The CX50 2019 revealed: Our list of the top 50 customer experience professionals

Marketing Week announces our second annual CX50 list in partnership with Zone and Cognizant, celebrating the individuals excelling at customer experience, demonstrating innovation, influence and impact.

CX50 customer experienceCustomer experience is a topic that is earning ever-increasing attention, not only from marketers but colleagues across their businesses and in company boardrooms.

Far from being a buzzword, CX is constantly gaining traction as a key differentiator for businesses in all sectors, which is why Marketing Week, Zone and Cognizant have partnered for the second successive year to announce the new members of the CX50.

This list celebrates the 50 professionals currently doing the most to foreground customer experience and fulfil its potential – both in their brands and across the UK’s consumer marketplace today. The individuals we have identified come from a variety of industry sectors and occupy roles as diverse as chief marketing officers, startup founders, chief technology officers and general managers. The full list of 50 names can be found in the table below.

Methodology

In order to compile the CX50, Marketing Week, Zone and its parent company Cognizant used their combined editorial and professional expertise, as well as a number of publicly available information sources, to generate a shortlist of companies with impressive CX achievements in the past year. We identified the individual CX leaders working for them, and also included individuals known to have been at the forefront of CX delivery for a number of years.

We then used three key criteria to whittle this shortlist down to the final 50: innovation (adopting new processes, technologies and ideas to deliver best-in-class CX); influence (successfully making the case for CX in their businesses and beyond); and impact (the tangible results of their efforts in terms of financial and brand measures, as well as evidence of business transformation). We assessed all individuals based on the totality of their achievements across these three metrics.

Reflecting the many different faces of CX and the collaboration needed to achieve progress, we looked at a range of industry sectors and job functions to find those excelling in the field. The variety of job titles present in the CX50 demonstrates that this is not just a concern for marketers, but also technologists, digital specialists, CEOs and company founders.

READ MORE: How customer experience is building brands and businesses

The CX50 in full

Mark Anderson CEO Connect Airways
Reza Attar-Zadeh Head of customer interactions Santander UK
Anna Bateson Chief customer officer
Guardian News & Media
Stuart Beamish Group chief customer officer Saga
Alessandra Bellini Chief customer officer Tesco
Sarah Bentley Chief customer officer Severn Trent
Helen Bierton Head of Banking Starling Bank
Tom Blomfield CEO Monzo
Liv Marit Brahin Head of group marketing and communication services UBS
Kerris Bright Chief customer officer BBC
Tom Broughton Founder Cubitts
Chris Carter Director of marketing Specsavers
Jack Constantine Chief digital officer Lush
Peter Duffy Interim CEO Just Eat
Rob Edmundson Transformation and marketing director, UK Bupa
Kim Faura Chief commercial officer Giffgaff
Joseph Gordon Head of First Direct HSBC
Sinead Greenaway Chief technology and operations officer UKTV
Justin Haines Customer services director Ovo Energy
Hugh Hessing Chief operating officer Aviva
Craig Inglis Customer director John Lewis
Russell James Digital engagement director The FA
Richard Jewsbury Divisional vice-president, UK Emirates
Margaret Jobling Chief marketing officer Centrica
James Keegan Vice-president of customer services and experience, Europe QVC
Chris Larmer Director of customer experience The Co-operative Bank
Phil Lewis Director of digital transformation Boden
Carolina Martinoli Director of brand and customer experience British Airways
Belinda Moore Director of marketing and communications E.ON
Simon Morris Vice-president of global creative Amazon
Bec Mortimer Director of marketing Netflix
Simon Mottram CEO Rapha
Emilie Mouquot Customer and growth director
Notonthehighstreet
Sally-Anne Newson Director of customer experience and digital product Shop Direct
Jeremy Pee Chief digital and data officer
Marks & Spencer
Stephanie Peterson Vice-president of digital planning and activation Adidas
Scott Petty Chief technology officer, UK Vodafone
Chris Rhodes Chief products and propositions officer Nationwide
Michelle Roberts Group marketing director BMW UK
Heather Smith Managing director, direct LV
Ben Sutherland Chief digital officer Diageo
Regine Tan Director of customer experience optimisation
American Express
Simon Thompson Chief product officer Ocado
George Turner Chief commercial and technology officer
InterContinental Hotels Group
Inés Ures Chief marketing officer Deliveroo
Shashi Verma Chief technology officer and director of customer experience
Transport for London
Claudia Vernon Group marketing director Richer Sounds
Eve Williams Brand experience director Asos
Harriet Williams Chief digital officer The Body Shop
David Young Director of customer experience Metro Bank

 

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