Sherif Mityas

Sherif Mityas is the Chief Information Officer and VP Strategy & Brand Initiatives for TGI FRIDAYS responsible for the Brand’s global Strategy, Digital and Technology efforts. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the retail and hospitality industries in both senior consulting and executive industry roles.
Prior to joining TGI FRIDAYS, Sherif served as the managing partner for JS Consulting and as the chief executive officer for Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery.
Mr. Mityas received a B.S. degree in aerospace engineering from Boston University, a M.S. in mechanical engineering from Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute and an M.B.A. from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Johan Landmark

Johan is a senior level consumer research professional with a proven record of building, transforming and championing successful insights departments for both FMG and Retail.  He has a strong leadership, collaboration and extensive global experience with a track record of turning consumer insights and market understanding into bottom line business results.  Johan joined Walmart in 2009 and is currently Vice President of Customer Insights and Analytics for Walmart, Canada.

Mariana Filipic

Jennifer van der Valk

As Managing Director, Marketing and Digital Strategy for the Government of Ontario, Jennifer leads an integrated team to deliver marketing strategy and creative development, social media strategy, digital data insights, market research and creative services. Working across the 30 ministries of the province, Jennifer has spearheaded multiple award-winning campaigns including those for including Health, Foodland Ontario, Education, Economic Development and Transportation.

In her previous role, as Director of Brand and Marketing for Metrolinx, Jennifer led the vision and alignment of brand, digital and marketing strategy across the organization. Working with cross-functional teams across Metrolinx operations and services, including GO Transit, Presto and UP Express, she managed a team of strategic and creative professionals to build public understanding of the largest transit infrastructure development in Canadian history and to help residents find ways to spend more time living and less time commuting.

Jennifer’s expertise in both public and private sector environments spans marketing, advertising, digital strategy, PR, issues management and corporate communications. She is fueled by a passion for break-through creative driven by strong insight and a determination to build responsibly brave public-sector brands.

Todd Unger

Todd Unger is the Chief Experience Officer and Senior Vice President of Physician Engagement at the American Medical Association (AMA), where he leads membership, marketing and digital transformation initiatives. Unger joined the AMA in February 2017 after serving as Chief Digital Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Daily Racing Form where he led the successful digital transformation of the media and gaming platform. Prior to his role with Daily Racing Form, Unger served as general manager of four major digital media properties spanning pure-play, publishing, cable television and video gaming, in both corporate and start-up environments. He was a pioneer in the Local online space, building Digital City/AOL Local into the country’s leading online city guide and led digital organizations at Lifetime Television, Time4 Media (a former division of Time Inc., with 19 high-profile enthusiast sites) and Major League Gaming. Leading up to his career in the digital space, Unger spent a decade in brand management and advertising at Procter & Gamble and Leo Burnett, where he worked to build brands in consumer products, automotive and electronics categories. Unger earned his masters of business administration from Harvard University and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Miami University.

Neel Singh

Since the beginning of his career, Neel has had an array of varied experiences across creative, strategic and entrepreneurial endeavours. In 2012, Neel joined the leadership team at BroadbandTV as Head of Brand & Marketing where he has built and led several functions and departments including marketing, branding, customer service, design & creative, and events. He has led the positioning, creation and launch of the majority of BBTV’s brands, some of which include strategic partnerships with the likes of the NBA, HuffPost and BMG, and continues to manage BBTV’s large brand portfolio today.

Neel has contributed to BBTV through hyper-growth where the business has achieved a global presence, rising as the 3rd largest video property in the world only behind Google and Facebook. With over 30 Billion views per month, a world-leading network of talented creators, partnerships with mass media companies like Viacom, Univision and Sony Pictures, and vertical-leading global brands, BBTV has truly emerged as a powerhouse in the digital video space.

Neel is currently Head of Brand Strategy and Customer Experience at BBTV with a focus on positioning and developing BBTV’s corporate identity, media brands, products and services; as well as evolving the customer life-cycle with a goal to continuously deliver an industry leading value-proposition leading to customer success and loyalty.

In addition to his role at BBTV, Neel consults entrepreneurs, startups and businesses on their strategic growth, as well as advises for various organizations and individuals.

