Meet The Speakers At CX NXT, UAE

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With only a few weeks to go until the CX NXT’s UAE edition, Martechvibe highlights the global and regional CX experts that will be headlining the summit. The in-person summit will take place on November 16 and 17, 2022, at Dubai Marina, UAE.

The summit will cover a wide range of topics, including customer experience, customer service and customer loyalty, digital transformation, customer insights, UX and Analytics, contact centres, service design and CRM.

Here’s a look at the headlining speakers;

Abdulaziz Alshamsan, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development – KSA

Passionate about customer experience, Abdulaziz Alshamsan is a veteran with more than 21 years of experience working with Saudi Telecom Company and the Ministry of Labour. His role includes overseeing marketing, customer experience, digital transformation, and ecommerce. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated a high degree of originality and creativity. Currently, he is responsible for the CX department, which develops channels of service delivery and communication between the Ministry and its customers, including customer care and social media. Furthermore, he is responsible for the Ministry’s marketing activities and corporate communication.

Alasdair Kilgour, Vice President – MEA, Turkey, and Israel at Tealium

With more than 20 years of experience, Kilgour has held various executive leadership roles with disruptive high-growth SaaS and technology businesses across EMEA and APAC/Japan. After moving to Dubai 12 years ago, Kilgour is enjoying its rich, multicultural society and the easy access it gives to EMEA and APJ. Currently, he serves as Vice President of the Middle East, Africa, Turkey, and Israel for Tealium, the largest independent and most trusted customer data platform globally.

He is passionate about scaling sales organisations and developing and growing in-region cross-functional teams across EMEA & APJ while simultaneously creating new channels, programs, partners, alliances and approaches that scale.

Aloki Batra, Chief Executive Officer at FIVE Hotels and Resorts

The Chief Executive Officer of FIVE Hotels and Resorts, Aloki Batra, is a true marketer and ideas man. After moving to Dubai 15 years ago, Batra believes the UAE is the perfect place to experiment and grow.

With high-quality property hardware and cutting-edge experiential software, his ethos is a reflection of the brand’s performance and has helped it consistently outperform competitors pre and post Covid-19. He has led FIVE to become a record breaker in the hospitality industry, and to create a robust brand identity in its operating areas.

Diego-Tarek de Aristegui, Chief Marketing Officer at MANO

Diego-Tarek de Aristegui brings in over 14 years of career-spanning leading roles at Leo Burnett MENA and Diageo Innovation Europe. MANO GROUP LIMITED is a quick-commerce grocery delivery platform servicing several African markets.

De Aristegui is a recipient of many international creative awards. He has built brands across several continents, launched innovations for world-class brands in Europe, and is out here now to prove that quick commerce is a credible value proposition which is here to stay. De Aristegui is based out of Madrid and oversees a fast-growing operation and team expanding across the African continent.

Dina Kahiel, Director, Mastercard Experience Centers EEMEA

Dina is responsible for cultivating innovation and co-creation at Mastercard for the EEMEA region while leveraging technology to deliver better experiences to end consumers. As EEMEA Regional Director for Mastercard Experience Centers, Dina takes customer-centred thinking and applies it to various business problems across multiple industries. Her work requires leading a broad range of team members — including strategists, relationship managers, data analysts, engineers, and developers. In this role, Dina has collaborated with some of the world’s leading brands, including Expo 2020, PepsiCo, Siemens, McDonald’s, Samsung, Cisco, Emirates Airlines, Emaar Hospitality and ENBD, to bring to life new experiences powered by IoT, AI, big data, blockchain and other leading technologies.

Grégoire Charpe-Civatte, Group Director – Customer Experience & Innovation at Majid Al Futtaim

Grégoire Charpe-Civatte is the Group Director of Innovation & Customer Experience at Majid Al Futtaim. As a senior leader of CX, marketing and digital teams and strategies, his key function in this role is to understand consumers, markets and trends to drive best-in-class experiences and growth. He has experience in a broad range of industries during his career, including government, high-end retail, real estate, entertainment, energy, and mobility. Charpe-Civatte, who has a creative spirit at his core, uses his previous experience as a popular international singer to bring his artistic side to the business. In order to share his skills with aspiring artists, he teaches design and marketing at several MBA programmes and institutions in the area and Europe. He is a licensed skydiver, pilot, and strong proponent of flexibility and multidisciplinarity.

