CX Files

Barry Matthews is the CEO of Open Assembly. He is based just outside Oxford, in the UK.  Open Assembly co-creates the future of work with organizations, platforms, and people by providing content, community, and strategic advising services. They glean key insights from Harvard Business School faculty and researchers and the Laboratory for Innovation Sciences at Harvard (LISH), to inform and inspir...

Leigh Hopwood is CEO of the Call Centre Management Association - based in London, UK. Leigh recently published an article in a special report on the future of CX published by Intelligent Sourcing - the article was focused on the development of learning and training in CX. Mark Hillary called Leigh to talk more about learning in CX and how to create genuine career opportunities for people who work...

David Powers is the Chief Experience Officer at Rooter Hero. He is based in Los Angeles, CA. David has written extensively on CX, including a book called 'The Blue Collar Call Center' and hosts his own podcast called 'Caffeinated CX.'  David manages CX for Rooter Hero - a plumbing company that is expanding across the western US. When David's team get a call it is usually from a customer that has a...

Rick A. Collins is a SVP at Marsh USA. He is based in New York City and his focus is consultative analysis and implementation of creative and novel ideas for risk management. Peter Ryan met Rick at a recent conference focused on fraud and so they recorded a conversation about fraud and risk management and how this is an important focus for any manager planning a CX strategy. https://www.linkedin.c...

Stephen Loynd is an old friend of CX Files. Both Mark and Peter have know him for many years. He is the founder of TrendzOwl, based in Arlington, VA, and is well known as a speaker and deep thinker on the future of CX. Before running his own advisory firm, Stephen was a senior analyst at Frost & Sullivan, focused on CX. Stephen was speaking about the future of customer channels at the recent CX Ou...

Ben Jones is the Group CCO at Sigma Connected Group. He is based in Birmingham in the UK. Ben attended the CX Outsourcers event in Las Vegas last week and in this interview he talks about some of the key takeaways from the conference with Peter Ryan. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-jones-1667641b/ https://www.sigmaconnected.com/

Ricardo Pedroza is the USA Executive Director of PROCOLOMBIA - the government agency focused on developing business, foreign investment, and tourism for Colombia. With a recent change of government, many in the BPO industry have been talking about how Colombia can continue the CX success of recent years. Listen to Ricardo explain the Colombian experience and their strategy for the future with Pete...

Peter Ryan called on Sean Goforth and Lynda Arsenault to give their feedback on a visit by a group of international BPO influencers and advisers to Georgia this week. In this call, Lynda and Sean are on the ground in Georgia giving their immediate feedback on the visit, hosted by Enterprise Georgia. Sean Goforth is the research director at Ryan Strategic Advisory. He is based in Mexico City, Mexic...

Victor Pereda is the CEO of Nearsol. He is based in Irvine, CA. Victor and Nearsol have advised many startups on how to manage the transition from in-house CX to working with a partner to cope with the hypergrowth that happens when a new service takes off. In this episode he talks about some of this experience with startups and how small fast-growing companies can handle a sudden explosion in cust...

Indu Badlani is the CEO at business process management experts Project Space and co-founder of StaffingExpert - a recruitment company focused on BPO and contact centers. She is based in Manila, Philippines. Indu talked to Peter Ryan about how BPO and CX recruitment is changing, how CX careers are developing, and how the industry looks post-pandemic. What are the most common staffing challenges in...

Simon Yoxon-Grant is the CEO of TLScontact. He is based in the UK. TLS is focused on providing visa and consular services so if you have had to travel since the pandemic - and you needed to apply for a visa for your destination - then it's possible TLS processed it. With this detailed inside knowledge of who is traveling and where, Simon gives his views on how the travel industry coped with the pa...

Claas van Delden is the Chief Growth Officer of Yoummday. He is based in Munich, Germany. Yoummday is a highly flexible work-from-home CX specialist that has recently purchased Icon, the Prague-based BPO. In this episode, Peter Ryan asks Claas about flexible BPO in Europe and what the acquisition means for Yoummday and Icon. https://www.linkedin.com/in/claas-van-delden-b7b3b2/ https://www.yoummday...

