Login access will be available one week prior to the event!

Why you need to attend:


You asked for more networking opportunities and we are delivering!

We have invested in a wonderful feature on VFairs where you can have virtual meetups, join others for different discussion topics all in the comfort of your own home or office.

Stay tuned for more details and how to sign-up in advance for these virtual meet-ups!

Support our Charities

To make Your 100% Tax Deductible $100 Donation, Click on the logo of the Charity you wish to support.

For group donations, please download and fill in the group form and send to sangeeta@gtacc.ca 

Supporting families fleeing war in Ukraine

Keynote Speakers

Shaun Boothe

Creator, The Unauthorized Biography Series

Terry Pirovolakis

Founder, CureSPG50

Co-hosts

Chi Wen Liang

Director, Client Services, Questrade Financial Services

Nygel Weishar

VP – Service Enablement, CI Financial

Speakers

Amanda Traynor

Regional Vice President, Sales, Talkdesk

Anand Ratnam

VP, Training, Quality & Leadership Development, Contact Point 360

Andrew Reddin

Chief Operating Officer, nPower Canada

Christine Bollendorf

Vice President, Member Service Center Director, Trumark Financial

Clare Santos

Senior Manager, Training, Priceline

Daniel Cheung

VP of Global Client Services, ContactPoint 360

Erin Wilson

Director of Technical Marketing, Five9

Faye Ross

Sr Director, Enterprise Planning, NTT BPO

Fernando Egea

Global VP, AI, Talkdesk

Gary Yorke

Director of 311 Toronto

Hera Tchaderian

AVP, Learning & Development, CAA Club Group

Ian Tarrant

Director, Digital Transformation, MCAP

Ivan Kovacevic

Co-founder, Star Telecom/NuVoxx

Jay Lewis

Principal Consultant, Calabrio

Jeff Doran

Founder and President, CCEOC Inc

John Wilkinson

Senior Sales Engineer, PCI Pal

Josh Streets

Founder and CEO,Scoreboard Group Consulting

June Naranowicz

Senior Manager, Capacity Optimization, Rogers Communications

Karim Bishara

Director of Customer Success, Ethoca

Keith MacKinnon

Director Installed Base & Customer Care, Medtronic Canada

Kevin Hornidge

Sr. Director, Transformation and Strategic Initiatives, Technology & Operations, RBC

Kim Vey

Director Technical Support & Client Account Management, Mobility Operations, TELUS

Leslie O’Flahavan

Leslie O’Flahavan, Principal and Owner, E-WRITE

Mark Miller

Practice Leader, Customer Service Advisory J.D. Power

Matt Uthayakumar

Director – Sales Operations, MCAP

Mike Aoki

President, Reflective Keynotes Inc.

Micah Peterson

VP, Product Management, ProcedureFlow

Neal Dlin

Human Experience (HX) Enthusiast, Chorus Tree

Neil Jain

Technology Delivery Lead, TD Bank Group

Russel Lolacher

Director of Web and Social Media Services, BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

Sangeeta Bhatnagar

Principal, SB Global Human Capital Solutions

Sasith Fernando

Managing Director, Activeo

Susan Graham

Vice President of the Canadian Contact Centres for Scotiabank

Ted Nardin

President, 5th Talent & Senior Consultant, J.D. Power

Tony Porciello

Senior Director, Global Consumer Care/Retail Operations, Spin Master

Valerie Munn

Vice President, Advice Centre & Direct Investing Contact Centre, RBC

Zak Kassam

Vice President, Customer Experience & Engagement, Ethoca

John Ramirez

Technical Support Specialist, Rogers Communciations

Nicole Benoit

Customer Service Specialist, Rogers Communications

Frequently Asked Questions

Date: November 2, 3rd 2022

Time: 9:00am – 1:00pm EST

Location: Anywhere you want it to be as the conference is virtual!

Price: Thanks to our amazing sponsors and the generosity of our speakers, entry to the conference is FREE. We only ask that each participant donates a minimum of $100 to at least one of our two pillar charities - Daily Bread Food Bank or Plan International (in support of children impacted by the war in Ukraine).