Hazem El Zayat, Chief Experience Officer at Ogilvy MENA, UAE

Hazem El Zayat is a digital strategy and transformation professional. Zayat comes with over 20 years of experience strategising, road-mapping, and delivering digital transformation projects for large organisations across the Middle East and North Africa. After his graduation with a BSc in Computer Science, Zayat developed a strong career path in which he could indulge his passion for connecting the business world with technology. Working across multiple industries with a range of iconic brands, he has led projects across all areas of the digital mix, including social media, content, performance marketing, search engine optimisation and data and analytics. He has expertise in the delivery of digital and CRM solutions, highly geared around user experience requirements and testing, including the utilisation of state-of-the-art technologies such as eye-tracking, A/B and multivariate testing, prototyping, etc. Zayat has a proven track record in planning, delivering, evaluating, and managing digital transformation strategies and long-term programs, web solutions, CRM projects, ecommerce strategies and projects, and digital marketing campaigns.

Kartik Bhatt, Chief Operating Officer, GCC & Far East Asia at Sharaf Retail

As the Chief Operating Officer of Sharaf Retail, Kartik Bhatt is currently in charge of retail strategy, planning, analytics, consumer marketing, customer experience across numerous touch points, and the introduction of new business verticals through expansion and licensing.

An omnichannel retail & healthcare business leader (CEO & COO) with over 17 years of practical experience in operations, ecommerce, consumer marketing, retail planning, category and merchandise management, business development, supply chain, and global business expansion across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, India & Africa.

Khaled Alaa El Din, Head of Experience at talabat

With around 14 years of experience, Khaled Alaa El Din is a high achiever with excellent organisational abilities, incredibly adaptable management, and many years of expertise in customer experience-focused responsibilities. His expertise in ecommerce has helped him throughout his professional career to gather invaluable insights on how to improve the hands-on customer experience because he is an experienced, hardworking goal achiever. He holds the role of talabat’s Head of Experience at present.

Khaled Nabhan, Head of Customer Experience at First Abu Dhabi Bank

With over 13 years of banking experience (in AAIB, Bank Audi Egypt & FAB) supported by a Master’s degree in banking- finance & certified lean six Sigma BB, PMD & data analysis, Nabhan was responsible for overseeing & reshaping the customers’ journey through all bank’s touch & digital points. Creating the CX  model & applying the group strategy that aims to enhance and sustain external and internal CX not only to meet, but exceed all expectations makes their lives significantly easier.

The CX Model won  Best Customer Journey & Data Centric Award MENA 2020 – from Trusted Advisors Group & The Customer Experience Award in 2021 – Dubai.

Kowshik Bhattacharjee, Head of Service Excellence/CX at Medcare Hospitals & Medical Centres

Kowshik Bhattacharjee comes with 22 years of rich experience, encompassing the Hospitality/ BPO & Healthcare sectors. He has been associated with one of the finest brands like Taj Hotels/ Marriott/ Le Meridien/ ITC Hotels/ Dell Computers/ Apollo Hospitals. He is currently with Medcare Hospitals and Medical Centers as the Head of Patient Experience, one of the premium brands of DM Aster Healthcare group in Dubai.

Bhattacharjee is a well-renowned name in the field of customer experience in India and has been conferred with the prestigious “Bharat Gaurav Award” in 2017 by the Central Ministry. He is the Head of Service Excellence and is responsible for creating the Customer Experience framework for Medcare Hospitals and Medical Centres and playing a pivotal role in Transformation. In 2 years, he has accelerated the Service Excellence Transformation in Medcare. Under his leadership, the company has been conferred with the Gulf Customer Experience Awards for Best Patient Experience & Best CX Team of the Year in Feb 2022.

