Spotlight on ECEW 2012 speakers and this year's Chair

For this year's ECEW, speakers are arriving from across the globe and closer to home to deliver the content and messages which have made the event the foremost Customer Experience conference in Europe.

To guide delegates through the event, for the first time we've appointed a Chair from outside the CE industry. Gillian Joseph is an award-winning journalist and presenter on Sky News. She'll be using her interviewing skills to question speakers throughout both days, as well as leading Q & A sessions that enable delegates to interact with the packed line-up of speakers and topics on offer at the event.

From the US, we have Dave Carroll, whose less-than-perfect experience as a customer on United Airlines launched a riposte from Dave which was viewed by millions. His story has been called "a unique expression of a universal truth" because it resonates with the members of virtually any business or organization and Dave's relaxed, authentic and often funny delivery of the events make for a compelling and entertaining lesson. 

From the UK, keynote speaker Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is better known as the Black Farmer. His inspirational talk "Against the Odds" shows how this entrepreneur - who left school without any qualifications - has promoted his products and challenged the status quo using Social Media, developing a customer relationship-based brand which continues to expand in range.

Working for Virgin Atlantic, Paul Sands bridges the UK-US divide and as head of Customer Experience, delivers a keynote speech on translating the strategic elements of CE into practical outputs, and how these can be implemented and then quantified - not forgetting the signature touches of customer service that have come to identify Virgin brands.

Another US-based speaker, Mike Wittenstein, is an acknowledged CE guru who has worked with brands such as IBM, McDonald's and Holiday Inn. Mike will be leading the Employee Engagement stream on day 2, as well as offering an optional day 3 workshop designed to help delegates translate the lessons learnt from ECEW into practical proposals to promote CE within their organisation.

We're proud to run an event which although based in the UK is described as European, so we welcome Alexander Kjerulf from Denmark, whose published works on Happiness in the Workplace have lead to him providing consultancy for companies such as Hilton, LEGO, IKEA, Shell, HP and IBM. From Poland, Zbigniew Nowicki has implemented Social Media strategies leading to more than 500,000 'likes' on Facebook; from Norway, Anders Amot is head of Service Training and has insights from his experience in motivating staff.

In total, we have over 30 speakers, a mixture of academics, consultants, and real-word practitioners who are sure to provide a packed two days full of insights, case studies and techniques which you can apply to your organisation in the year to come.