Jan 2022: CX from the Inside Out. How companies are measuring and leveraging customer experience data to drive success

Brad Albert, Salesforce; M&A Program Manager

Brad is a professional in the enterprise software and analytics arena and has spent his career creating digital experiences that speed end users on their way to making informed discoveries and data-driven decisions over the past 7+ years. He understands perennially successful companies that survive in today’s economy and thrive in the future will be deliberate about putting the customer first and use analytics to drive consistent results. Brad previously worked at Tableau Software for 3.5 years before joining Salesforce through acquisition. He currently works as M&A Program Manager supporting the integration of all Salesforce acquired companies. 

Loren Cooper, HP; Global Support Systems Operations Manager

Loren Cooper has worked in technology and customer service for HP for over 25 years, working currently as a Global Systems Engineering Manager. He’s also an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction. He’s won the NESFA and the EPPIE for short fiction, and his last novel, CrossTown, was a finalist for the Endeavor Award. His nonfiction work, Chain of Ghosts: Resonance in Story, Language and the Brain, explores storytelling in light of its linguistic and cognitive foundations. More can be found at www.lorencooper.com

Charlie Veers – Nordstrom; Sr. Director, Consumer Research & Insights

Charlie joined Nordstrom in 2016 as a Director on our Corporate Strategy team.  In late 2018, Charlie assumed leadership of the Consumer Research & Insights team, providing the “headlights” for Nordstrom’s strategic choices by combining consumer and market research with customer experience measurement and market performance to yield actionable insights.  During his time with Nordstrom Charlie has supported multiple efforts that have helped the company move closer to its customers including Marketing Transformation, Customer Journey Mapping, Local Market and Canada strategies, building out our “Customer Obsessed” value, and supporting our Off-Price / Rack business. 

Prior to joining Nordstrom, Charlie held several consulting roles, including over 8 years as part of Monitor Deloitte’s Customer Strategy practice, where he worked with clients across retail and consumer products to better understand and engage their customers. 

Laurent De Grauwe, Microsoft; Director, Field Marketing for Business Applications

“Always bring my best to make a difference in people’s personal and professional lives.” With this purpose at heart Laurent’s goal is to balance people and business to accelerate growth while having fun.

As the Director Field Marketing for Business Applications, he is responsible for defining the Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy for one of the fast-growing businesses at Microsoft. His team manages the business groups worldwide who are accountable for executing the GTM strategy and achieving the business objectives.

Previously, Laurent led the Field Marketing team for Internet of Things and Advanced Analytics. Laurent has been with Microsoft since 2008 and worked until 2015 out of the Belgium & Luxembourg subsidiary where he held different sales and partner roles.

He started his career in communication & marketing and eventually found that he had a strong drive for sales and business development. After working for HP and a SaaS start-up selling “Track & Trace” and Field Service projects he joined Microsoft as Hosting Lead. In this role he developed the Cloud Partner ecosystem and activated Belgium’s incumbent Telco in bundling Microsoft’s productivity suite, Office 365 with their core services. Before moving to Redmond, he led a team of Solutions Sales and Technical Sales that specialize in helping Enterprise customers building the unified hybrid cloud platform for modern business.