Kunal Badiani, Senior Director and Head of Expansion – META at MoEngage

Kunal Badiani currently serves as the Senior Director at MoEngage for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey Markets. Before MoEngage, he worked with MarTech companies like Tealium, Oracle Marketing Cloud, and IBM. Over the past decade, he has been involved in several large-scale digital transformation projects in ANZ, the Middle East, and Africa. He is a MarTech Enthusiast and has completed his MBA in Marketing from Melbourne Business School in Australia.

Leo Dovbenko, Founder and CEO Yalla!Market

Leo Dovbenko has worked his way up to manager, and then to CEO of multiple culinary companies. He is a serial entrepreneur in food technology. He observed the pulse of this industry while he was employed, and realised how technology would upend the field. He did this appropriately when advising companies on restaurant automation, a topic in which RMS (Restaurant Management Systems) would be crucial. Dovbenko is an angel investor, passionate about automating restaurants, and has considerable experience building restaurant management systems. In 2018, he finally entered the Middle East after continuing to investigate the intersection between technology and  food.

Maurice van der Heijden, Head of Customer Experience Business EMEA at Verint

Maurice van der Heijden heads up the EMEA CX business at Verint, leading a regional team of CX and technology experts to define and activate their customers’ CX strategies.

Maurice has a strong background in CX consulting, where he spent over a decade working directly with clients in various sectors, developing solutions with clients to meet their needs and drive actionable intelligence into the business.

In addition, he has been instrumental in developing new CX offers by blending top-tier CX technology with innovative CX consulting. As part of this, Maurice has pioneered partnership models between CX technology and consulting firms, creating truly customer-centric offers.

Moe Abeidat, Group Vice President Of Technology at Aramex

Abeidat is an astute, forward-thinking Technology Senior Executive Leader with 20+ years of success building and implementing advanced software systems and solutions that deliver dramatic results in consumer and customer satisfaction, company growth/profitability, and strategic alignment. He is a pacesetter, leveraging business acumen, industry expertise and analytical skills to help global companies like Harcourts, Pelmorex Media (The Weather Network – Canada), ADP (NASDAQ: ADP) and Ingram Micro’s Brightpoint Inc. (NYSE: IM) achieve their strategic objectives.

Mohamad AlSalman, Marketing Science Specialist at Anghami

Mohamad AlSalman is a Product Analyst at Anghami, where he manages Anghami’s ad products and solutions. He has five years of experience in data analytics, digital marketing, and project management. He holds an MS in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California.

Mohammed Al Ogaily, VP of Product at Anghami

Mohammed Al Ogaily is the VP of Product at Anghami – the leading music streaming platform in MENA. Ogaily is passionate about using data and creativity to build user-centric products and experiences that drive growth and deliver user satisfaction. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from the American University of Beirut and has more than seven years of experience in startups, growth, software engineering & product management.

Paul Herman, Vice President of Customer Engagement & Market Intelligence at Sprinklr

A Sprinklr customer for nearly five years, Paul joined the company from Nike, where he was Program Director of Global Brand Digital Platforms, responsible for globally enabling Nike’s digital content, dynamic audience targeting, asset management, omnichannel publishing, customer support, and digital reporting success. At Sprinklr, Paul’s focus is helping bring Sprinklr’s product to the market and the market to Sprinklr’s products. He leads a team of great people to help build out Sprinklr as a category leader, drive up-sell and cross-sell opportunities with current customers, and support Sales, Inside Sales, and Customer Delight through customer engagement and analyst relations.

Paul has over 25 years of global experience, helping companies drive innovation and implement significant change through digital products and services. In addition to holding several leadership roles at Nike, he’s also worked as a VP of marketing and solutions at Learning.com, and led corporate strategy, business leadership, and marketing activities at Xerox.

Ragy Thomas, Founder & CEO at Sprinklr

Ragy Thomas is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Sprinklr, the unified platform for all customer-facing functions. Since founding the company in 2009, Ragy has been on a mission to create the world’s most loved software company, recently leading Sprinklr into its next chapter as a public company in June 2021.

