SPONSORS
JUDGES
CHAIR JUDGE
Donna Scully
Joint Owner/Director, Carpenters Group
Donna is an experienced public speaker and writes industry articles on fraud, reform or anything that impacts the insurance/legal market.
Donna received the Outstanding Achievement award at the 2014 Personal Injury Awards. In 2016 and 2018, Insurance Business UK named her as one of the insurance industry’s Women of Influence. In September 2018, Donna jointly won the Insurance Post Magazine’s Social Media Influencer Award.
Donna was named on the Insurance Business UK’s ‘Elite Women’ List 2022 for her work during Covid19 including her charitable contributions. Donna recently won the ‘Outstanding Charity Support’ Award at the 2021 Liverpool Echo Regional Business Awards for her charity work during the pandemic.
Donna is on the editorial Board of Modern Insurance Magazine & Chairs the Insurance Times Fraud Charter group. She is an Ambassador for Fans Supporting Foodbanks, a Football for Change Champion and is a Director of Help Finder Charity.
Gerry Brown
CEO, The Customer Lifeguard
Gerry Brown, aka The Customer Lifeguard, helps businesses rescue customers from defecting and breathes life into their customer service operations and customer experience strategy. Gerry provides organizational leadership on people development, business transformation, customer engagement and technology enablement for some of the largest companies in the UK, Canada, and EMEA.
He is a frequent speaker, chairperson, panellist and facilitator at conferences, webinars, and company events, where he provides stimulating, thought-provoking engagement and audience participation.
He is a published author and his new book When a Customer Wins, Nobody Loses is designed to help business leaders to create winning, lasting, memorable customer experiences.
Leigh Hopwood
CEO, CCMA (Call Centre Management Association) & Non-Executive Director and Vice Chair, Chartered Institute of Marketing
Leigh is the CEO of the CCMA (Call Centre Management Association), a Chartered Marketer and Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing where she has been on the Board for the last eight years, including more than three as Chair.
As well as being invited to speak at events and taking part in topical debates, you'll find Leigh judging the Marketing Excellence Awards, the AEO Excellence Awards and the European Contact Centre and Customer Service Awards.
Susannah Hewson
Founder, CX Change
Susannah is the founder of CX Change which helps businesses to improve their customer experience. CX focuses on human emotions and there’s no one that understands human emotions better than Susannah. She recognises the critical relationship between customer experience and employee engagement, and addresses both in her employee training and workshop programmes.
With a background in social science, Susannah has always been interested in what makes people tick. Her core strengths include identifying issues that impact negatively on the customer (and often employees too), tapping into employee’s emotional intelligence and uncovering empathy.
She’s also a creative thinker, using insights and feedback to go beyond identifying the problems and seeing the solutions.
Matthew Connell
Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Chartered Insurance Institute - (CII)
Matthew Connell is Director of Policy and Public Relations at the Chartered Insurance Institute, where his focus is to build public trust in insurance through dialogue with consumers, policymakers, influencers and industry professionals. He has worked at the CII since March 2017.
Previously, he was Head of Regulatory Developments for Zurich Insurance Group’s UK Life Business. He has worked in banking and insurance for more than 20 years, and was the Chairman of the Investment and Life Assurance Group (ILAG) between 2015 and 2017. He holds an MSc in Public Relations from the University of Sterling and a PhD in Policy Studies from the University of Warwick.
Neil Bayton
Head of Partnerships - UK,IE & ANZ, Trustpilot
Neil has worked in e-commerce for nearly 20 years. Originally working with a major software vendor to help SME's build a presence and omni channel online.
More recently Neil has helped shape the partnerships programme at consumer reviews platform Trustpilot, where he builds relationships with partners to spread the importance of the "voice of the customer".
Ian Golding
Global Customer Experience Specialist, Customer Experience Consultancy Ltd
A highly influential freelance CX consultant, Ian advises leading companies on CX strategy, measurement, improvement and employee advocacy techniques and solutions.
Ian has worked globally across multiple industries including retail, financial services, logistics, manufacturing, telecoms and pharmaceuticals deploying CX tools and methodologies.
An internationally renowned speaker and blogger on the subject of CX, Ian was also the first to become a CCXP (Certified Customer Experience Professional) Authorised Resource & Training Provider.
His first book, ‘Customer What? The honest and practical guide to Customer Experience’, was launched to critical acclaim in May 2018.
Andrew Gibbons ACII, MIoD
Mason Owen Financial Services Ltd & Chairman - BIBA
Andrew is currently the Managing Director of Mason Owen Financial Services Ltd, a predominantly commercial insurance broker based in Liverpool. He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute and a Chartered Insurance Broker.
Having joined Provincial Insurance in July 1987, he progressed through the group to become a Senior Account Manager following the acquisition by AXA Insurance, before taking up his current role at Mason Owen.
He was Chairman of the Smaller Brokers Advisory Board (SBAB) of British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) between January 2015 and March 2020, having served BIBA at both regional and GIBC level. In addition, Andrew served as a member of the main BIBA board between April 2014 and March 2020 and is currently the Chair of the Industry Claims Working Group.
He is currently the Chair of Merseyside Youth Association, a youth charity in Liverpool and since 2016 he has served as a Trustee of the Vantage Multi Academy Trust in Bolton.
Kate Hardcastle MBE
a.k.a. The Customer Whisperer & Founding Partner - Insight with Passion
Kate Hardcastle MBE, a.k.a. The Customer Whisperer is the UK’s leading ‘go-to’ business expert on consumer insight for National TV & Media and businesses.
Kate has added her unique brand of knowledgeable commentary to thousands of interviews & documentaries for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky News and Radio channels BBC 2, BBC 4, BBC 5 Live and commercial stations. She appears as part of international business documentaries for BBC World & CNN and is a writer for Forbes magazine.
She is also founder of the newly launched Rock n Roll Business platform.
Ian Hughes
CEO, Consumer Intelligence Ltd
Ian has a very clear purpose he wants to build confidence in financial services, to do that he always sees the world through the eyes of your customer. He has made it his life’s work to help financial services companies improve their world by helping them feel more confident in their customers decisions and making sure that customers feel confident in them.
In 2003, he launched market and consumer benchmarking specialist, Consumer Intelligence, who now operate in 9 countries and help businesses execute great customer strategies. Ian is a graduate of Harvard Business School and a Fellow of the IDM.
Andrew McMillan
Director, Engaging Service
Andrew started his career as a management trainee with the John Lewis Partnership. Over the next eighteen years he led a number of selling teams in different branches. He was then asked to lead on customer experience for the group.
In 2012 Andrew set up his own consultancy specialising in employee engagement, customer experience and the link between the two. He is also in demand internationally as Non-Executive Director, a conference speaker and chair.