Roy Ben-Alta

Roy Ben-Alta is a solution architect and principal business development manager at Amazon Web Services, where he focuses on AI and real-time streaming technologies and working with AWS customers to build data-driven products (whether batch or real-time) and create solutions powered by ML in the cloud. Roy has worked in the data and analytics industry for over a decade and has helped hundreds of customers bring compelling data-driven products to the market. He serves on the advisory board of Applied Mathematics and Data Science at Post University in Connecticut. Roy holds a BSc in information systems and an MBA from the University Of Georgia.

Carlton Triolo-Sapp

Hailing from New York City, Carlton spent the first 13 years of his career helping non-profits and urban school districts identify and evaluate the needs of their donors, parents, and students in order to demonstrate outcomes and value to their communities. He then transitioned into the for-profit arena helping companies gain market share, differentiate themselves from competitors and demonstrate value by way Consumer Insights and Customer Experience. Currently, Carlton is the Director of Customer Success Strategy at Northwestern Mutual where he is responsible for helping to lead their strategic efforts as they continue their transformation towards world-class Customer Support.

Outside of work, Carlton spends his free time studying the British Monarchy from the 1300s to the present and getting over injuries as he challenges himself with the new sport of figure skating. Carlton lives in Chicago, is married, and has two children.

Sarah Metcalfe

Sarah joined Sure Petcare in 2010, taking responsibility for the company’s customer service and guiding it through an extraordinary period of expansion and growth. She now leads a talented multi-lingual team who deliver outstanding customer service and happiness to all Sure Petcare customers around the world.

Sarah is passionate about happiness in the workplace, and she knows the positive impact this has on the customer experience. Through continuing to innovate and improve the customer journey, Sure Petcare now has an Net Promoter Score of 90+ in over 20 countries around the world.
Sarah has trained with Happy Ltd, and Woohoo Inc, and has recently become a certified partner of Woohoo Inc and a certified Chief Happiness Officer to provide training & keynotes on creating happiness at work.

Seema Swamy

Swamy specializes in providing Customer and Market Insights to help organizations attain and maintain product leadership in the marketplace. She currently manages customer support research at a Fortune 500 company. Seema has managed Customer Success and Market Research at VMware. She has worked with both B to B and B to C companies providing actionable recommendations that informed the effective development as well as launch of products with optimal messaging and positioning to target audiences. She is an expert in both qualitative and quantitative research methods to develop holistic insights about key drivers and inhibitors of product adoption, customer acquisition as well as retention through increasing loyalty and positive word-of-mouth. She has been an invited panelist and presenter at International Conferences and published articles on customer insights in various journals. Her work on maximizing Trust and Safety on the eBay platform is a case study in Anna Bernasek’s book ͞Economics of Integrity: From Dairy Farmers to Toyota, How Wealth is Built on Trust and What That Means for our Future.͟ Seema has worked and consulted a number of organizations including Cisco, Apple, Intel, Trend Micro, VMware, Equinix, Yahoo!, PeopleSoft, and Capital One as well as stealth mode startups. She received her Ph.D. degree from Stanford University. Her dissertation focused on the application of Social Psychology to ensure products’ success in different cultures and markets

David Bradshaw

David is the Vice President of Customer for ATB Financial. Most recently, David was the Vice President of Client Business Support for Tangerine and Vice President of Sales and Service for ING Direct Canada. Prior to returning to ING Direct Canada, David served as Vice President, Service Delivery at Echo Marketing. David was of the Chair of the Customer Experience Council and Board of Directors for The Canadian Marketing Association.

Rob Russini

Rob Russini serves as Senior Director of Marketing for Hudson Heritage Federal Credit Union. Rob oversees marketing and communications for the credit union since January 2018 and additionally, helps spearhead special projects around innovation, collaboration, customer experience, and strategic planning.
Prior to joining Hudson Heritage Federal Credit Union, Rob held management roles in both the energy and financial sectors, including within retail banking for several financial institutions. Rob has also held several advisory board positions in the educational and non-profit sectors throughout the tri-state area. Rob holds an MBA in Marketing from Babson College and is finishing a second Master Degree in Integrated Marketing Communications through Northwestern University.
Rob’s research and interests lie in marketing strategy consisting of integrated marketing and branding through innovation and personalization. Rob has spoken at several conferences and events on topics consisting of branding, digital marketing, customer experience, segmentation, marketing analytics, and strategic marketing.