A technology visionary, entrepreneur, and investor, Ragy has played an instrumental role in the evolution of two business-critical channels for the enterprise: social media and email. Before founding Sprinklr, Ragy was the President of Epsilon’s (NYSE:ADS) Interactive Services from 2006 to 2008 and the CTO of Bigfoot Interactive, an email marketing leader Epsilon acquired in 2005.

Rahul Rajpal, Director of Global Customer Experience at Google Ads

Rahul Rajpal has extensive experience in digital transformation, customer experience and operational excellence, including quality and risk monitoring, spanning more than 25 years. He has led large Global partner network operations as well as in-house teams across operations, CX, risk monitoring and quality. Rajpal loves new and complex challenges, and thrives in ambiguity, building high performing and future-ready workforce focusing on creating impactful transformations. He currently serves as the Global Head of Partner operations (Google Ads).

Steven Van Belleghem, International Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author, Co-founder at Nexxworks & Snackbytes

Steven Van Belleghem is an international keynote speaker. These past years, Belleghem has given more than 1,250 presentations at events in over 45 countries. His core expertise is the future of customer experience. The combination between customer-centric thinking, the latest technologies, and the human touch is the guiding principle in Steven’s stories.

Belleghem has authored five international bestsellers about customer experience and has sold more than 150,000 books. His work has been translated into seven languages, and he is the recipient of various awards (most innovative marketing book, best marketing book, best international business book).

Belleghem is also an entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of inspiration agency Nexxworks and social media agency Snackbytes.

Sunny Rao, SVP, Global Sales at Vonage

With more than 20 years of experience as a global information technology leader, Rao brings vast experience and deep expertise in the worldwide expansion of emerging technologies to Vonage and oversees the Vonage API Platform sales organisation around the world. Rao holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering and an MBA.

Sumit Srivastava, Digital & Commercial Officer at Virgin Mobile

Sumit Srivastava is the Group Director of Virgin Mobile UAE. Srivastava is in charge of developing and carrying out the organisation’s commercial and digital strategy and uses his knowledge and inner drive to foster business growth and develop solutions.

Prior to joining Virgin Mobile UAE, Srivastava spent more than a decade in Silicon Valley running ecommerce and digital businesses, managing multi-billion dollar portfolios for industry giants like eBay, Doordash, and Target, and developing their operations worldwide.

Umesh Chopra, Market Intelligence Manager at Sharjah Cooperative Society

Umesh Chopra is an experienced Insights & Analytics professional. Driven by an interest in data-driven decisions, he takes pride in providing a strategic business roadmap to accommodate changing customer and market needs. As a Market Intelligence Manager, his role encompasses Customer Happiness, CRM & Loyalty, and Pricing/Promotion/Assortment Analytics. With more than 11 years of marketeer experience spanning across both agency and client side, Chopra applies principles to practice in the most ideal way.

Vibha Thusu, Global Head of Marketing & Communications at HIMEL Schneider Electric

Vibha Thusu is a strategic marketing communications leader. Thusu comes with around 17 years of experience in industries like information technology & services, learning & education, FMCG, engineering, energy management, electrical, and industrial automation. She is passionate about content marketing and storytelling, leveraging online and offline demand generation touchpoints, customer experience, and channel ecosystem to grow brand awareness, sales, and market share with an entrepreneurial mindset.

Zafeer Shamsudeen, Director of Sales & Marketing at Al Rawab

Zafeer Shamsudeen uses a model of supportive and participatory leadership to promote the concepts of team building and empowerment within a company and functional teams. During his career, he has gained experience introducing new product launches, project management, restructuring operations while growing sales, and leading cross-functional teams across domestic and gulf markets.

His vast industry experience includes consumer goods, manufacturing, and banking services products in GCC Markets & Asian Markets. His key strengths lie in maximising the company’s profitability and launching inventive business strategies.

To watch this impressive line-up in action, register for CX NXT 

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