Jerry Adriano is responsible for dramatically improving the customer lifecycle experience so that customers choose to stay with Sprint.

Prior to assuming this role, Adriano was VP of Merger Integration responsible for synergy projects and integration activity for Sprint’s Consumer business unit. Adriano joined Sprint in 1992 and has served in a variety of roles in Finance, Sales, and Product Management.

Adriano received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his MBA from Columbia University. He resides in Leawood, Kansas with his wife and four children.

 

As Vice President, Customer Experience and Loyalty Research, Randy is responsible for Maritz Research’s point of view on customer experience and loyalty measurement and linkage strategies.

Prior to joining Maritz, Randy was Senior Vice President and Practice Leader for both customer loyalty & relationship management and linkage & integrations services Burke, Inc.  He has assisted more than 100 manufacturing and service firms in Australia, Canada, Korea, Europe, Mexico, and the United States in designing and implementing approaches to (a) customer loyalty and relationship management; (b) strategic performance measurement and management, and (c) development of comprehensive and integrated decision support.

Randy was a member of the Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from 1993-95, and served on the Alumni Board of Examiners for the Baldrige Award from 1999-2000. He has made over 200 presentations at national and international conferences since 1988, and has published articles in a variety of academic and professional journals. Randy is a member of Maritz’s Research Leadership Council, and works with sector and marketing science experts in the company to formulate and document our point of view on customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and employee engagement research.  In addition, he works very closely with other Maritz business units to help our clients utilize the full range of Maritz products and services to achieve their key business goals.

Dr. Brandt holds a B.S. from Purdue University, an M.A. from Indiana University, and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University.  He is a member of the American Marketing Association, and American Society for Quality, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Location: Fenton, St. Louis, Missouri, HQ.

 

As Vice President of Customer Care for Time Warner Cable’s New York City Region, Imani Breaker is responsible for a staff of 700+ employees serving 1.4 million customers. 

Ms. Breaker’s extraordinary career includes more than 15 years of experience with three major cable operators: Media One, Comcast and presently, Time Warner Cable. Before joining Time Warner Cable in New York City, she served as Customer Care Director for the company’s West Region where she managed contact centers for Care, Sales and Retention with 500+ employees serving 570K customers.  Prior to that, she managed Comcast’s mid-size Maryland based unit and rose to oversee their Hollywood, California operation, a call center responsible for twice the customer base.

Since being named to her current position in 2009, Ms. Breaker has helped drive regionalization for the NYC Region call centers by streamlining department processes and procedures.  Over the last year, she has led the team’s performance to a more customer-centric view and focused on the development of leaders in the department to help build a better organization.

Ms. Breaker received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Southern Illinois University. She is a member of NAMIC and WICT.

 

Ilya Bukshteyn is a senior director in the Speech group at Microsoft Corporation. His team is responsible for product management, product marketing and partner alliances for Microsoft’s speech technologies, which include the Tellme IVR service and the Tellme speech technologies integrated into Microsoft products such as Windows Phone 7, Xbox Kinect (formally Project NATAL), and Exchange Server 2010.

Ilya has been with Microsoft since 1994, originally joining Microsoft Canada as a senior consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services, and later moving to Microsoft’s corporate campus in Redmond as a lead program manager within the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) group. In 2000, Ilya was a group program manager with the .NET Developer Solutions Group at Microsoft, managing a team responsible for delivering technical expertise and architectural guidance to Microsoft’s corporate customers. He then worked as the director of communications for SQL Server, managing press and analyst relations, advertising, web presence and customer evidence.  Ilya most recently worked as the senior director in the Windows Embedded Marketing Group at Microsoft Corp. His team was responsible for product management, product marketing and partner alliances for the Windows Embedded CE, Windows Embedded Standard, Windows Embedded Server, Windows Embedded Enterprise, Windows Embedded POSReady, Windows Embedded NavReady and Windows Embedded Automotive product lines.

 

As an example of its strong commitment toward achieving world-class customer service, ADT Security Services, Inc., appointed Georgia Eddleman to the newly-created position of Vice President, Customer Care in December 2008.

