33 Famous CXOs and Influential CX Experts to Follow in 2026

Steven Van Belleghem is a customer experience author, keynote speaker, and entrepreneur who shares his ideas through six bestselling books and talks with brands like Disney and Salesforce. He co-founded Nexxworks, invests in CX companies like Hello Customer and IO Digital, and teaches part-time at Vlerick Business School. He believes great CX blends common sense, new tech, and an empathic human touch, with a long-term and socially responsible view. If you’re a customer experience leader, you’ll value his focus on execution over intent. His latest book, A Diamond in the Rough, offers 100+ tips and examples on building a customer-centric culture.

Marsha Collier is an author, radio host, and speaker focused on e-commerce, social media, and customer service. She wrote eBay For Dummies and The Ultimate Online Customer Service Guide. She founded the #custserv chat on X, hosts Computer & Technology Radio, and has spoken at SXSW and CES. With 40+ For Dummies titles and over 1M books in print—and a first website dating to 1994—she brings practical advice you can use in your CX work. If you lead CX, you’ll recognize her view: customer service isn’t a cost center; it’s a chance to build relationships that drive sales.

Jeanne Bliss founded Customer Bliss and co-founded the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA). She held senior leadership roles in customer experience, loyalty, customer satisfaction and retention, at Lands’ End, Mazda, Coldwell Banker, Allstate, and Microsoft, and now advises leadership teams with a five-competency framework. She’s the author of Chief Customer Officer and Would You Do That To Your Mother?, and her stance is simple: put humanity and trust at the center of how you run the business. If you want practical CX leadership ideas you can use in your work, she’s a voice to follow. After all, she is the “godmother of customer experience” for a reason.

Helen Yu is the Founder and CEO of Tigon Advisory and focuses on customer experience, AI, cybersecurity, and digital transformation. She reaches a large exec audience on LinkedIn (117K+ followers), where she shares practical takes on tying CX to growth and risk management. If you lead CX, you’ll appreciate how she connects trust, security, and AI adoption with measurable outcomes. Her perspective serves you well if you want pragmatic guidance you can apply with your team.

Luke Jamieson is a CX and EX leader from Melbourne who writes, podcasts, and coaches, and he co-hosts the CX game show Twenty20ish. He’s also a core member of The CX Lead’s Advisory Board. He studied design thinking at Stanford’s d.school and is an ICMI Featured Contributor with work in The Wall Street Journal and The Australian. With about 20 years in contact centers, he brings a playful, hands-on style that links employee engagement with customer results. If you want practical ideas for your CX work, you’ll appreciate his straight talk on CX, EX, and the future of work.

Jeff Sheehan leads CX JS Consulting and advises leaders on using the contact center to deliver measurable CX gains. He works across technology, banking, telecom, and retail, helping teams cut wasted contact, improve agent retention, and get more ROI from existing tech and data. He’s been recognized by CX Magazine, Thinkers360, CMSWire, and Clootrack, has judged 10+ international CX awards since 2018, and authored the Customer Experience Management Field Manual. If you want to show the ROI of your CX work, you’ll appreciate his values-led approach (Integrity, Service to Others, Continuous Improvement) and his focus on selecting projects grounded in contact center data.

Roy Atkinson is CEO and Principal Advisor of Clifton Butterfield, LLC and a recognized thought leader in IT service management (ITSM) and customer experience (CX). He focuses on bringing experience management—employee experience (EX) and CX—into ITSM and service desk work, and he helps teams apply industry best practices and the right tech. If you’re a Chief Experience Officer or a senior CX professional, you’ll value his practical, research-backed point of view; his work has been featured in outlets like The Economist, Computerworld, and BizTech Magazine, and he hosts the Reach Your Do Point podcast. He stands out for bridging IT and CX so your service operations support real customer outcomes.

If you want clear thinking on CX, Adrian’s a practitioner-author who’s spent 25+ years advising companies, speaking, and running workshops on service and experience. He wrote Punk CX, Punk XL, and How to Wow, and hosts the Punk CX podcast, where he talks with leaders across industries. He pushes a human-first view of service and warns against leaning too hard on AI and chatbots—useful if your work prioritizes real customer conversations. If you like direct, practical takes, clear customer insight, and someone who’ll challenge your assumptions, he’s worth following.