You will have opportunities to network with attendees and connect with our industry leading technology suppliers. You will also be able to visit the Virtual Exhibitor hall to have meaningful conversations with our sponsors.

No. All you need is an internet connection and the ability to attend zoom meetings.
Yes - there will be two scheduled breaks and we will be done by 1pm EST each day.
Yes, these will be available for 30 days from the date of the conference for all who registered for the conference.
Yes. If you registered on your own, you will simply need to use the same email address you used when registering to sign on to the event. If someone registered you for the event, please check back with them to determine which email address you should use to log in.

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Jeff Doran is Founder and President of CCEOC Inc. He has been improving customer experience and corporate culture for over 30 years. His company provides culture building and employer branding services including: the “Employer of Choice” market sector awards as well as the Contact Center Employer of Choice certification program. CCEOC also provides employee engagement development programs, employee commitment/engagement surveys, data analysis, seminars, workshops and action plan facilitation services.

Clients include: FedEx, Scotiabank, Xceed (Egypt), MCAP, ING Direct (now Tangerine), Hilti North America, LoyaltyOne, CIBA Vision, Rogers Communications, The Shopping Channel, CIBC and Roche Diagnostics to name a few.

Jeff has helped companies develop employer of choice cultures resulting in significant improvements in:

Jeff Doran is a sought after speaker and author, having presented at many leading industry events including: Canada Telecom Summit, GTACC Annual Conference, SOCAP Annual Conference (US), IQPC Call Center Week (US), ICCM, Federated Press, Manitoba Call Center Association, Canadian Marketing Association, Nova Scotia Call Center Association, BC Call Center Association, and CCA (US) among others. His sense of humour and engaging style are always well received by audiences.

Zak is the Vice President, Customer Experience & Engagement at Ethoca (a Mastercard Company), where he leads a team of world-class, solutions-oriented, success-driven Customer Experience professionals who onboard, support and optimize relationships across all of Ethoca’s customer segments. Leveraging his experience as a seasoned global leader, the Ethoca CX team is located across the globe (Toronto, New York, London, Melbourne).

Over his 15+ year career, Zak has developed a diverse background and skillset across Customer Experience, Financial Services and Consulting. Having spent 10 years at Bank of Montreal, Zak held senior leadership roles spanning Operational Risk, Treasury & Payments Solutions and Business Process Transformation. Prior to Bank of Montreal, Zak began his career at Accenture leading consulting projects within their SAP Implementation practice.

Currently residing in Toronto with his wife and young children (ages 6 & 8), Zak is an avid Basketball and Golf fan, who tries to play as much as his home duties and aging body will let him!

Faye Ross is seasoned Workforce Management and Quality Assurance Expert with over 20 years experience in the call center industry. She is currently holds a role as a Senior Director, Enterprise Planning at NTT BPO where her teams are responsible for end-to-end Workforce Management, Training and Recruitment coordination as well as Quality Assurance. Her experience lies in BPO, Banking, Telecom and Retail industries. Currently, she is transforming the Quality program using voice analytics and AI technology for advanced analytics. She is also utilizing technology to assist Team Leaders in real time to manage adherence, code usage and long calls. Lastly, knowing the need for flexibility and work life balance has become invaluable to our colleagues, she is in the process of launching “Employee Centric Scheduling”. This allows for our colleagues to have significantly more say into their schedule and have options that can suit their needs. Faye values her team and relationships she has made through her career. People are her passion. She feels that people are the most important asset in any organization and she loves to invest time in her people and watch their skills and ability grow. Her team’s success is how she measures her own success and is proud to have supported many of her team members though many different roles and promotions over the years.

Karim is the Director of Customer Success at Ethoca (a Mastercard company). With over 17 years of experience in the industry, Karim is passionate about delivering world-class customer experience to his customers, and passionate about helping his team do the very same. In fact, his team has won GTACC's 'Canada's Favourite Customer Service Team' for the last two years in a row!