Eddleman reports directly to ADT Group Vice President Shawn Lucht and leads all account service functions for ADT.  She also manages eight Customer Care centers across North America, which handled over 34 million alarm signals and 24 million customer calls last year.

Eddleman brings to the position more than 25 years of customer service experience that help ensure ADT’s over six million commercial, government and residential customers receive the highest levels of service.

Prior to joining ADT, Eddleman was Chief Operating Officer of Ameribridge Health Plan at Amerigroup, a $4 billion health care company.  She also held various roles of increasing responsibility at Medco Health, the nation’s largest prescription benefits manager, ultimately serving as Vice President, General Manager, Medicare Operations. During her tenure, Eddleman helped Medco Health achieve client satisfaction ratings above 90 percent.  She has also held several executive customer care positions at Home Shopping Network and Progressive Insurance.

Eddleman holds a Master of Business Administration in marketing and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of South Florida.  She is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

 

Ms. Emmons is responsible for executing customer strategy, increasing customer loyalty, and ensuring a customer-centric culture. Ms. Emmons has over 25 years in managing customer-facing, customer service, and customer experience organizations. Most recently Ms. Emmons was VP, Worldwide Customer Experience and Operations for Autodesk. There she achieved a 50% year-over-year customer satisfaction increase and was instrumental in executing the support and deployment strategies to facilitate Autodesk’s growth in revenue from $800M to $1.85B over the past 5 years. She has held executive roles at Autodesk, Adobe, and Bertelsmann in customer operations and customer support. Ms. Emmons is the former Board Chair of the Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation and the current Vice Chair of its Advisory Board. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from York College of Pennsylvania.

 

Paul Everett first began working with Ceridian in 1994 and has led customer support teams in both local and regional offices. Paul is a gifted communicator with a record of improving employee morale and productivity resulting in improved operational efficiency and greater customer satisfaction. In 2007, Paul assumed responsibility as the overall leader of Customer Care and he began a concerted campaign to overhaul both the way Ceridian conducted its customer support and the metrics surrounding its measurement. By listening to Ceridian‘s customers, Paul‘s team continues to improve Ceridian‘s outstanding level of service.

 

Steve Hain joined Weight Watchers in August 2009 as the Vice President of Member Care. In his role he is responsible for supporting all member sales and customer care issues for the hundreds of thousands of members that utilize Weight Watcher services on a weekly basis. Since Steve joined Weight Watchers, the customer care team has increased their sales performance by 50% while also improving member satisfaction.

Prior to joining Weight Watchers, Steve was responsible for a 3,000 agent technical support organization for Sprint where he spent 12 years in a variety of roles including Sales, Product Development and multiple Customer Care leadership roles.

Steve holds a masters degree in business from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Kansas.

 

A highly regarded and experienced leader in customer care and operations for more than 26 years, Rob Solomon was appointed Executive Vice President of Operations at HSN in October 2009. In this role, Rob oversees all areas of Sales & Service, Fulfillment, IT, Quality and Supply Chain Operations for the multichannel retailer.

Rob joined the Company as Senior Vice President of Customer Care in December of 2003 and is credited for raising customer service levels to best-in-class status for the millions of viewers who watch and shop on HSN TV and hsn.com. Under his leadership, HSN established new standards in the industry for a flexible workforce through its innovative Work at Home program, which eliminated HSN’s need for offshore call centers and greatly improved the overall customer experience.

Prior to joining HSN, Mr. Solomon worked at Ticketmaster, an operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, most recently serving as Executive Vice President of Contact Centers and Retail Locations. In this role, he was responsible for the successful integration of call center operations for TicketMaster’s diverse array of businesses including Ticketmaster-ticketing, Match.com, Reserve America, Vista and Ticketweb.

Before being appointed Executive Vice President in 2000, Mr. Solomon was Ticketmaster’s Vice President of Call Center Operations, where he was responsible for 13 U.S. call centers with over 3,000 teleservice representatives. Additionally, he oversaw the development and design of two new revenue-generating teleservice centers.