Ron Kaufman is a global keynote speaker and customer experience expert who specializes in building service cultures through his “Uplifting Service” approach. With 26+ years in the field, he’s a NY Times bestselling author (Uplifting Service: The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues, and Everyone Else You Meet) and was ranked the #1 Customer Service expert by GlobalGurus.org from 2018–2024. He’s worked with brands like Singapore Airlines and Hilton, and pushes leaders to fix internal service first so customers feel the difference. If you’re a customer success leader, you’ll appreciate his customer-first stance on culture and practical models you can put to work with your teams.

If you lead CX, you’ll like Claire’s mix of practitioner grit and big-stage insight: she’s a keynote speaker and customer experience expert with 30+ years in CX, mystery shopping, and employee engagement, and the No. 1 woman on the Customer eXperience Global Gurus list. She created The Heart-Led Business Growth Blueprint and blends Feng Shui with modern business practice to energize people and harmonize workplaces. You’ll get people-first, place-aware ideas you can use, drawn from her two best-selling books and global speaking work. Her philosophy: lead with the heart, manage with the head—focus on people, places, and purpose in your day-to-day CX initiatives.

Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., is a psychologist, consultant, and speaker focused on customer experience and service culture. For 30+ years he’s advised leaders at Starbucks, The Ritz-Carlton, Mercedes‑Benz, Zappos, and UCLA Health, and he’s a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek #1 bestselling author with 14 published books. His stance is clear: “All Business Is Personal”—blend psychology, emotional intelligence, and disciplined operations to earn loyalty. If you want usable CX ideas for your work, you’ll like his case‑study lens, CCXP/CSP credentials, and practical, people‑first approach.

Steve Towers is the co-founder and CEO of BP Group (est. 1992). He’s a CX coach-author known for the Outside-In approach and the CEMMethod, with ACXC and CPPC credentials. He’s the best selling author of Dare and has authored several other popular books. With 30+ years across service and manufacturing, he focuses on the “triple crown”—reduce cost, grow revenue, and improve service—through disciplined journey design and management. If the pragmatic CX approach resonates with you, you’ll appreciate his evidence-first stance and push to get more scientific about measurement and Moments of Truth in your work.

Jay Baer is a customer experience strategist, Hall of Fame keynote speaker, and 7x bestselling author who’s advised 700+ brands, including 40 of the Fortune 500. He focuses on practical CX frameworks—like The Time to Win—which shows that two-thirds of customers value speed as much as price, so you should design faster, clearer responses. He’s ranked #1 Global Guru in marketing and #2 in customer experience and has founded five multi-million dollar companies. If you want an influencer who pushes you to treat time as your edge in CX, follow his work.

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, a customer experience consultancy with over 24 years in the field. He focuses on customer emotions and behavior, created the Naïve to Natural framework, and has authored eight books, including Revolutionize Your Customer Experience. He co-hosts The Intuitive Customer podcast. Moreover, Beyond Philosophy has been recognized by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy for four consecutive years. If you want to bring behavioral science into your CX work, you’ll appreciate his practical frameworks and the reach he has with over 285,000 followers on LinkedIn.

Chip R. Bell is a keynote speaker and author focused on customer loyalty and service innovation, advising Fortune 100 companies on customer-centric strategy. He pioneered customer journey mapping in the 1980s and has written 700+ columns and bestsellers like Inside Your Customer’s Imagination (an Amazon #1 in Business Innovation). As a CXO or CCO, you’ll value his “value‑unique” stance—he argues ingenuity beats value‑added extras—and his practical take on serving picky, vocal customers. Global Gurus has ranked him among the top 12 customer service speakers for 11 straight years, and his books and programs have earned Axiom, IPPY, Benjamin Franklin, Gold Ink, HR.com, and Stevie awards.

Blake Morgan is a customer experience keynote speaker and futurist who hosts The Modern Customer Podcast and teaches on LinkedIn Learning. She has 15+ years in CX and has worked with companies like Allstate, Microsoft, and Amazon. She writes on customer-focused leadership, including The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership, and has been called “The Queen of CX” by Meta. If you lead CX, you’ll value her practical, tech-aware take on building customer-centric cultures and leadership habits you can use in your work.