Karim is not only focused on enhancing supporting and improving his customers' experience, but is also passionate about coaching his team to be the very best version of themselves they can be. He loves to challenge his team to think outside the box, change the status quo, come up with tailored and new solutions to address customers' unique issues and drive deep loyalty and connection between his team and their customers.

Neil Jain is passionate about applying technology to benefit the customer experience. Neil is currently Technology Delivery Lead for TD Bank Group. He is responsible for delivering contact centre infrastructure projects in Canada and the US, with a focus on voice biometrics technology. Previously, he provided technology leadership for IVR projects across multiple TD lines of business. Neil began his career in the telecommunications industry working for Allstream and then Rogers. Prior to joining TD, he had started his own financial consulting business.
Neil earned a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering (honours) and a Certificate in Strategic Management of Enterprise IT, both from the University of Toronto.
Neil's wife and one-year-old daughter keep him busy as well as his love for tennis!

John Ramirez – Have worked for Rogers for 18 years. I have done Rogers Home Phone, Internet and cable support. I also worked at Sprint Canada. I am Colombian Born and have a young family of two. I reside in Toronto. I have participated in training at Rogers with various groups and have worked in 3 different Tech Support Rogers buildings.

Nicole Benoit is a customer service specialist with 22 years experience in client relations in the Ottawa area. Nicole has worked for Rogers communications for over 18 years specializing in customer retention and loyalty. Speaking to customers over the phone, resolving issues quickly, efficiently, and increasing customer satisfaction is key to Nicole’s success and longevity in the field. Nicole is passionate about helping customers and peers. She shares her knowledge, and assists in other facets at Rogers including, leadership and development, performing Team Manager duties, onboarding, training, and facilitating classes.

Fernando Egea, Global VP, AI, Talkdesk has over 25 years of experience in contact center, artificial intelligence and technological innovation. Along with his experience at Genesys, Cisco, Nokia and Talkdesk, he also is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP). Fernando’s passion is focused on enabling organizations to deliver superior customer experiences for their clients while at the same time maximize their returns. In his spare time, Fernando can be found practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and enjoying fine foods with his family.

As VP of Global Client Services - Daniel oversees the Account Management team and PMO with ContactPoint 360, globally. Daniel's responsibility at ContactPoint 360 is to maintain strong relationships with our clients through proactive communications, strategic thinking that drive process improvements, cost optimization and how to better leverage technology to continuously drive a positive customer experience.

Daniel brings to the CP360 table over 12 years of Sales and Channel Marketing experience with over 6 years in client relationship building and business development. Prior to joining the BPO industry 3 years ago, Daniel was the VP of Client Services for a boutique marketing firm supporting SMB/longtail partners for Technology vendors in the network and data centre space.

Gary Yorke is a strategic leader in the City of Toronto's customer service and digital transformation program, and the head of the largest integrated 311 system in North America. He is an innovative and strategic leader focused on orchestrating people, processes, and digital technologies to transform the citizen experience and build staff engagement. Gary is a results-driven champion of service excellence and positive work culture, with 20+ years of award-winning successes developing and implementing strategic, tactical and operational management frameworks focused on effectively and efficiently meeting the needs of staff, stakeholders and residents.

Amanda Traynor is a high talent technology sales leader with experience and insights specializing in accelerating top line growth and developing strategic resources. Specializing in sales, marketing and operations leadership with 20+ years of technology sales experience, management consulting and coaching. Amanda is a fierce advocate of DE&I in the workplace and beyond. As President of the Women in Technology ERG at Talkdesk, she works with female and male allies to amplify women in technology.

Josh Streets is Founder and CEO of Scoreboard Group Consulting. He has spent the last 20+ years in contact center leadership, executive leadership, consulting and advisory. He is widely known as a thought leader in the industry, with his company & teams working alongside many of today’s leading brands. Transformation and modernization of customer and employee experiences has been his career long purpose.

Josh’s engagements traditionally meet at the intersection of CX, AI, Ops & I.T./H.R. He is a strategist at heart, who enjoys being the liaison between contact center & other executives to assess, create and deliver strategy + tactics toward best in class.

