Bodyshot Performance, Leanne had a career in sales spanning 17 years, and in that time has worked for several large corporate and financial services companies based in the City of London. She has managed some of her company’s largest customers, and closed deals worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. In both her previous corporate dealings and now as a fitness entrepreneur, Leanne has demonstrated that having an effective customer journey (whether corporate or direct to consumer) is vital in making sure that her customers are successful and keep coming back for more.
Steve Willmott is a Customer Success Manager at Dun & Bradstreet.
Steve has over 30 years experience in customer service delivery and management roles, starting out in the tourism industry with Cosmos and the London Tourist Board before moving into the corporate business information sector, working in customer support and training with Lexis Nexis before moving into service management and leadership roles at Butterworths, OneSource Information Services and Thomson Reuters.
Steve has a lifelong passion for and commitment to customer service excellence and has gained significant insight into how and why businesses succeed or fail in winning customer trust and loyalty. Success is about truly becoming a trusted advisor to your customer, valuing your customer, truly understanding your customer and adding tangible value to their business. We all experience the world as customers ourselves through many relationships with suppliers and service providers and it never ceases to amaze Steve how poor many of these experiences are, particularly as a long suffering commuter on Southern Rail. Ultimately whether you care or not about your customer's experience and success will be exposed. Care, empathy and respect for a customer who pays your wages and are the only reason you have a business are critical. Provide Steve with bad service at your peril, because they will be used for training purposes and you will be named and shamed!
Steve has over 30 years experience in customer service delivery and management roles, starting out in the tourism industry with Cosmos and the London Tourist Board before moving into the corporate business information sector, working in customer support and training with Lexis Nexis before moving into service management and leadership roles at Butterworths, OneSource Information Services and Thomson Reuters.
Steve has a lifelong passion for and commitment to customer service excellence and has gained significant insight into how and why businesses succeed or fail in winning customer trust and loyalty. Success is about truly becoming a trusted advisor to your customer, valuing your customer, truly understanding your customer and adding tangible value to their business. We all experience the world as customers ourselves through many relationships with suppliers and service providers and it never ceases to amaze Steve how poor many of these experiences are, particularly as a long suffering commuter on Southern Rail. Ultimately whether you care or not about your customer's experience and success will be exposed. Care, empathy and respect for a customer who pays your wages and are the only reason you have a business are critical. Provide Steve with bad service at your peril, because they will be used for training purposes and you will be named and shamed!
Matt Myszkowski is the Head of Customer Success at Rant & Rave. Prior to this Matt managed the EMEA & APAC Customer Success Team at Autodesk for 4 years and has been in Customer Success and Account Management leadership roles for nearly 10 years in the SAAS and technology space.
Rant & Rave provides customer engagement solutions with a difference. Created with the belief that fundamentally brands and consumers want the same thing – to deliver and receive great service – half of the FTSE rely on the Rant & Rave platform to proactively communicate with and gather fast feedback from their customers. By reducing customer effort and taking real-time inspired action, brands are able to transform Ranters into Ravers and happy customers into engaged Ravers – lifelong advocates.
Matt’s early career was spent in the photographic and digital imaging space with companies like Kodak in Account Management roles before moving into the business information sector with companies such as Complinet (later acquired by Thomson Reuters) and OneSource Information Services (later renamed as Avention before being acquired by Dun & Bradstreet) in a variety of support and account management roles. Before joining Autodesk Matt managed the Corporate Account Management Team at Iron Mountain an information management provider.
Matt is obsessed with the role Customer Success plays in SAAS companies and will often be seen ranting and raving via his blog and social media accounts on Twitter: @MattMyszkowski, LinkedIn and his own Blog.
Rant & Rave provides customer engagement solutions with a difference. Created with the belief that fundamentally brands and consumers want the same thing – to deliver and receive great service – half of the FTSE rely on the Rant & Rave platform to proactively communicate with and gather fast feedback from their customers. By reducing customer effort and taking real-time inspired action, brands are able to transform Ranters into Ravers and happy customers into engaged Ravers – lifelong advocates.
Matt’s early career was spent in the photographic and digital imaging space with companies like Kodak in Account Management roles before moving into the business information sector with companies such as Complinet (later acquired by Thomson Reuters) and OneSource Information Services (later renamed as Avention before being acquired by Dun & Bradstreet) in a variety of support and account management roles. Before joining Autodesk Matt managed the Corporate Account Management Team at Iron Mountain an information management provider.
Matt is obsessed with the role Customer Success plays in SAAS companies and will often be seen ranting and raving via his blog and social media accounts on Twitter: @MattMyszkowski, LinkedIn and his own Blog.
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