MEET THE CGA NAVIGATORS,
OUR TEAM OF CX EXPERTS

Chris is a widely recognised, leading pioneer of innovative customer experience solutions in an ever-changing market. Constantly championing the customer, he has delivered measurable and innovative transformation programmes for a range of global organisations across almost every sector.

His career spans over 30 years of senior and board level experience across a range of companies, including Allied Breweries, Woolworths, Kingfisher, Dorling Kindersley and Digitas. In each instance, Chris has sought to put the customer at the heart of the business through innovative proposition development. Chris's visionary approach helps organisations challenge their status quo and shape their future based on customer insight and a deeper understanding of the value of customer experience. Chris is a sought after conference speaker, thought leader and Board advisor.

On a personal note...

In his spare time, if not with his family, he is a passionate sailor, cyclist and lover of the outdoors.

Graham has been with CGA since 2009 and has been instrumental in delivering successful national and international projects for many of our blue-chip clients in the rail, automotive, mobile network, financial services, professional services and public sectors. His landmark projects for CGA include Renault, Coca-Cola and ALJ.

Graham came to CGA after a long and illustrious career at top global brands including SG Johnson, Bosch Power tools and NXT Plc. Graham's ethos is to build immersive and high-quality relationships and he believes that deep partnerships, characterised by mutual respect and trust, deliver the best outcomes for clients and their customers. The work Graham does creates a customer experience roadmap that is both easy to relate to and practically deliver.

On a personal note ...

Graham is a keen fly-fisherman and a self-confessed tool nut who loves DIY projects around the house.

David Holmes is a senior business leader, executive coach and mentor with many years’ experience of advising and supporting Board Directors and executives across a wide range of international organisations and industry sectors with clients in Europe, USA, Middle and Far East.

David works with senior executives to help them achieve significant shifts in thinking, helping them enhance their strategic focus and create a clear vision for success. His pragmatic approach, gained in a successful corporate career spanning over 30 years, makes David ideally-placed to act as an advisor to Senior Executives not only in times of positive growth but also in times of a challenging business environment.

Prior to devoting his time to advising and supporting Senior Executives and Board Members, David had a very successful career in the media sector, holding key board positions in a number of large international corporations. Whist operating at CEO and Board level, his main leadership focus centered on strategy, organisational and business development, marketing, brand management and innovation.

Carla has spent her career delivering exceptional customer experience strategies. Prior to joining CGA in 2017, Carla held group level Marketing Director and Customer Experience Director roles at Severn Trent, and senior consulting roles at Vodafone, Aldermore Bank, Voice Norway and Cambridge International.

She has been instrumental in delivering major projects for CGA for clients including The Rail Delivery Group, Coca-Cola European Partners, The Telegraph and Mass Mutual. Carla helps her clients navigate large and complex challenges by ensuring projects have a clear set of deliverables, which add value for both the clients and their customers.

On a personal note...

Carla is kept busy with young twins but when she can loves travelling, live music and festivals. She is also a keen follower of drag racing.

A consumate entrepreneur, mentor, communicator and leader, Andy enjoys a varied and fulfilling portfolio career that includes independent directorships of various organisations. He has managed a number of international businesses, predominantly in the IT sector both in his executive leadership roles and during a distinguished 19-year career with Hewlett Packard.

As a talented change manager and organisational designer, Andy has led several breakthrough projects leading to the repositioning of entire businesses, resulting in significant improvements in their growth and profitability. In addition to a highly hands-on role at CGA, Andy's current commitments include CEO of a publicly quoted internet services company and Trustee of the Talent Foundation.

On a personal note...

Andy is an MCC member and spends any spare time he can at the cricket ground.

Tracy is the heart of operational support at CGA, passionate about making sure that our customer experience is consistently excellent and constantly striving to ensure our effective operation of client projects.

She has worked at executive level for over 20 years in a wide range of industries including chemicals, advertising, recruitment and IT.
At CGA, Tracy handles a varied portfolio of tasks including the management of client projects, event organisation and internal communications. Tracy has worked on some of CGA's most significant projects for companies including Lakeland, Samsung, Devro and many more.

On a personal note...

Tracy enjoys the outdoors and going on long walks with her two lovely dogs.

Martina supports the smooth operation of all CGA client projects as well as taking on voice of customer analysis including survey design, development and response analysis.

Immensely organised and helpful, Martina provides significant client confidence and project certainty, skills she developed when previously working for one of Germany's leading kitchen producers and for Walt Disney Florida. At CGA, Martina has worked on voice of customer programmes for Avios, Inchcape, The Telegraph, TfL, RDG, ADNOC and Michelin and is accredited in using Qualtrics.