Josh is a sought after speaker who has presented at many leading industry events over the years including: Execs in the Know, ICMI CC Expo, Quality & Training Conference, GTACC Roundtables, etc. You can always find his most recent thoughts and opinions on the future of contact centers via LinkedIn.

Jay Lewis has been involved in business analytics for over 20 years. His Six Sigma Certification helps drive deep analysis beyond surface indicators to root causes, resulting in the unveiling of opportunities to improve efficiencies and effectiveness throughout the organization. His experience across health care, insurance and technology companies enables him to speak to a wide array of scenarios and applications for data analysis. Jay partners with internal and external stakeholders from seasoned executives to entry-level associates, providing insights and guidance to drive toward revenue growth as well as cost savings.

Ivan co-founded Star Telecom/NuVoxx in 2011 and has an extensive contact centre technology career spanning two decades. Prior to Star Telecom/NuVoxx Ivan held various senior technology roles at BPOs and contact centre technology providers. Ivan's passion is finding ways to improve customer experiences using technology and applying contact centre technologies to streamline processes. Ivan's current focus is expanding the Genesys partnership to drive value to clients through a combination of Star Telecom services (SIP, SMS, Professional Services, Monitoring, NOC) and Genesys Pure Cloud platform.

John Wilkinson is PCI Pal’s lead Solutions Engineer in Canada and resides in Montreal. John has over twenty-five years of telecommunications engineering experience and has worked for several of the world’s most progressive service providers, equipment manufacturers and software makers. John consults with PCI Pal’s partners and end users to ensure business requirements, high-quality customer experience and PCI compliance are seamlessly delivered. John is passionate about customer experience and welcomes any opportunity to engage with PCI Pal’s customers to help make their contact centres more efficient and secure.

Ian is Director, Digital Transformation at MCAP Service Corporation (https://www.mcap.com/), one of Canada’s largest Mortgage Finance Companies.

A contact centre leader and coach for the past 20 years in multiple industries, his dedication towards employee engagement efforts culminated in the achievement of his team’s 2 successive Contact Centre Employer of Choice ‘Gold’ awards at MCAP. His current role has him leading the organization’s transformation efforts to improve the homeowner experience through the leveraging of people, process and technology.

Ian is passionate about the customer experience and the correlation between their satisfaction, and that of the employees that service them. He currently resides in the Kitchener-Waterloo area with his wife Charlotte, and their 4 children.

Kevin specializes in Digital Transformation leading large business transformation at RBC. Kevin is a proven people leader who inspires groups across the business and IT organizations to achieve amazing results through innovation, design thinking and creativity. In addition to his operations experience, Kevin has a background in technology and data, has held many roles specializing in digital transformation leveraging technology and data – Including: Artificial intelligence, data science, robotic and cognitive automation, enterprise content management and document management, workflow and work distribution. Kevin leads delivery at RBC to incubate solutions and deploy at scale to transform client and employee experiences across enterprise operations.

Kevin’s previous leadership experiences globally across operations / sales and business development in many industries allows him to drive business transformation through the value chain by leveraging process and technology with a focus on outcomes for both clients and employees.

Previous to RBC Kevin worked for many organizations across the Canada, US and internationally in both start up tech companies to large fortune 500 organizations specializing in driving customer centricity and employee engagement.

Kevin has a passion for change leadership, people building and developing programs to drive client experience, efficiency and employee experience building programs to have a complete balance of each and leveraging technology to simplify business for clients and employees.

Kevin is married and an active father of two young girls and enjoys spending downtime with all their activities. He enjoys spending time with family and friends constantly entertaining at his home in the Glen, an avid curler and is a HOCKEY junkie!

Kim Vey is the Director of Technical Support and Client Account Management in Mobility Operations at TELUS. During her 18 years at TELUS she has held various roles including Operations Manager of the Barrie Call Centre, Program Manager, Director roles for Client Care, CAM and Director, Team Alberta Mobility Operations. She is a passionate member of the Barrie Community Ambassadors Executive, a member of the TELUS Community Board and enjoys giving back to the community at every opportunity.