Mr. Solomon has also held senior positions with Electronic Processing Source and Continental Guest Services in New York. A native of New York, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science Management degree from Pepperdine University

 

 

Vicky Stennes is Vice President, Inflight Experience at JetBlue Airways based in New York City. Vicky is responsible for in-flight service throughout the airline’s system, with the primary goal of maintaining the highest level of customer service standards while delivering the JetBlue experience at altitude. An industry veteran with over 35 years of aviation experience, she has a passion for serving crewmembers who serve customers. JetBlue is the proud recipient of the JD Powers and Associate Award for 2005 through 2010 – achieving the highest satisfaction ranking for Inflight Service among all North American carriers.

Vicky and her family reside in the New York area. She participates in a variety of community activities, and has also served on several aviation industry boards and organizations including her current role as President of the International Inflight Association.

JetBlue Airways is a low-fare, high-value airline, based in New York City, with operations to 65 cities. JetBlue customers enjoy comfy all-leather seats with plenty of legroom, unlimited brand name snacks and soft drinks, and superior service on every flight. For information or reservations call 1-800-JETBLUE (1-800-538-2583) or visit www.jetblue.com.

 

Marc Tamres is the Director of Product Planning for Customer Care at Microsoft’s Speech Group.  In his role he is responsible for product vision and strategy to deliver speech-driven business results within the broader scope of consumer and enterprise care initiatives.  
 
Marc joined Tellme Networks in 2005 which was later acquired successfully by Microsoft Corporation.  He has championed Tellme and now Speech product initiatives, driving expanded product offerings and capabilities.  Marc brings 15 years of technology and product management experience in both entrepreneurial and other industry leading companies, such as Sun Microsystems and Ford Motor Company.  He has envisioned and launched a variety of products spanning enterprise infrastructure, consumer offerings and cloud based services.  
 
Marc is an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MBA, MSME) and the University of Michigan (BSME).

 

Amas Tenumah is a contact center executive, a self described “contact center geek” specializing in contact center operations, & customer access strategy for “twitter-first” century. Having spent the last decade managing contact center operations for companies like Coca-Cola enterprises, Convergys Corporation and currently VP Operations for Teleflora, he brings a unique perspective to the world of customer experience that he shares regularly.

 

Jay Topper is responsible for the Customer Success organization within Rosetta Stone, including the support departments, language-learning coaches and the customer success team. Jay joined the company in 2007 as the chief information officer and held that position through the company‘s April 2009 IPO.

Prior to joining Rosetta Stone, Jay was chief information officer and SVP of India Operations for Seven Worldwide, a global pre-media company. Prior to that, he was chief information officer of PRG, a world leader in the entertainment technology industry—this following eight years as a commissioned officer in the United States Coast Guard.

Jay holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and an M.S. in Telecommunications and Information Management from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

 

Patty VanLammeren is chief customer experience officer for Allstate Insurance Company. She brings more than 30 years of diverse experience to her current role in leading Allstate’s efforts to continually improve all customer interactions by working in collaboration with the company’s business units.

Throughout her career at Allstate, VanLammeren has created positive change from both the business and culture perspective. Under her leadership, the Capital Region became one of the top regions in profitability and customer experience and received the Washington Business Journal’s prestigious designation of “Best Places to Work” in Washington, DC award. In addition, VanLammeren has made major contributions and achieved positive results through various leadership positions in Allstate’s home office and field organization, including Claims, Marketing, Underwriting and Sales.

VanLammeren holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois-Chicago. She has served on the board of the Washington, D.C. chapter of Boys and Girls Clubs, the board for Neighborhood Housing Services of Baltimore, as well as the national board for the National Network to End Domestic Violence. VanLammeren is a member on the board of trustees for the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and a member of The Allstate Foundation Grant Committee. She also represents Allstate on Mayor Daley’s Chicago Business Advisor Program, made up of business leaders focused on opportunities to help stimulate the local economy.