Webinar Series: CX on the Frontier
Breaking the Rules on Human & AI Engagement
4-Part Webinar Series created & chaired by Marianne Withers
After the huge success and standout feedback from the 2025 webinar debate “AI Friend or Foe? Job Killer or Ultimate Solution?”, UKCCF is back with a powerful new four-part series, created in partnership with Marianne Withers.
Welcome to CX on the Frontier: Breaking the Rules of Human & AI Engagement, a trilogy that goes beyond theory and into the real-world frontier where customer experience, AI, and human connection collide.
The series is built on a concept originated by Marianne Withers, who is the Chair for this Trilogy, she also created the original idea behind last year’s highly praised debate, bringing a signature blend of sharp CX thinking, commercial realism, and future-facing challenge.
The Series Roadmap:
Date: 18th June 2026, 12:30pm
Guest panel: Elaine Lee, Danny Wareham, Martin Teasdale, Nicola Collister & Gary Gormley
What we will cover:
IT’S A WRAP – we are bringing together two key priorities that have emerged from each of the three debates. We’re consolidating these insights to shape a unified perspective on Customer Experience at The Frontier, part of our Breaking the Rules of Human and AI Engagement series.
This synthesis draws on the core discussions from The Human Limit, The Machine Mind, and The Frontier: Human-Like Enterprise, enabling us to distill the collective conclusions from all three. Together, they help us define what the future of CX looks like, where human capability, machine intelligence, and enterprise transformation converge.”
Watch the replay of this session here.
This webinar took place on the 14th May 2026
Guest panel: Elaine Lee, Abbi Fry, Jennifer Buffaloe, Paolo Righetti
What we will cover:
The New Frontier – Human Like Enterprise, the next best action for every interaction. Where human and AI collaboration redefines CX. We are entering a new era of customer experience where the goal is not just faster service or lower cost, it is more human, more contextual, and more effective interactions at scale. The “Human-Like Enterprise” is an organisation that can respond to customers with the speed and intelligence of AI, but the judgment, empathy, and nuance of humans.
Watch the replay of this session here
This webinar took place on 16th April 2026, 12:30pm
Guest panel: Elaine Lee, Paula Brockwell, Nerys Corfield, Nicola Collister
What we wil cover:
The Machine Mind – This session explores how AI is increasingly shaping the decisions we make, the content we consume, and the systems that run around us, often without us noticing. We’ll debate what it means to live alongside “machine minds” that don’t just respond to human behaviour, but actively anticipate it, influence it, and automate it at scale.
Watch the replay of this session here
This webinar took place on: 12th March 2026
Guest panel: Elaine Lee, Danny Wareham, Dr Debashish Sengupta, Doran Gower
What we wil cover:
The Human Limit – Examining the Limitations of Human Empathy, Intuition, and Emotional Intelligence in CX the Next Generation
This debate is designed to explore a core question at the heart of next generation customer experience. How far can human capability realistically scale in modern CX, and where does it break down.
Meet our series creator and chair:
Marianne Withers is a recognised leader in customer experience, operational transformation, and human-centred innovation. As Founder and CEO of The Verity Centre, and now leading Withers Jones, a boutique consultancy specialising in CX, EX, and AI transformation, Marianne is helping organisations reimagine how people, technology, and performance come together in a rapidly evolving world.
Known for combining strategic insight with deep operational expertise, Marianne has built a reputation for transforming organisations from the inside out. Her work spans financial services, healthcare, energy, and retail, where she has consistently delivered culture change, operational excellence, service innovation, and sustainable growth across complex environments.
At the centre of her approach is the development of Work Journeys, an intelligent convergence of Workforce, Workplace, and Workflow Journeys. This pioneering framework unites people, processes, and AI within one adaptive operating model, enabling organisations to create more connected employee experiences, more intuitive customer interactions, and more agile ways of working. It is where human insight meets AI intelligence.
Marianne’s work is grounded in the belief that technology should enhance human capability, not replace it. By blending behavioural insight, service design, operational strategy, and emerging technologies, she helps organisations create emotionally intelligent, data-informed experiences that strengthen engagement, performance, and trust.