TBA

Neal Dlin is a Human Experience (HX) driven keynote speaker, award-winning practitioner, consultant and executive coach in customer experience, employee experience and leadership. Recognized by ICMI as a top 25 CX thought leader, Neal is regarded as a status quo-quashing, inspiring force who helps leaders and organizations to rethink their interactions through the lens of our most common human needs.

Sangeeta Bhatnagar is Founder of the boutique Human Capital firm, SB Global Human Capital Solutions, which focuses on talent acquisition and training (live and virtually) for top-tiered Contact Centre & CX/EX professionals. With an emphasis on Human Behaviour, Sangeeta helps companies to attract, retain and develop top talent using behaviour models, strategies and Emotional Intelligence and Adaptability principles. Sangeeta is a best-selling author of the anthology “Called to Action,” as well as the Chair of the Greater Toronto Area Contact Centre Association.

During his 13 years in the Telecommunications and Customer Experience industries, Sasith had exposure across multiple roles. Starting as an engineer, he quickly evolved to Lead engineer, Consultant, Solution Architect, Chief Architect and finally Managing Director. With a keen eye for business operations along with his technical expertise, Sasith is able to bring a high value to any management team working on digitalizing their Customer Service processes. Through his accomplishments, Sasith has been recognized by various leaders and peers in the Contact Centre and Customer Experience Industry. In the last 9 months, he has been the key initiator of developing Activeo’s practice in North America, setting up the company and hiring a local team.

Ted Nardin is president of 5th Talent and a senior consultant with J.D. Power on a continued quest to unlock the potential of human communication in customer service. Over the last three decades, he has worked in companies ranging from call center startups to large scale enterprises. He has served in management and executive roles ranging from operations to corporate HR, and he is most proud to say that he started as an agent on the phones in the early years of the call center boom.
Ted has also engaged in original research to ""crack the code"" for maximizing customer experience through elevated human interaction. During his career, he formed a communication science lab that served as a center for research and innovation, partnering with companies to achieve groundbreaking results in employee satisfaction and customer loyalty. Most recently, he has focused his research on the concept of meaningful work and its implication for workforce optimization. The application of discoveries has proven to be beneficial to improving both employee retention and customer experience.
As a communication science geek, Ted enjoys promoting human interaction as a powerful way to elevate customer satisfaction. As a service-minded consultant, he enjoys facilitating change that empowers frontline personnel. As a human connection advocate, he finds joy in bringing people together to deliver incredible results.
Ted has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business from the University of Southern Colorado, and a Master of Arts Degree in Speech Communication from the University of Northern Colorado.

Tony is Senior Director, Global Consumer Care/Retail Operations at Spin Master Ltd. One of the world's largest children's toy and entertainment companies.
Tony is a Contact center leader and Operations specialist with over 16 years’ experience. His focus is on operational excellence and consumer experience. In his current role Tony is leading the organization in transforming the consumer journey and supporting consumer insights to better develop product and services. His focus is on ensuring omni channel growth and scalability as Spin Master continues to see immense growth as an industry leader. Tony has a passion for exceptional service and ensuring satisfaction throughout the consumer journey. He currently resides in Mississauga Ontario with his wife and their two daughters. When he isn’t in the office or playing with Toys, he spends his time enjoying the outdoors, reading, and following baseball.

Valerie joined RBC in 2010 and since then has held a number of progressively senior roles within the organization, including Operations, Sales, Compliance, and HR before assuming her current role of Vice President, RBC Advice Centre.

As Vice President for the Advice Centre, and Direct Investing Contact Center she is responsible for leading a highly talented team of Advisors and representatives supporting multiple businesses across Canada and delivering unparalleled client experience, as well as industry-leading business performance.

Over the years, as the National Co-Chair and now Executive Champion of RBC NextGen—an Employee Resource Group providing access to networking and career exploration opportunities—Valerie has dedicated her time to developing the next generation of young professionals. She is also an active board member for Business in the Streets, a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization that provides top-tier business training, peer mentorship and micro-financing to youth facing access barriers.

