About the Moderator

Lior Arussy is an author, visionary, consultant and creative catalyst in the areas of creating delightful customer experiences and executing profitable customer strategies. Mr. Arussy's company, Strativity Group, advises both Global 2000 companies as well as emerging businesses around the world. Clients include American Management Association, Capital One, Computer Associates, Crown Plaza Hotels & Resorts, FedEx, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Nokia, RightNow Technologies, Sage, SAP, Seagate Technology, University of Pennsylvania, and Wyeth. For his thought leadership and contribution to the industry, Mr. Arussy received CRM Magazine's "2003 Influential Leaders" award and served as a juror on Fast Company's Customer First Awards 2005.

Mr. Arussy's syndicated column Focus: Customer reaches over 600,000 readers worldwide every month. He is also the author of four books including Passionate & Profitable: Why Customer Strategies Fail and 10 Steps to Do Them Right! (Wiley 2005) In addition, he has published over 50 articles in publications around the world including the Harvard Business Review.

About the Judges

Sheryl Kingstone, Director Enterprise Research, Yankee Group Sheryl Kingstone's research helps business improve sales effectiveness, customer loyalty and acquisition. Specifically, she helps enterprise clients make decisions regarding the use of technology, business process and information to boost sales and optimize top-line business performance. She also assists vendors with custom research projects, messaging and positioning, as well as product road map evaluations.

She is a well-known industry analyst in the CRM market, with more than 18 years in the high-technology market. She has extensive speaking experience at conferences and seminars, is quoted in many business and industry journals and provides notable consulting experience with Fortune 1000 companies. Before joining Yankee Group, she consulted with a number of enterprise software companies in the areas of B2B e-commerce, CRM, e-services and internet infrastructure on company and product positioning, acquisitions and IPO strategies for Blanc & Otus.

Penny Reynolds -As a Founding Partner of The Call Center School, Penny Reynolds heads up curriculum development. She develops and teaches courses on a wide variety of call center topics and speaks at many industry conferences and association meetings. Penny has spent over twenty years in the call center and telecommunications industry, and is known as an industry expert on topics such as workforce management, application of call center technologies, and general call center operations and people management.

Penny writes frequently for industry publications, and has been published in Call Center, Customer Interaction Solutions, Customer Support Management, Customer Relationship Management, International Customer Service Association Journal, Operations and Fulfillment, Call Center Europe, TeleBusiness International, Business Communications Review, Connections, and others.

Penny is the author of several call center management books, including Call Center Supervision: The Complete, Practical Guide to Managing Frontline Staff, Call Center Staffing: The Complete, Practical Guide to Workforce Management and The Power of One. She has also co-authored several other books with Maggie Klenke and Pamela Trickey, including Business School Essentials for Call Center Leaders, Strategies for Managing Call Center Personnel, Call Center Operations Management I and II, and Call Center Management Overview and Applications.

Penny served on the inaugural editorial board of Customer Support Management magazine, is a member of ICSA (International Customer Support Association), SOCAP (Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals), and Call Center Magazine’s Leadership Council. She is among the first in the industry to receive CIAC Call Center Management Consultant certification. For her contributions to the industry, Penny was awarded Call Center Magazine’s prestigious Call Center Pioneer Award in 1996. She is an honors graduate of Vanderbilt University.

Maggie Klenke - Maggie writes frequently for the industry press and is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Call Centre Management and CRM Magazine. She has also co-authored (with her partners at The Call Center School) the five textbooks that support the Call Center Manager curriculum at the University of Phoenix, Call Center Staffing - The Complete Practical Guide to Workforce Management, Business School Essentials for the Call Center Leader, Call Center Supervision – The Complete Practical Guide to Managing Frontline Staff, and The Power of One.

From 1987 - 1999, Maggie was Vice President of Consulting at TCS Management Group. During her tenure at TCS, she was responsible for a growing consulting practice, which specialized in management, design, and technology applications for call centers, and the development of Call Center University.

Prior to joining TCS, Maggie was Manager of Corporate Telecommunications at United Banks of Colorado, a statewide system of banks and financial service units. She is an honors graduate of Loretto Heights College. She is also one of the first to receive the CIAC industry certification as a Call Center Management Consultant. She also serves as an examiner for the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence, a statewide program of the Malcolm Baldrige awards

Eric Tamblyn - Vice President, Product Marketing at Genesys-As vice president, product and solutions marketing, Eric Tamblyn is responsible for strategic directionof product definition, market segmentation, competitive analysis, and developing solutions designed to
meet specific vertical market needs. Mr. Tamblyn brings 20 years of experience in the contact center, speech, voice platform and telecommunications industries to his role as vice president. During his five years’ tenure at Genesys, Mr. Tamblyn has also served as Sr. Director Solutions Engineering and Sr. Director Global Partner and Global Voice Platform Solutions Engineering.

Prior to Genesys, Mr. Tamblyn held Sr. Director Sales, Marketing and Engineering positions at Intervoice, Edify Corp., S1 Corp and Syntellect Inc.