With more than 30 years of leadership experience, Marianne is widely recognised for her ability to align commercial outcomes with human impact. She is a trusted advisor to leaders navigating transformation, helping organisations modernise operations while building cultures that empower people to thrive.
Alongside her consultancy work, Marianne serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Portsmouth, where she mentors founders and emerging businesses through strategic guidance, innovation support, and ecosystem development. She is a passionate advocate for inclusive entrepreneurship and for advancing women in business and leadership. Marianne also serves as a Non-Executive Director for The Road from Karachi, providing strategic counsel that supports the organisation’s long-term vision, operational maturity, and community impact.
Bold, authentic, and future focused, Marianne is recognised for challenging conventional thinking and shaping a more human, intelligent future of work and experience design. Her leadership brings together empathy, innovation, and execution to help organisations create meaningful change that lasts.
Meet our panelists:
I currently look after the Complaints Department for NFU Mutual, having focussed my career in financial services on operational management and customer experience. I’ve always favoured a customer centric approach to decision making, driving change that is validated by customer data and insights.
NFU Mutual with CourtCorrect won Gold in the category Best AI Customer Experience of the Year at the 2025 UKCCF National Contact Centre Awards
Danny believes that happy bees make tasty honey.
With a purposeful culture, strategy and support systems, high performance becomes a side effect.
He is a psychologist, author, accredited coach, and psychometrician whose work lies at the intersection of leadership, culture and personality, with a focus on individual differences – especially the “dark triad” traits of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
An expert in culture and leadership dynamics, Danny has been recognised among the Global Top 25 Thought Leaders on Culture and the Top 50 in Leadership and has spent nearly 30-years in contact centre, retail and fintech industries, designing cultures, leadership systems, and strategies in which energy, clarity, and collaboration multiply success.
He is the founder of Firgun, a consultancy whose Hebrew name captures his core motivation: “the genuine, sincere and pure happiness for another person’s accomplishment or experience”, whose clients include Worldpay, M&G Investment Bank, and LEGO.
I’m passionate about how knowledge is shared, structured, and made actionable—especially as Generative AI reshapes the way we find, deliver, and interact with information.
At KMS Lighthouse, I’ve spent the past decade helping global organisations improve customer and employee experiences through smarter knowledge management strategies. In recent years, that mission has expanded to include new tools like Microsoft Copilot, Claude, GPT, and Perplexity—AI systems that are rapidly changing expectations for access to information.
My role spans presales, solution architecture, and analyst engagement—ensuring that both the business case and the technical solution are aligned. I also stay active in the GenAI space, experimenting with real-world use cases and sharing insights where they might help others navigating similar questions.
📌 Interests & Focus:
• GenAI for Knowledge Management
• Analyst relations & insight gathering
• Microsoft Copilot + Office 365
• GPT-4, Claude, and Perplexity use cases
• Customer experience and content consistency Always happy to connect with others working at the intersection of knowledge and AI.
Dr Debashish (Deb) Sengupta is a Senior Academic and Course Leader for the MSc International Business & Management programme at the University of Portsmouth, London Campus. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), an award-winning author, researcher and educator with over 25 years of international experience across the United Kingdom, the Middle East and India. His career is distinguished by academic leadership, teaching innovation, research scholarship and deep engagement with industry and professional practice.
An award-winning author, Deb has written nine books, including the acclaimed Penguin Random House title The Life of Y: Engaging Millennials as Employees and Consumers, winner of the DMA–NTPC Best Business Book Award and featured in the Stanford University Library collection. He is also the author of The Life of Z, a widely recognised book on Generation Z, alongside several other professional and business titles. His forthcoming academic textbook, Human Resource Management: Understanding Traditional Foundations and Modern Innovations, will be published by Routledge (UK). He is also co-author of Stumped: Life Behind and Beyond Twenty-Two Yards, published by Penguin Random House and launched at the House of Lords in June 2025.