Born and raised in Montreal, Valerie is also fluent in French and Italian and spent five years in Italy, where she completed her MBA at the Politecnico di Milano in 2007. She currently lives in Toronto with her husband and eight-year-old daughter.

June Naranowicz is a Workforce Professional with 25+ years’ experience. Currently the Senior Manager of the Capacity Optimization team at Rogers Communications, her team is prime for all Scheduling, Offline Management and Payroll Transmission for Rogers’ frontline Specialists. Other roles in both Corporate and BPO environments have provided her many opportunities to drive improvements in results and reduction of costs by streamlining processes and introducing automation. Whether it’s resolving the scheduling concerns of a single agent or rolling out a new scheduling approaches at a corporate level her desire to deliver a win/win solution has been demonstrated on a number of occasions. Having a curious nature and focused on keeping an open mind, June has embraced the changes related to the move to a Remote Workforce and is actively seeking the insight of others to learn more about their changing environments and the possibilities of how different organizations are dealing with common challenges.

As a Rogers employee June’s outlook mirrors that of the organization’s founder Ted Rogers……..
The Best is yet to come!!

A charismatic engineer, Erin pairs technical expertise with business acumen to absorb complex concepts and effectively communicate solutions to non-technical audiences – on the fly.

As a Director of Technical Marketing at Five9, Erin challenges companies to creatively apply contact center technology to their most strategic initiatives, and helps organizations deliver exceptional, reimagined customer experiences.

Erin has spent her career in Software-as-a-Service, holding senior and leadership positions in Solutions Consulting, Product Evangelism, and Business Partner Enablement. This experience, along with a soft spot for sales-related Schadenfreude, inspired her book - The Sapient Salesman: Spinning Life into Lessons, One Tale at a Time. Erin currently lives in Hollywood, Florida and can be found on Twitter @EbullientErin.

Andrew Reddin is a seasoned workforce development executive who currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for NPower Canada, a national charity that upskills and places diverse job seekers into digitally skilled roles with many of Canada's leading employers. He has worked in the employment and training field for the past fifteen years.

Christine Bollendorf is the Vice President of TruMark Financial Credit Union’s Member Service Center. She has been with the credit union for the past 16 years. Starting as a Member Service Representative, she gained experience, knowledge, and trust from the senior team at the credit union until she attained her current position. Her team in the Member Service Center strives for a first call resolution for each member contact and a singular focus on providing exceptional member service through a variety of channels including Phone, Email, SMS, Chat and soon to come, Video. Christine leads a team of almost 50 representatives and supervisors who all endeavor to live out the credit union’s brand promise of “Member banking is better banking®” each and every day.

An avid believer that learning is the foundation to one’s success and development, Clare Santos is dedicated to fostering a culture of learning alongside people who are passionate about building the right solution for learning in any environment. She currently leads the Customer Care Training team at Priceline.com as their Senior Manager.

Clare has been in the Learning & Development (L&D) for nearly 20 years within various industries like insurance, technology, & eCommerce to name a few, and is experienced in Contact Centre Operations, Quality Assurance, Communications, Customer and Employee Experience as well as L&D in both a corporate and frontline setting. Before joining Priceline in March 2022, she was with Sonnet for seven years leading their Training, Communications, and Knowledge team, and has worked with companies such Staples, Rakuten Kobo, and The Hudson’s Bay.

Clare is passionate about her two boys and her family, reading books and traveling. She is a huge foodie who can be found perusing the menus of new and upcoming restaurants, and loves learning new things. Most recently, she took up Mandarin Chinese and got her motorcycle license.

Shaun Boothe is an award-winning hip-hop artist, TEDx speaker, and creator of ‘The Unauthorized Biography Series’. The Unauthorized Biography Series is a critically acclaimed musical project that celebrates the world’s greatest cultural icons through biographical rap songs – Repackaging History through Hip-Hop. Each chapter of the series captures the legacy of an influential iconic figure in a documentary-style music video. Icons featured in the series include Bob Marley, Muhammad Ali, Malala Yousafzai, Terry Fox, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and more. Getting blog love from Kanye, tweets from Diddy himself - Boothe’s sixth icon in his series - and a feature on Forbes.com, it’s clear that he’s getting the attention of the right people.