On a personal note...

Martina, loves to travel and enjoys the outdoors.

Martin is a change, transformation and contact centre specialist, with over 25 years experience in CX in both direct and out-sourced environments. He has a rich and varied background covering all key aspects of contact centre operations, with proven leadership capabilities in competitive and fast-paced organisations and markets.

He is a specialist in operations management, performance delivery and people leadership. Honed transformation skills, delivering volume change programs covering customer experience, continuous improvement, re-organisational and cultural change initiatives.

Shared service experience encompasses workforce management, resource planning, recruitment & resourcing strategy, quality assurance/audit and back office operations.

Martin is a strong communicator across all levels, an excellent leader with a track record of delivering solutions to a wide range of operational challenges. With strong leadership qualities, he is positive, honest and acts with integrity. Martin remains fully focused on customer delivery and gets the best out of teams to achieve this. He possess exceptional engagement skills with clients, partners and colleagues.

James brings 20 years experience in providing leading insight and customer experience methodologies, technology, coaching and practical operational solutions to his clients. Bringing this together creates an essential catalyst to CX improvement and impact.

James has advised on or led over 150 CX programmes primarily within Telco, Hi-Tech, Software, Automotive, Utilities, Oil and Gas and BPO. Recently Customer Experience Director at KPMG UK, Customer & Digital practice and KPMG Nunwood, James was responsible for growing Samsung into the practice’s largest account achieving 300% growth. As a consultant, he led the team that drove a step-change in NPS/CX improvement and with it helped realise millions in profitable revenue and a time of accelerated growth at the company.

In addition to Samsung, other landmark projects lead by James include Toyota, British Gas, Sutherland Global Services and Experian.

Mikki is an industry veteran with more than 20 years experience in marketing and customer experience at a range of government, not-for-profit and private sector institutions. She has been part of the CGA team since 2014, having previously been a client. She has worked on the Northern Rail, WorldRemit, LAL and Inmarsat projects for CGA.

Prior to joining the CGA team, Mikki worked in the education, retail and lifestyle sectors. As a practitioner with cross-sector international experience, Mikki has first-hand knowledge of the impact of the digital disruption on businesses. She helps her clients understand the problems they face and develop the solutions that will bring their customers into the heart of the business.

On a personal note...

Mikki loves travel, gardening and her crazy labradoodle, Buddy.

As the Marketing Executive at CGA, Sarah deals with all aspects of our marketing activities. Having worked in different sectors has allowed Sarah to gain experience over a number of years.

From keeping our website updated, to social media activity and content creation, Sarah's focus is on raising our organisation's brand awareness and help more businesses navigate their own journey to customer experience excellence.

On a personal note...
Being a keen horse rider, Sarah spends most of her free time outdoors, no matter the weather.

Katie is a highly experienced senior leader, facilitator and coach in the field of Business Improvement & Change Management with a strong focus on putting the customer first.

She has led Customer Experience/Journey Mapping programmes which have enabled her to combine a passion for outside-in thinking, the people side of change and continuous improvement.

With 25 years learning the hard-way what works and what doesn’t, she has used her experience to focus on pragmatic ways of helping teams solve business problems that deliver a better customer and employee experience. And by doing that, there is a flow-through to improved bottom line results.

As a trainer and facilitator she has delivered engaging workshops across the globe and believes that improvement starts with empowering individuals to perform at their best.

Frank is known as an experienced technology business leader and consultant. He is a recognised advisor, non-executive director and trustee of service and manufacturing companies operating internationally.

Much of his advisory work is on developing a business' competency to deeply empathise and collaborate with customers and partners, enabling the company leadership to take advantage of new revenue models and create branded experiences. Frank has demonstrated success in executing complex sales, international technology partnerships and building global leadership teams in changing times. He is known for his ability to cut through complexity and distil and execute the essence of an idea or action.

On a personal note...

In his spare time, Frank enjoys walking or hiking.

Having previously been a client of CGA, Ian joined us in 2022, to bring a fresh perspective to the team, particularly regarding business development and organisational structure.

Having spent 15 years in global account management as MD at a world-leading food services and facilities management company, Ian has an innate knowledge and passion for improving the user experience. That energy is palpable, with a focus on operational management, organisational design and client relationship management.

Ian has been instrumental, not only to our ongoing dedication to improving the way we work within CGA, but also supporting clients as well. In particular, he has been part of creating a new account management model, as well as a client interface.

On a personal note, he's a sports fan both on the pitch and from the couch, spends as much time as possible travelling with his family, and if you happen to be a linguist, he's always game for a chat in Danish.

