Keynote Presentation discusses Creating Experiences as Unique as Each Customer

Left to Right: Wendy Johnstone, Trang Young, Cath Stone, Lisa MacDonald, Renee McGowan

Presenting the first keynote presentation was the highly anticipated Wendy Johnstone, VP Marketing APAC for Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The Panel spoke about ‘Creating Experiences as Unique as Each Customer’ with 77% of customers saying that they are not engaged with companies they do business with and 42% of marketers are not prioritizing customer experience as a goal. Creating Customer journeys requires redefining marketing’s role and instilling the right customer focus, competencies and processes across the business. This involves uniting around a common customer language, bringing together cross-functional groups and implementing customer design.

Also joining the couch was Claire Rogers, Head of Digital Strategy for ANZ.  Claire is an experienced commercial leader who is passionate about helping businesses to transform and adapt to the “new economy”. Claire is currently responsible for the ANZ’s digital strategic agenda and innovation activities. Outside of her responsibilities at ANZ, Claire is the Chairman of Ridley Melbourne Board providing vision and guidance, outperforming sector growth and delivering innovation in this traditional sector. In addition to her Board position, Claire dedicates her time to providing mentoring support for women entrepreneurs through Springboard Enterprises as they take concepts to market in the technology and digital sector.

Cath stone, Head of Customer Strategy for Jetstar also sat on the panel. Cath is currently the Head of Customer Strategy for the Jetstar Group. Her role extends across Jetstar’s airlines in NZ, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Vietnam and is primarily focused on driving improvement in both customer experience and customer focus across all levels of the business. Before taking the newly created role in Customer Strategy in 2012, Cath was the Head of Group Operations for Jetstar playing key leadership and project roles in new airline start ups in New Zealand and Japan as well as managing the airline’s business resilience and crisis management programs.

Lisa MacDonald, Customer Experience Manage for Staples was the 3rd Panellists. Lisa is  passionate strategic marketer with 14 years leadership experience in both B2B and B2C marketing roles in large multi-nationals and government. Lisa has held key roles for major brands including Staples, FOXTEL, Fuji Xerox and LexisNexis. Strong people skills, adept at leading teams as well as contributing at a senior leadership level, Lisa’s passion is delivering growth through great customer experience. Experienced across all marketing disciplines with particular expertise in customer experience, acquisition and retention marketing, brand strategy and segmentation. Lisa thrives in a dynamic environment and loves the challenge of uncharted waters.

The final panellist was Renee McGowan, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer for Mercer. Renée is responsible for Mercer’s marketing and customer strategies and for ensuring an exceptional customer experience with all Mercer customers is achieved. Her teams are responsible for providing a comprehensive view of the customer, delivery through all customer channels and a significant change program to transform the customer experience at Mercer. Mercer currently serves 1.3 million individual customers in the Pacific Market and Renée is a passionate advocate for helping all people achieve their best financial future.