Who Will Be Speaking?

Andrew Knight, Panelist
Director of E-Commerce, Case-Mate
Andrew Knight started his career in E-commerce 9 years ago and has never left. He is currently the Director of E-commerce for Case-mate where he is responsible for all aspects of the online business including marketing, operations, and customer experience. Prior to joining Case-mate, Andrew was the Director of E-commerce for Astral Brands, where he was responsible for the health & beauty websites of Aloette.com, PurMinerals.com, and CosMedix.com.

Andrew grew up in the northeast, but the chance to work for The Home Depot brought him to Atlanta in 2005. While at The Home Depot, Andrew served as the User Experience Manager for HomeDepot.com where he was responsible for all customer facing activities of the website. Before joining The Home Depot, Andrew was the E-commerce Development Manager for Gardener's Supply where he managed the E-commerce platforms for Gardeners.com and DutchGardens.com. Andrew holds a B.S. in Economics from Boston College.

Arie Goldshlager
Group Vice President and marketing Manager, SunTrust Bank in Atlanta.
He is an effective and innovative Leader of Customer Strategy, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Lifecycle Management, Information-Based Marketing, Decision Sciences, and Analytics Groups. He is currently a Group Vice President and marketing Manager at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta.

Arie's Customer Relationship Management work is focused on Developing Customer Strategy and Improving the Performance of: Customer Acquisition, Customer Onboarding, Customer Development, Cross-Selling, Customer Loyalty, and Customer Winback Processes.

Arie's Information-Based Marketing work is focused on Developing Innovative Segmentation, Targeting, Analysis, and Measurement Solutions. His key consulting clients included: Prodigy, Safeway, FedEx, USAA, Capital One, BT Wireless (O2), Sumsung Card, LG Capital, and many more.

Arie's industry specialties include: Financial Services, Credit Card, Consumer Lending, Retail, Internet, Telecommunications, and other services companies. His diversified experience includes significant client-side, consulting-side, and agency-side tenures. Arie is also an effective leader of Call Center Performance Improvement and Call Center Transformation projects, and is particularly adept at balancing the Company, Customer, and Frontline Perspectives.

Bobbykin Makwana
Senior Manager, Customer Experience , Logitech

Don Hill
Director of Service Delivery and Customer Advocacy, TRAVELOCITY

Greg Reeves
Technical Support Manager, CompuCom Systems, Inc.
Greg was a keynote speaker at the annual IQPC event: "5th Customer Feedback Week" and recently a webinar moderator on the topic of Leveraging the Customer Experience. Greg is a 12 year veteran of the United States Army. Including his time served in the military, Greg has over 20 years of direct IT experience.

As a journeyman and winner at many personal and professional endeavors, Greg has worked for Hi-Tech and Low-Tech companies in IT. Greg has been an Executive IT Recruiter, a Medical Equipment Salesman, a Physical Trainer, an entrepreneur and awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service, during Desert Storm. In recent past, he was named CompuCom's Service Desk Supervisor of the Year (2008) and received the Bronze Medal in a national industry competition for "Best Supervisor of the Year (2008)." He has participated in numerous avenues of customer service and regards the "customer experience" as a critical factor to sustaining durable business success. "A customer service mind-set is my approach and undoubtedly leads to reward and satisfaction".

Hernando González, Ph.D.
Senior Manager for Corporate Market Research, Sun Microsystems
Hernando González (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Senior Manager for Corporate Market Research at Sun Microsystems, a leading network computing and data storage company. He directs global market and customer research for brand equity and develops strategies for various business units and their solutions.

Previously, he managed Optical Networks Market Research and Competitive Intelligence at Nortel Networks. He served as research consultant to various companies and U.S. government agencies in Asia/Pacific, Latin America and the U.S., while he was Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and subsequently, as Associate Professor at Florida International University. He co-authored a book on mass media and national development in Indonesia.

His research papers have appeared in professional research journals, book chapters, college textbooks and two encyclopedias. In March 2007, he co-authored "Ten Must-Haves in Customer Loyalty Research" in Quirk's Research Review with Joan Fredericks, Senior Vice President at Harris Interactive.

Jeremy Whyte
Director of Customer Feedback and Reporting, Oracle
Jeremy Whyte is the Director of Customer Feedback and Reporting at Oracle where he oversees the company's survey strategy and operations. Prior to joining Oracle in 2005, Jeremy was responsible for the business loyalty program at Siebel Systems. Through various roles, Jeremy has sold and implemented numerous Enterprise Feedback Management solutions, integrated them with CRM and Analytics systems, and consulted with several companies establishing world-class loyalty programs.

Jamie Lee
Second VP, Aflac
Jamie Lee has worked with Aflac for 18 years and has worked in multiple areas of Internal Operations in the course of her career. (Call Center, New Business, Sales, Client Services and Claims). She holds a Bachelor of Business and is also a Fellow of the Life Management Institute. She is currently the 2nd VP of Technology Support and serves as a lead resource for Customer Experience Management for the operations area.

Lynn Holmgren
National Director of Customer Care, Whirlpool Corporation

Bob Corsi
Senior Vice President of Operations,  NCO Customer Management, Inc. 
Bob Corsi has more than 17 years experience in operational management, and has been successfully helping clients meet their outsourcing goals since joining NCO in 1999. As Senior Vice President of Operations, Mr. Corsi is responsible for developing and implementing customer relationship management programs for new clients. He oversees all aspects of program implementation and management, including contact center operations, account management, recruiting, training, and development.