Nahal Yousefian

Nahal manages the rich human talent within MEC Co-op. All MEC workplaces – stores, head office and distribution centre – are her workplace. Nahal helps ensure that people possess the attitude, skills and experience to serve their members’ diverse needs. By removing barriers that prevent employees from being engaged and empowered, MEC can better deliver on its purpose. Prior to joining MEC in summer 2017, Nahal was with the multinational retailer, Tesco, in Prague, where she held several senior human resources roles. Among other points of pride, she was integral to building a service-centric culture among 120,000 employees based in Central Europe and Asia. After living 20 years abroad, Nahal is delighted to return home to Vancouver. Whether it’s running, hiking, yoga or meditation, Nahal likes to get outside as often as she can.

Stacey Metcalfe

Stacey Metcalfe is a customer experience professional with over 16 years in the automotive industry. She has served as Manager, Voice of Customer Strategy and Planning since 2012, responsible for overseeing a national multi-brand customer experience program that has helped elevate Toyota to be an industry leader in customer satisfaction in Canada. Stacey is a driving force behind employee engagement at Toyota through national Customer First initiatives, and has grown an online focus group program that is vital to assisting the organization in making business decisions on a global scale. Prior to her current role, Stacey spent several years as Lead of Customer Experience Management, where she was the creative figure behind developing an innovative online owners club and its award-winning launch program. In the first eight years of her career with Toyota she acted in various I.T. project management and consulting roles, including work with Toyota and Lexus dealers in central and eastern Canada as an Advisor on dealership technology. The combination of her career and formal education in Electronics Engineering, has provided the opportunity to be involved with Skills Ontario – Young Woman’s Initiatives, where she has been an active mentor and speaker for several years – inspiring female high school students to consider careers in the trades, technology and engineering.

Nancy Ortenburg

Nancy Ortenburg is a Customer Experience professional with a keen interest in how the culture of an organization drives corporate performance metrics, both up and down. She is currently the Manager of Customer Experience at MiWay, the public transit system serving the City of Mississauga which provides 40 million rides per year with a staff of 1,400.

Challenging questions entice Nancy. Questions like: “How do we change the culture of an organization that has had three leaders in 45 years and also loves the saying, “But we’ve always done it this way!” Examples like this provide a real context to the famous saying “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Her approach is to look deep into the layers of an organization’s culture for the root causes and build programs that address them. At MiWay she discovered that the root cause of many issues was inconsistent decision making. So, she looked to the world leader in managing diverse and remote staff for the answer: the Magical world of Disney. Today, she’ll share took what she from the Disney Institute courses and the process that she used to adapt and apply them to the MiWay organization, which is not only a completely different industry, but a municipal government AND unionized as well. To enable a tipping point in the cultural story of the organization, she has created the “MiWay Basics”.

Her Customer Experience team works on strategic planning and visioning, Customer Metrics, implementing game-changing projects/processes, and most importantly, organizational cultural development.

Tisa Sinclair

Maureen Russell

Nitin Badjatia

Nitin Badjatia serves as the Head of Business Strategy for ServiceNow’s Customer Service Management product line.  He’s a two-decade veteran of enterprise customer service applications, having been at Siebel Systems, RightNow Technologies, and Oracle in various sales and strategy roles.  Nitin also led business strategy at knowledge management pioneer Knova Software.  In 2012, Nitin was awarded the Consortium for Service Innovation’s Innovator award for his extensive contributions to the industry at large. 

Tammi Winchester

Mark Smith

With over 20 years of global experience in marketing applications and analytical CRM, Mark Smith is a leader in building, growing and managing successful companies. As the President of Kitewheel, Mark is focused on helping marketing agencies deliver better consumer engagement through solutions that unify the “logic” layer of today’s customer-facing technology for their large brand clients.

Mark’s journey into customer behaviour and experience started early in his career. Shortly after achieving his Ph.D. in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Edinburgh, Mark founded Quadstone – the first data mining company to focus explicitly on the analytics of customer behaviour. In the years that followed, Mark moved to Boston to build the US business and oversaw revolutionary analytic progress at clients including T-Mobile, Dell, Merrill Lynch and Fidelity. His leadership role expanded to global sales, marketing and product teams that lead to a series of 3 successful M&A transactions over the last 10 years.

Mark shares his perspective on customer journeys, omni-channel marketing, solutions sales leadership and high-tech marketing.

Mark Relph

Katrina Schiedemeyer