Research Vice President, Customer Engagement, Retail and Travel Strategies at HFS Research. Melissa leads HFS’ research initiatives for digital front office services, including customer engagement operations, digital marketing, cognitive agents and CX design and consulting – digging into the trends and change agents such as smart analytics and intelligent automation that are driving customer experience and customer journey improvements across the enterprise. In addition, her industry research focuses on key dynamics within retail, CPG, travel and hospitality with regards to customer-centric strategies, intelligent operations and service delivery.

With close to 15 years of research and analytical expertise, Michael’s select areas of industry coverage include customer care outsourcing, skills-based routing, home-based agent deployment, agent training development, and onboarding. DeSalles offers extensive knowledge in outsourcer vendor selection for end user, emerging contact center trends & technologies, global outsourcing market dynamics, insight into site management, supervision, and agent development.

He has experience in contact center operations, agent supervision, training, competitive sales and network routing (Cisco ICM). Michael has a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Stephen Loynd Principal, TrendzOwl Stephen Loynd has spent his career observing the information and communications revolution spreading across the planet. Before launching TrendzOwl in September, 2019, Stephen spent over seven years at Frost & Sullivan, a growth partnership company working with organizations impacted by accelerating technological change and global mega trends. As a Director on the Digital Transformation team, he was a featured speaker at conferences and company events worldwide, analyzing the potential impacts of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, data analytics, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). 

As the Executive Vice President of Market Engagement at Teleperformance, Amit is responsible for aligning the company’s value proposition to market needs and leads the go-to-market efforts for the English World region. With over 18 years of industry experience, Amit brings a tenured history in the Customer Experience Management arena, having functioned as the Chief Marketing Officer at various BPO companies. Amit has led several innovative product development efforts in the BPO sector and is a frequent speaker at thought leadership seminars and conferences worldwide.