DAY 3 | Friday, May 16
8:00 am - 8:25 am
CDT
Southern Sunrise Breakfast
8:25 am - 8:30 am
CDT
Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
8:45 am - 9:15 am
CDT
Parity Now: Accelerate Gender Equity in Corporate Leadership
Nick Birkby -
Vice President, UX Research,
JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Michael DeJager - Managing Director, Events, Customer Management Practice
Sandy Ko Fonseca - Founder and Principal, Customer Management Practice
Despite decades of advocacy and incremental progress, women, especially women of color remain significantly underrepresented in corporate leadership.
According to the McKinsey & Company “Women in the Workplace 2024” report, it may take another 48 years to achieve gender parity in senior roles.
This panel will delve into challenges, examine the recent decline in corporate commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and explore actionable strategies to foster equitable workplaces.
Join us to discuss how leaders can transform intent into impact and make gender equity an immediate priority.
9:15 am - 9:45 am
CDT
PANEL | From Pilots to Platforms: AI Best Practices, Strategy, and Governance at Scale
Denny Prvu -
Director of Architecture: Innovation & Technology,
RBC Bank
Brian Cantor - Managing Director, Digital, Customer Management Practice
Innovative and high-impact CX strategies require more than just adoption of new tools; successful transformation requires intentional integration, cross-functional coordination, and a clear link to business outcomes. This panel brings together leaders driving enterprise-wide transformation to explore how to embed AI responsibly, build governance frameworks, and apply best practices to ensure new technologies are scalable, sustainable, and grounded in demonstrable ROI.
Learn strategies to evaluate emerging tools, evolve operating models, and build internal processes that ensure CX technologies function seamlessly across channels, teams, and time.
Key Takeaways:
- Governance & Guardrails: Building the right structures to ensure ethical, consistent, and compliant innovation
- AI Best Practices: Aligning AI initiatives with customer intent, business needs, and responsible data use
- Tech Meets Process: Connecting CX technologies to business architecture, operating models, and transformation goals
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Creating the connective tissue across CX, IT, product, and operations for long-term success
9:45 am - 10:45 am
CDT
Business Meetings
10:45 am - 11:15 am
CDT
Networking Break
11:15 am - 11:45 am
CDT
The AI Transformation: Are We Ignoring The Customer?
Brian Cantor -
Managing Director, Digital,
Customer Management Practice
Conversation about the AI transformation is unavoidable, and it is not just empty rhetoric. Nearly 99% of CX leaders say they are maintaining or increasing investment levels in 2025.
But as our community relentlessly discusses the promise of AI, is it neglecting the most important voice – that of the customer? New research says yes, with a large number of customers expressing significant concern about what AI means for the future of brand interactions.
What are these concerns? More importantly, how can we successfully mitigate those issues and pursue AI in a way that will improve efficiency and customer centricity? As we conclude the CXO Exchange, join this interactive, research-driven session that will provide the answers. Topics include:
- What customers want: the surprising (and not-so-surprising) findings from our consumer preferences survey
- AI scorecard: what is and is not working about customer-facing AI
- Bot vs. agent: how can you balance the two in a customer-centric way
- Risk revision: the concerns that truly matter as you design your CX AI strategy
- AI fails: examples of AI that went wrong (and what brands could have done instead)