After spending 10+ years in the music industry, sharing stages with the likes of Snoop Dogg, Lauryn Hill, and Kendrick Lamar, a search for a more purposeful path led Shaun to the education market. It was here where he discovered how his Unauthorized Biography Series, combined with his passion for speaking, could be used as a powerful tool to both entertain and inspire others to achieve their own greatness. A few short years later, this new direction has grown into a thriving international career as an inspirational speaker and performing artist in middle schools, high schools, college campuses, corporations, associations, and performing arts centers alike.

Terry Pirovolakis is the founder of CureSPG50, a charity that is actively working on building a cure for a neurodegenerative disease called Spastic Paraplegia Type 50 (SPG50). Terry started the charity after his youngest son Michael was diagnosed with the disease in 2019. Since then, he has put together a team of scientific professionals from around the world that are working on a Gene Therapy for SPG50, which they hope will positively change the lives of children affected by this terrible disease. In addition to Terry’s charity work he is also a Director of Contact Centre Strategy at CIBC (A Large Canadian Bank) in Toronto Canada.

Hera Tchaderian is the Assistant Vice President of the Learning and Development at CAA Club Group. She has a passion for education and helping others learn and grow. She has over 2 decades of experience in facilitation, learning program design and leadership of learning professionals. Her expertise lies in technical training, ranging from the insurance industry to Retail, where she has successfully onboarded individuals who have become leaders in their fields. Prior to CAA, Hera held progressive positions in insurance training and program design. In her spare time she is an avid baker and one day dreams of owning her own bakery.

Mike Aoki is the President of Reflective Keynotes Inc., a training company that helps contact centres improve their sales and customer retention results. A contact centre expert, Mike was chosen by ICMI.com as one of the "Top 25 Customer Service Thought Leaders on Twitter" for the past five years. He also received the GTACC Award for social media influence, and the Canadian Institute of Management's Quality Service Award for leadership. Mike's customer experience (CX) column appears in "Contact Center Pipeline" magazine. He is also a co-author of the Amazon #1 bestselling leadership book, "Called to Action".

Nygel Weishar is an active innovator in the Contact Centre industry, with 10 years’ experience evolving the way contact centres operate. Helping pioneer the development of digital interaction channels, Nygel has worked with multiple Financial Institutions, up into his current role as Vice President of Service Enablement at CI Financial. At CI, Nygel has helped to completely transform the footprint of the Contact Centre and associated functions. In the past 3 years, CI has evolved their contact centre from manual excel based tracking, to a full cloud based-data lake architecture that serves up crucial data to business leaders in real time. Day to day, Nygel and his teams help foster an energetic and winning culture, through the daily support all contact centre support elements. Outside of professional pursuits Nygel is an avid sports/technology fan, residing in Innisfil with his wife (Melissa) and two rambunctious/talkative boys (Mavryk 4 & Wyatt 6).

Keith MacKInnon is a Customer Experience leader with over 25 years’ experience. Keith currently leads the MiniMed Customer Solutions Team; this includes Customer Service, Product Support, and National Accounts at Medtronic.

Keith has spent more than 25 years in the Diabetes industry in Canada with companies like Abbott Laboratories, MediSense, TheraSense, and the last eleven years at Medtronic.

Keith’s passion is helping people with Diabetes. He believes, “there are no days off for our customers who need our products and services, and we need to be there for them. We need to continue to push ourselves to make it easy for our customers to do business with us.”

Originally from Truro, NS, Keith now resides in the GTA.

Leslie O’Flahavan is a get-to-the point writer and an experienced writing instructor. E-WRITE owner since 1996, Leslie leads customized writing courses for Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and non-profits. Leslie helps the most stubborn, inexperienced, or word-phobic employees at your organization improve their writing skills, so they can do their jobs better. As a result of her work, Leslie’s clients improve their customer satisfaction ratings, reduce training cycles, improve productivity, and limit legal risk. Leslie is a LinkedIn Learning author of six writing courses on topics including social media; live chat and text; plain language; and technical writing.