Cheryl Paarwater is Managing Director at Enerlytics & Call Lab BPO. She is based in Cape Town, South Africa. In this conversation with Peter Ryan, Cheryl talks about the ongoing entrepreneurial nature of BPO and how CX is supporting career development in South Africa. https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheryl-paarwater/ https://call-lab.com/  

Andrew Hall is the Chief Commerical Officer at Quantanite. He is based in Milton Keynes, in the UK. In this interview he talks to Mark Hillary about some of the challenges and opportunities associated with content moderation and how many companies may now be taking a fresh look at offshore outsourcing to locations such as South Africa in the post-Covid business environment... https://quantanite.co...

Tony Won has a long career as a leading player support specialist in the gaming industry. Previously he was the head of player support at Riot Games and Epic Games - responsible for supporting titles such as Fortnite. He is usually based in Austin, Texas, but joined the CX Files from sabbbatical leave in South Korea. Tony has argued on LinkedIn that player support is a different process to traditi...

Hemant Puthli is MD and Partner at Neo Group. He is based in Mumbai, India. Neo Group recently conducted a detailed study of business service and IT companies to determine which are really adopting a robust ESG strategy and which are just "greenwashing" their credentials. In this interview Hemant talks in detail about why ESG matters and how they conducted their research... https://www.linkedin.co...

Bill Colton is the CEO at Global Telesourcing. He is based in Arlington, VA, USA. In this conversation with Peter Ryan, Bill talks about how celebrities can boost BPO brands and help specifically with attracting new talent. Could the right celebrity boost your hiring plans? https://www.linkedin.com/in/billcolton/ https://globaltelesourcing.com/

Colson Hillier is the CMO of Alorica. He is based in New Jersey in the US. Mark called Colson for this interview because the most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant mentioned several examples of post-pandemic innovation and resilience being adopted by Alorica - such as virtual contact centers, GigCX, and permanently embracing WFH... in the conversation Colson talks about balancing resilience, innovatio...

Stefan Freyer is the Managing Director of Orphoz (a McKinsey company supporting cross-industry transformation and project management) - he is based in Berlin, Germany. Stefan recently talked to Mark about the disconnect between grand visions of CX and the reality on the ground when implementing a project - so Mark called him back to record Stefan's ideas on this implementation gap for the CX Files...

Natasha Rantanshi-Stein is the founder at Surfboard - a service that has reinvented workforce management (WFM) by turning it into team planning. Surfboard is focused on team planning for CX and this is a fast-moving area, especially since the pandemic created a sudden wave of flexible and home-based workers. Listen to Peter Ryan talking to Natasha about the evolution of WFM on this episode of CX F...

Sara Sloman is the Director of Future Fleet at Paythru. Sara is based in the UK. Sara's role is to imagine the future of the Electric Vehicle (EV) market - in particular for fleet users. She is focused on designing infrastructure, software, and payment systems that can make life easier for EV users - especially when out on the road and requiring a public charging station. In this episode, Peter Ry...

Annelien Marcus is a Recruitment Manager at Clarion People, based just outside of London in the UK... her focus is contact centre and CX recruitment so Peter Ryan called to ask about the latest recruitment trends and how the post-Covid recovery is shaping up. https://www.linkedin.com/in/annelienmarcus/ https://www.clarion-people.co.uk/

Cathy Jooste is the CCO and US Nearshore director at Atento. She is based in Florida in the US. Nearshoring is a strategy that is changing fast, especially because of the Covid experience where long distance travel became extremely difficult. Cathy talks to Peter Ryan about interesting new locations and how nearshoring is evolving. https://atento.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathrine-jooste-a2...

Daniel Hay is the CX and Digital Transformation Leader at Dow (Latam). He is based in São Paulo, Brazil. With a 125-year history, Dow is one of the largest chemical producers in the world with products that include plastics, chemicals, and agricultural products - it's an enormous global B2B operation and Daniel explains how they have learned from B2C approaches to CX and how B2B is slightly differ...

Faye Joubert is VP of Service Delivery at iSON Xperiences. She is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Faye talked to Peter about the importance of CX and BPO partnerships, especially in the post-pandemic business environment where so many industries are coping with a rapid wave of change. https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayevaldajoubert https://isonxperiences.com/