Deb’s research interests span generational behaviour at work, gender and entrepreneurship, sustainable consumption, the future of work and higher education transformation. His peer-reviewed scholarship has been published in international journals including the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Social Responsibility Journal, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, and the International Journal of Business and Emerging Markets. He also contributes to sector publications on higher education strategy, employability and pedagogy, writing on curriculum reform, skills development and educational transformation. He has received multiple research honours, including the Best Research Project Award (2022–23) presented by the Education Minister of Bahrain. He holds dual PhD degrees and a Harvard University teaching certification.
Deb’s academic work is driven by a commitment to bridging theory and real-world application. His teaching philosophy centres on active blended learning, authentic assessment and industry-embedded education, enabling students to develop analytical rigour, professional confidence and employability skills. At the University of Portsmouth, he leads curriculum innovation through live industry briefs, simulations and civic-engaged projects, including a flagship collaboration with the London Borough of Waltham Forest on sustainability and decarbonisation feasibility. His Industry Educator model, which integrates global practitioners into classroom learning, has influenced teaching practice across programmes and campuses.
He has previously held senior academic leadership positions, including Associate Professor and HR Area Coordinator at the Royal University for Women in Bahrain, as well as Professor, Area Chair, and Director at Alliance University in India. In these roles, he led accreditation and quality assurance initiatives, including AACSB curriculum and assurance-of-learning standards, programme transformation and curriculum mapping. Beyond academia, Deb has designed and delivered executive education, leadership development, and professional training programmes for organisations across the UK, the Gulf region, and India, and serves as an international speaker, mentor, and advisor to startups and leadership teams navigating generational and organisational change.
Deb’s work reflects a sustained commitment to educational innovation, research-informed practice and meaningful partnerships between universities, industry and society.
Elaine Lee is Managing Director at Reynolds Busby Lee, where she advises organisations on customer experience and responsible marketing. As the creator of the TRUST Vulnerability Guides 2026, she brings strategic insight and a practical, people-first approach to help brands improve communications, loyalty, and support for vulnerable customers. She also works with contact centre teams to effectively deliver those communications in personalised and engaging ways that ensure brand engagement and loyalty.
For more information on the TRUST Vulnerability Guides please e,ail: hello@reynoldsbusbylee.com
Garry Gormley is an experienced Contact centre professional with nearly 20 years in the Contact centre industry, having spent a lot of time in the operation he understands the dynamics and moving parts of the contact centre and what impacts customer experience first hand.
Having spent most of his working career in the contact centres industry, supporting and leading the delivery of key projects around, Quality Assurance, regulatory change, Sales transformation and people development, Garry took this experience and set up FAB Solutions and more recently grown the proposition to include FAB outsourced Solutions
As a contact centre Enthusiast Garry has featured on many Podcasts and speaker events evangelising about how operational leaders need help to spin all the plates they have to manage, to this end he also hosts his own thought leadership events through The Contact Centre Network a regular monthly event which brings the contact centre community together to tackle some of the key issues and topics impact operational leaders.
Jennifer Buffaloe brings over 30 years of experience leading teams and driving customer value across diverse industries. She’s passionate about harnessing AI, analytics, and automation to help customers unlock the full potential of their investments and achieve meaningful business outcomes. In her current role, she focuses on building and empowering a team dedicated to providing exceptional service, proactive support, and strategic guidance. Together, they partner closely with customers to understand their unique needs and align our solutions to help them grow, stay engaged, and realize measurable value.
Jennifer’s leadership approach balances big-picture vision with hands-on execution, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning. She works closely across departments—including sales, product, systems, and support—to execute customer success programs that align with business goals and drive customer satisfaction. She’s deeply committed to advancing customer success initiatives that promote innovation, maximize retention, and ignite growth. Jennifer looks forward to building strong partnerships and delivering on our promise to put customers first.
Martin Teasdale is the founder of The Team Leader Community, the world’s first online community dedicated to contact centre Team Leaders, now supporting hundreds of leaders across every industry sector and size of operation.
With more than 25 years of experience in contact centres, Martin started his career as an agent before progressing through leadership roles and seeing first-hand the critical impact Team Leaders have on performance, culture, customer experience, and employee engagement. His work today focuses on elevating the role of the Team Leader and helping organisations better support the people leading frontline teams.