Quoting Steve Jobs, Debbie says "You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future."

For her, those dots have aligned, bringing together a career spanning a variety of roles in leisure management, airlines, rail and even local and central Government, to form a deep understanding of customer service.

Amongst her experience, she worked with the likes of British Airways where she helped to coordinate a seamless experience as well as iconic services with the likes of Concorde, the Royal family, Olympic teams and the Dreamflight charity flights to Orlando. Her roles have seen her implement game-changing programmes, ensure cohesion across different company cultures, and get involved in the customer experience at everything from airport check-in agent to company CEO and Executive Director at her own independent travel agency.

With all that knowledge it is little wonder she brings such valuable insights to her role as Client Success Director at CGA. An expert at translating strategy into operational delivery, she provides leadership, coaching and mentoring to teams and individuals, empowering them to achieve or enhance success in all aspects of their business.

At home, she's dedicated to an active family life with weekends and holidays spent hiking, playing Padel and horse-riding. She's also on a mission to become competent at Spanish - something tells us it's not going to take long!

With a background spanning B2B and B2C organisations in the health, retail, tech and energy sectors, Nora is an experienced leader in customer experience and proposition development, specialising in insight-led customer experience transformation.

Having joined the CGA team in 2022 as a Client Success Director, she not only brings knowledge, but compassionate support to our clients. Driven by the desire to drive change and see customer-first approaches work their magic, she's unrelentingly supportive in everything she does.

With all that hard work, we're pleased to report that she unwinds with good food and gardening at home - she says she's an amateur at the latter, but we're not sure she's amateur at anything.

Rachel has been a project manager at CGA since 2022. Her previous work at Thomson Reuters saw Rachel as a Client Support Executive providing first-line support to a global client base before she was promoted to Senior Delivery Consultant where she managed project delivery and project training.

Now, Rachel brings all that dedication and care to her role as Project Manager at CGA. Rachel’s personable demeanour and exceptional skill set make her instrumental in ensuring the smooth running of client facing projects. Notably, Rachel was a key member of the team piloting our Empathy Lab for the rail industry.

In her spare time you will find Rachel cooking up wonderful things in the kitchen or exploring different cultures thanks to a passion for travel.

Kate originally joined the CGA team in 2022 as an intern, but she soon became an invaluable member of the team, now holding the role of Marketing & Business Development Executive.

Passionate about placing customers at the forefront of business strategy, Kate brings creative flair and emotional intelligence to our marketing and communications. She plays a pivotal in organising CGA’s networking, partnership, and business development opportunities, as well as supporting the marketing needs for client projects.

In her home life, she spends time on the family farm, hiking in the surrounding countryside and exercising her creative skills with a spot of sketching.

With a background working with leading fashion retailers including Burberry, Roksanda, and Ralph and Russo, as well as work in law, property and the rail industries, Leila is highly skilled when it comes to making sure projects run smoothly.

Having turned her project management expertise to enhancing the customer experience, she's a valuable asset to CGA and to our clients, thanks to her eagle eye for organisation and quality.

Away from the office, Leila's a sports enthusiast, particularly when it comes to Formula 1 and gymnastics. Leila is also an impressive linguist with 4 languages under her belt.

With more than 20 years' experience providing strategic advice, programme scoping, management and closure, Mark's ability to gather and leverage customer feedback to design employee and customer journeys, is exceptional.

A fantastic Client Success Director, he has delivered approaches that drive employee behavioural change and customer experience improvements, as well as partnership and revenue increases. He has worked in industries ranging from renewable energy to real estate, retail to healthcare, financial services to media and manufacturing, with names such as the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Microsoft.

Having held roles including Data Analyst, Head of Account Management and Programme Director, he brings invaluable insights to customer experience and its reputation as well as commercial impact. It's his empathy however that provides an alchemic ability to lead teams to deliver customer experience change.

Mark’s passion doesn't stop when he leaves the office either, at home he relishes the opportunity to help mentor those in the early stages of their career, and that’s when he’s not cycling for charity or nurturing his understanding of trees.

With a background in pharmaceutical research, Joe has a forensic eye for detail and is a named author on multiple scientific papers extracting and disseminating key learnings from complex data sets.

Joe’s specialist areas include data analysis, data management and data visualisation. Joe's ability to listen to the customer voice in order to deliver insights that drive change throughout the customer experience, is second to none.

As if that wasn't enough, alongside family life and playing for a local cricket club, Joe's spare time is currently spent completing a part-time PhD investigating how meteorological factors may have facilitated the arrival of insect species from continental Europe to the UK.