Tom, Patricia, Tara and Doug bring their combined experience and expertise across a diverse ecosystem of strategic disciplines, business perspectives and industry categories to show you and your team the value of CX for organizations that want to be around long enough to play the long-game.
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Tom Stewar t is the Chief Knowledge Officer of AchieveNext , a learning and development ecosystem that provides executives, teams and enterprises with benchmarking, peer networks, and solutions for the next level performance.
An influential thought leader on global management, Tom was for six years the Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Business Review. He has also served as executive Director of the National Center for the Middle Market at The Ohio State University, Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer of Booz & Company, and as a member of the Board of Editors of Fortune.
He is the author of three books, Woo, Wow and Win: Service Design, Strategy, and the Art of Customer Delight (co-authored with Patricia O'Connell), Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations and The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization .
Tom is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College and holds an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Cass Business School, City University London.
Tara Baumgarten is Head of Public Relations at //NKST, a growth acceleration agency that fuses together consulting with marketing communications expertise; integrating vision and execution so clients can quickly move from strategy to reality.
Having trained with both the Shift-It School and The Grove, Tara is skilled at graphic recording and virtual facilitation, helping groups and individuals "see what they say," creating alignment and successfully envision and implement change. Tara's work in this area has supported notable clients such as Lockheed Martin, GE Water and Process Technologies and KPMG.
At //NKST, Tara leads the agency's public relations and strategic communications competency. With a special emphasis on conference and media relations, she leverages powerful relationships with the most influential conference and media platforms; helping her clients reach new audiences and make valuable face-to-face connections.
A graduate of Towson University, Tara holds a Bachelor of Science in Advertising with a minor in Fine Art.
Patricia O’Connell is President of Aerten Consulting, a New York City–based firm that works with companies to devise content strategies and develop thought leadership for top management. Her interest in service design expresses a lifelong pursuit of the idea that “there’s got to be a better way.” She is the writer, with author Neil Smith, of the New York Times bestseller How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things: Breaking the Eight Hidden Barriers that Plague Even the Best Businesses .
Patricia is twelve-year veteran of Bloomberg Businessweek.com, where she served as news editor and subsequently as the management editor. There she worked with writers and thought leaders like John Byrne, Marshall Goldsmith, Dov Seidman, Bill George, Ben Heineman, Don Tapscott, Bruce Weinstein, and others, while overseeing the design and launch of new channels and services.
A graduate of Boston College, Patricia has worked with such organizations as the Project Management Institute, the Association of Management Consulting Firms, Strategy&, Boston Consulting Group, Hay Group (now part of Korn Ferry), Stephens Inc., Savannah College of Art + Design, and T. Rowe Price.
Doug Longenecker is the Founder and CEO of the start-up company, //NKST a growth acceleration agency that dares to imagine how strategic communication companies, marketing consultancies and brand agencies can come together under one roof to serve the unmet needs of businesses today.
Doug is a forward-thinking executive, an imaginative marketer, brand strategist, and an entrepreneur. He is a 25-year ad agency professional with expertise in global agency operations, account management, account planning and conceptual copy design from Chiat/Day, Ogilvy & Mather, Havas (formerly Euro/RSCG Worldwide), TSG, and Margeotes Fertitta + Partners.
Along the way, he has directed $100 million advertising campaigns for Philips Consumer Electronics, Evaluated the Euro/RSCG Worldwide agency network, launched IBM's DB2 and Visual Age for Java, and reversed a 2-year negative sales trend for Ruth's Chris Steak House.
Doug has experience with strategic consultancies that focus on broader issues to solve sales and marketing alignment, internal process refinement, and structuring company-wide changes for long-term growth. He is also the Host and Producer of the podcast Brave Business Triumphs .
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Smart, growth-focused leaders who are successfully navigating the changing expectations of Customer Experience are connecting with experts who can help them articulate their own organization's unique CX Strategy.