Martin is also the host of Get Out of Wrap, one of the UK’s best-known contact centre podcasts and media platforms, where he interviews industry leaders, technology brands, and operational experts from across the customer contact world. Alongside the podcast, he regularly delivers keynote speeches, webinars, leadership sessions, and live events focused on contact centre leadership, coaching, engagement, and culture.
Known for his practical, honest, and people-first approach, Martin is passionate about helping organisations move beyond simply measuring KPIs and instead build environments where Team Leaders and frontline colleagues can genuinely thrive.
With over a quarter-century of hands-on experience in the world of contact centres – whether it’s running them, scrutinising their operations, or judging their performance – I’ve developed a keen understanding of what truly drives their success. This experience coupled with an obsession into the world of contact centre technology means that when I conduct my proven contact centre discovery framework the practical and actionable recommendations cut across People, Processes, and Technology.
My approach is tenacious, creative, pragmatic and unapologetically direct. I look to provide businesses with the clarity and conviction needed to bring about transformation helping them embrace meaningful enhancements and navigate a path to:
✔️ Heightened Operational Performance
✔️ Cost Reduction
✔️ Elevated Customer Experience
Nicola Collister is the CEO and Co-Founder of Custerian, a people-powered change agency that challenges conventional thinking about customer experience. With over 25 years at senior executive level across FTSE 100 companies and global organisations, Nicola has built a reputation as one of the industry’s most commercially minded disruptors — someone who delivers transformation, not just talks about it.
Her career has been defined by firsts: pioneering homeworking solutions at the RAC before remote work was mainstream, building one of the UK’s first self-employed home agent networks, scaling a home courier operation to over 3,500 people at Yodel, and delivering the UK’s largest customer experience transformation programme as Group CX Director at Shop Direct (now Very Group).
Today, through Custerian, Nicola works with organisations navigating the forces reshaping CX — from AI and automation to the fundamental rethink of how businesses create value through people. Her firm’s “People Experience” framework directly confronts the industry’s declining customer satisfaction scores, arguing that technology alone won’t fix what’s broken. Real transformation demands a commercially grounded approach that connects customer outcomes, colleague experience, and bottom-line returns.
Nicola is also a business mentor, investor in scale-up businesses, and a vocal critic of CX that prioritises buzzwords over business impact. She brings sharp, experience-backed views on where the outsourcing and CX sectors are heading in 2027 and beyond — and what leaders need to do now to stay ahead.
With over 30 years of dynamic leadership in the AI and analytics industry, Paolo Righetti is a visionary trailblazer renowned for transforming businesses globally. His entrepreneurial journey began with the founding of a CX data analytics solution provider, lately being successfully acquired by Teleperformance, cementing his legacy in the analytics world. As Global Head of Analytics at Teleperformance SA for an impressive 15 years, Paolo scaled the business to unprecedented heights, delivering innovation at scale across 70 countries.
A passionate innovator, Paolo pioneered new solutions in customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) to drive unparalleled value. Their revolutionary concepts, including Proactive caring processes, pioneer programs in Customer Feedback Management and redefined employee engagement strategies from candidate selection to retention, have created value for dozens of enterprise clients and enhanced organisational efficiency and performance for over 500,000+ full-time employees globally.
Building and nurturing long-lasting relationships with key vendors and clients has been a hallmark of Paolo’s career. With a network spanning over 25 years, they’ve cultivated a deep reservoir of trust and expertise that continues to drive innovation and success in every partnership.
Paolo Righetti is not only a leader but a change maker, whose career continues to inspire and redefine the future of AI, analytics, and customer-centric solutions worldwide.
Paula Brockwell is a Chartered Psychologist and Founder of The Employee Experience Project. She works with HR leaders, executive teams and boards to make culture a strategic lever for performance.
Paula brings deep insight into human behaviour, motivation and organisational dynamics. She helps senior leaders understand what is really driving experience and performance in their organisations, and supports them to turn that insight into focused, practical action. Her work is grounded, evidence-based and commercially aware, helping organisations create workplaces where people can do their best work and deliver meaningful impact.