Past Speakers

The focus of Abigail's role as Customer & Partner Experience director is about listening to and understanding the needs and feedback of Microsoft's customers and partners and ensuring that Microsoft's strategies continuously take account of this intelligence.

Prior to this role Abigail was responsible for Partner strategy across the EMEA region for the Information Worker Business Group within Microsoft. Before joining Microsoft in 2004 her experiences include working for; an international marketing consultancy, a Microsoft Partner organisation and a UK Financial Services organisation. Her background includes roles across marketing, sales, consulting and customer services. Abigail completed her MBA in 2004 and has worked in the Middle East as well as the UK.

She is also a non-executive Director of the British Quality Foundation

Adam is Head of Delivery for Plan A - Marks & Spencer’s groundbreaking eco/ethical plan.  Launched in January 2007 and extended in March 2010, Plan A aims to make Marks and Spencer the most sustainable major retailer in the world by 2015.

He is responsible for driving and reporting on the delivery of Plan A across every part of the business, ensuring that appropriate controls are in place and working with colleagues to manage issues and realise opportunities.  In addition, Adam drives the internal communication and engagement of Plan A as well as managing the companies £5m annual Plan A Innovation Fund.  He has been responsible for managing the development of the process and methodology for the business case for sustainability at M&S.

More recently, Adam has also taken over the management of M&S Energy which offers customers gas and electricity as well as solar and loft insulation services.

Prior to joining Marks & Spencer in 2004, he has held a number of senior programme/change management roles across a variety of industries.

Adam Sherry is the Vice President and Head of Global Consumer Care at Philips Consumer Lifestyle. Adam was educated at Pangbourne College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Adam spent 9 years in the British Military as a serving Officer. Adam has held various positions within Philips across the Globe. In conjunction with Philips vision of being a leading solutions provider in the areas of healthcare, lifestyle and enabling technology, Adam's goal is to bring resources together internally that will EXCEED Consumer Expectations and add value to a coherent global Consumer Care policy.

Professor Adré Schreuder started his career as Marketing Assistant at the Marketing Division of the Department of Post and Telecommunication.  In 1988 he accepted a position as Lecturer at the Department of Business Economics of the University of Pretoria.  He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in the same department at the end of 1989. In July 1993 Adré was promoted to Associate Professor at RAU.  At the beginning of 1994, he returned to the University of Pretoria to assume the position of Chair in Marketing Training at the newly formed Department of Marketing and Communication Management of the University of Pretoria.  This post was a promotion to a full professorate at UP.

Alan has built audience and engagement in tourism for over ten years and held a senior management position at Dundee Science Centre for five years.

With responsibility for all Leisure, Corporate, Commercial and Education marketing at both Dundee Science Centre and Stratosphere Science Centre in Aberdeen Alan's social media and PR work represent the front end of the visitor experience. Alan is also an Associate Member of Chartered Institute of Marketing and an active Committee Member of the Tayside Branch.

Alan is Managing Director of Mulberry Consulting a business he founded with David Hicks 9 years ago. Mulberry Consulting is recognised as a leader in the field of customer experience and its approaches and tools have been cited a number of times by Forrester as ‘best practice’, it is delighted to be retained by some of the world’s best known brands. Personally he has been responsible for leading the design and deployment of Customer Experience based transformational programmes in a wide range of large organisations . 

Alan is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Strathclyde Business School in Scotland. Before joining the University, he was a senior consultant at a London-based marketing consultancy and prior to that, an Associate Director of a leading marketing research agency. He has written numerous articles and advised many organisations on service delivery, customer satisfaction, reputation and branding.  

He is the author of one of the leading marketing research textbooks Marketing Research: An integrated Approach and co-author of the European edition of Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across The Firm. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Market Research Society. 

Alan is a business strategist who specialises in outsourcing and customer services. His skills lie in applying fact-based analysis to strategy, and in managing stakeholders to drive through business change in implementing strategies. Alan has worked across a number of sectors, with ten years in telecoms, media and technology, six years in utilities, and stints in financial services and the public sector. Alan passionately believes that sourcing needs to be considered strategic, and in doing so it should be managed at board level.

Alastair is Head of Client Care for Barclays Stockbrokers. Alastair is responsible for the Inbound Sales Centre, which handles dealing and portfolio management calls from Stockbrokers clients. Alastair is a member of the Stockbrokers Senior Management team and has specific responsibility for monitoring and improving customer experience.

With 16 years of customer facing experience in Financial Services, ten of which has been in contact centre management, Alastair is uniquely placed to share his insights into customer contact and customer experience improvement initiatives.

PLEASE NOTE: Alex will be performing during the dinner and is not an industry speaker.

Star of BBC3's hugely popular THE REAL HUSTLE, Alexis Conran has turned the world of scamming into an entertaining art form and is acknowledged both as a uniquely talented performer and someone you do not want to be playing cards with.