Prior to joining NCO, Mr. Corsi was employed at Paging Network. From 1996 to 1999, he was vice president and general manager of that company's Philadelphia division. In this capacity, he was responsible for all areas of operations, including sales, customer service, technical support, inventory control, and accounting. From 1992 to 1995, Mr. Corsi was director of accounting and operations for Paging Network. From 1998 to 1992, Mr. Corsi held retail operations management positions with Drug Emporium, Inc., and Macy's.

Farnaz Wallace
Former EVP, Chief Marketing Officer, Church's Chicken
Farnaz Wallace, EVP & Chief Marketing Officer, serves as the chief brand protector and accelerator of performance for Church's Chicken. She is also responsible for all aspects of brand positioning and global marketing.  Utilizing 22 years of expertise in QSR marketing & advertising, to analyze all internal & external factors affecting sales & traffic, Ms. Wallace ultimately develops brand strategies which deliver on both short and long term objectives. In addition to leading all global branding initiatives, corporate & field marketing, managing one national and two regional advertising agencies, she also oversees all R&D functions.

In her 5 years as CMO, Farnaz Wallace has led the brand in 5 consecutive years of positive same store sales growth, outpacing the category, through successful new product introductions & innovative, break-through advertising. An expert in multi-cultural and cross-generational branding and marketing, she successfully moved the brand beyond price/value, and re-positioned as real, authentic high quality chicken at a great value, proudly serving multi-cultural neighborhoods, family & friends. In doing so, she ensures alignment with value delivery systems in all disciplines, consistently re-designing and refreshing the visual look & feel of the brand in all aspects of consumer communication & touch points, from all advertising media to in-store 4-wall, store design, recruitment, etc. She has created a highly talented, multi-cultural team, and is passionate about celebrating diversity and cultural understanding, and finding and coaching future leaders.

She began her 15-year career at Church's Chicken as a Field Marketing Manager. Since then, she has had the opportunity to serve as Field Marketing Director, Regional Marketing Director, National Director of Field Marketing, and as Vice President of Field Marketing... leading to her current role as CMO. Prior to joining Church's, she had 5 years experience on the agency side in media planning and placement, and 2 years at KFC. Her extensive hands-on & supervisory experience affords her a macro view of the industry that encompasses various marketing aspects from brand positioning & strategic planning to creative development, consumer insights, innovation, customer segmentation, menu & product creation, promotion/P&L analysis, PR/consumer promotion, web marketing, traditional and social media management.

She served on the board of Atlanta Woman Magazine and engages in speaking assignments with widely varying ranges of organizations & topics.

Farnaz Wallace earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette, LA, a Graduate Marketing Certificate from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and an Executive Management Certificate from Stanford University in CA.

Paula Berg
Manager of Emerging Media, Southwest Airlines
Paula Berg is the Manager of Emerging Media for Southwest Airlines, the nation's leading low-fare air carrier and the largest domestic airline in terms of Customers carried. Over the last three years, Paula has managed and developed the Company's corporate blog, "Nuts About Southwest." Since its' launch in April 2006, "Nuts" has experienced tremendous success - building a community for its loyal Customer base, serving as a virtual focus group, and influencing several business decisions. In 2007 and 2008, "Nuts" was named Best Blog by PR News and has been recognized in major publications ranging from Wired Magazine to The Wall Street Journal. In addition to managing the Company blog, Paula leads Southwest's online communication and social media efforts. Prior to her work in social media, Paula was a Company spokesperson with emphasis on media relations and reputation management. Paula also supervised on-location production for three seasons of Airline!, Southwest's reality series for the A&E Television Network, which filmed Southwest's daily operations in four cities. After brief stints selling beer on Phish tour and working for the Colorado and United States Senates, Paula woke up and smelled the jet fuel and began her career at Southwest Airlines in 2001. Paula is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Steven Yampolsky
President, PetNovations

Steve Latham
CEO, Spur Interactive

Scott Swift
Director of Consumer Information/Affairs, Hunter Douglas Inc.
As Director of Consumer Information/Affairs, Scott oversees consumer contact in phone and web environments, product data management and Consumer Media Response critical to maintaining world-class customer service

Gary Schwartz
SVP Marketing, CONFIRMIT
Gary Schwartz is Senior Vice President, Marketing at Confirmit.  In this role Gary leads the company’s global Marketing Operations and Product Marketing teams.  He and his teams manage the Confirmit brand, value proposition, website and execution of all communications.  Gary has a long background in the Customer Relationship Management space and is a passionate advocate of empowering consumers in having their voices heard at companies with whom they do business.  Prior to joining Confirmit four years ago, he ran the UK sales and marketing operation for Voice of the Customer software vendor Informative (since acquired by Satmetrix).  He has also held senior marketing roles at BI vendors, including Microstrategy.

Debra Lechner
AVP Customer Insight, Farmers Insurance
Debra Lechner has been working at Farmers Insurance since 1988 and has worked in many aspects of the business, from project management within the IT world, to Sales and Marketing services & management, Call Center management, and Customer Advocacy. In 2005, Debra accepted the role of Assistant Vice President of Customer Advocacy and Customer Insight. Debra is responsible for collecting and synthesizing usable insight from internal and external customers. Using closed loop feedback and real-time reporting, customers and Farmers exclusive agents receive quick responses to questions or problems from across the organization.