Mark Miller leads the J.D. Power Global Customer Service Advisory and is responsible for thought leadership, solutions development, strategic alliances and client support. He leads customer service, technical support and sales performance improvement and certification initiatives for the company.

Mark has over 20 years of performance-improvement consulting experience working with small, medium and Fortune 500 clients in more than a dozen industries to improve sales, customer service and technical support operations. Through his work leading the J.D. Power Certified Customer Service Program across channels, Mark has had the opportunity to interact with over 600 high-performing contact centers, which has given him a unique understanding of what customers want and what top performers across industries actually do to deliver an outstanding experience. With this perspective to draw from and with access to the most comprehensive research data around what defines and drives an outstanding customer experience, Mark is one of the foremost authorities on what top performers do to create a differentiated customer experience.

Prior to joining J.D. Power in 2000, Mark served as a strategy and operations consultant to senior-level management, as well as an executive in the sporting goods, computer and networking services, offshore software development and Internet security industries.

Mark has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The University of Texas at Austin and an MBA in marketing (with honors) from Regis University. He was selected as a member of the Alpha Sigma Nu Honor Society

With over 20 years of progressive leadership experience in a variety of roles within the mortgage servicing industry, Matt Uthayakumar has honed his leadership skills and has become known for his inclusive and servant leadership approach to leading others. He has proven over the years to be resilient, adaptable, and possessing a growth mindset. All qualities that have helped him be successful and giving him a reputation as someone who can “get things done”.

Currently, Matt is accountable for the Renewals Team, identifying, developing, and implementing strategic initiatives to maintain MCAP’s assets under management as loans come up for maturity.

Matt’s passions outside of work lies in travelling around the world, golfing, and enjoying food from different cultures!

TBA

Chi Wen Liang is a driven professional who is passionate about empowering others.

Chi Wen is Director, Client Services, at Questrade Financial Services. She works with a team of talented individuals dedicated to delivering best-in-class service to clients.

With over 20 years in the financial services industry and the last 15 in leadership roles, Chi Wen is a firm believer that employee engagement and client experience are the foundation to every business decision.

Prior to joining Questrade, Chi Wen managed financial planning teams providing comprehensive solutions to high-net-worth individuals and most recently led a senior advisory team across Canada. She made the pivot to Questrade to join a fast-growing organization whose vision is to revolutionize financial services for the benefit of Canadians by providing the most innovative and cost-effective financial services online.

Chi Wen holds the Certified Financial Planner designation and is a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute.

Interests include travelling with the family, coin collecting and curling.

Russel Lolacher is a long-standing advocate for customer-centric communications. As Director of Web and Social Media Services for the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, he created and led the government’s first social customer care program, now in place for more than a decade. With a focus on emergency communications, customer service and public education, it has become a trusted resource and one of the most engaged presences in the public service.

He's also the founder of the Digital Engagement Community of Practice for BC agencies and his work has been recognized nationally and internationally, and by industry leaders ICMI, Hootsuite and Instagram.

Susan Graham is Vice President of the Canadian Contact Centres for Scotiabank. She is responsible for Canadian Operations for Scotiabank across six locations that are empowered to serve close to 9MM customers. She started her career with Scotiabank in 1997, leading high impact strategy and change across 10 progressively senior roles within the Bank. She has held various roles in Canadian Banking, Business Banking Risk and had spent the last nine years in Global Operations. Susan has a rich, extensive background in leading large teams; championing advancements focused on organizational culture, and elevating both employee, and customer experiences. She is a strong advocate for equity and serves on Scotiabank’s Global Operations’ DE&I Council and the Atlantic Women in Leadership Employee Resource Group. Susan earned her Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Business and Economics from Acadia University and holds an M.B.A. from Dalhousie University. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her husband and two daughters.

TBA