Annette Franz is the founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. and a CCXP with more than 30 years in customer and employee experience. She focuses on culture‑led change—what she calls the Golden Thread linking culture, employee experience, customer experience, and business outcomes. She served as the CXPA Board Chair in 2020. If you want CX that sticks, her stance is simple: fix the inside first so your people can deliver on the outside. Follow her for practical guidance on customer and employee understanding and building a customer‑centric culture; she’s the author of Customer Understanding, Built to Win, and Employee Understanding.

Dan Gingiss is a keynote speaker, author, and consultant known as “The Experience Maker,” with 20+ years leading CX, marketing, and digital at brands like McDonald’s, Discover, and Humana. He holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, is recognized by Global Gurus, and wrote The Experience Maker and the expanded edition, Becoming The Experience Maker. He believes remarkable, simple experiences are your best marketing, and you don’t need big budgets to create them. If you want practical guidance and a partner who works well with your teams, you’ll value his focus on clear, low-cost actions that earn loyalty.

Stacy Sherman is a customer experience keynote speaker, author, and advisor, and the founder of Doing CX Right, with 25+ years in corporate leadership. She’s a LinkedIn Learning instructor and host of the Doing CX Right podcast (named a Top 6 CX podcast in 2025), and she’s been recognized as a Global Top 30 CX/Customer Service Guru and an ICMI Top 25 CX Thought Leader. She focuses on practical CX and employee experience, showing you how to hit financial goals while leading with empathy, inclusion, and belonging. If you’re advancing your CX practice, you’ll get usable playbooks from someone who helps leaders boost retention and revenue by caring for customers and employees.

Scott Lee Holloway is a CCXP and Head of Customer Experience at APS Bank with 10+ years in financial services. He serves on the global board of the CXPA, was recognized by LinkedIn as a Top Customer Experience Voice, and has chaired judging at the European Customer Experience Awards. His TEDx talk, “Every Euro is a Vote,” argues that your spend and feedback influence how companies treat customers, employees, and the planet—useful framing for your work when you want change that sticks. If you lead CX, you’ll value his practical focus on turning feedback into action and engaging leaders around clear customer outcomes.

Zach Hamilton runs Unf*cking Your CX, a platform and podcast that rejects NPS‑worship and pushes you to tie CX to revenue and CLV. He’s led CX, digital transformation, and operations inside retail and SaaS companies, and focuses on turning experience work into retention and growth. If you want blunt, practical takes you can use in your org—less reporting, more decisions—his approach centers on making CX a cross‑functional growth engine. He’s based in Indianapolis and has built an 18,000‑follower LinkedIn community around these ideas.

Bill Staikos is a customer and employee experience leader and host of the Be Customer Led podcast, focused on bringing those disciplines together to create value for your company. He brings 25+ years of experience, including as Head of Customer Experience at Freddie Mac, where he drove CX across a $2.3T single‑family portfolio; earlier roles include Chase Home Lending, Credit Suisse, and American Express, and he later served as SVP of Industry Solutions at Medallia. He specializes in customer and employee research and insights, data and analytics, UX strategy and design, transformation, and using AI/ML to make better decisions. If you want practical ideas for your work, his award‑winning podcast, Be Customer Led (with listeners in nearly 80 countries) and his push to blend CX and EX, stay curious, and build customer‑led cultures are worth your time.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and customer experience expert, keynote speaker, and author, and he serves as Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations. He’s a New York Times bestselling author and a National Speakers Association Hall of Fame inductee, with 30+ years in the field, eight books, and over 3,000 articles plus annual CX research. He focuses on loyalty, engagement, and making service a company-wide responsibility, pushing you to build consistency that earns trust. If you lead CX, you’ll find practical ideas you can use from his books (like The Convenience Revolution) and his podcast, Amazing Business Radio.

You’ll know Jeff Toister as the Service Culture Guide—a speaker, author, and trainer who helps leaders build customer‑focused teams. He founded Toister Performance Solutions in 2005, and has written four customer service books. His Customer Service Foundations course is the most‑watched customer service course on LinkedIn Learning; over 5 million people have taken his training. If you lead CX, you’ll appreciate his culture‑first, highly interactive approach and his weekly Customer Service Tip of the Week, which Global Gurus ranks among top training programs. Follow his work if you want practical advice you can put to use with your team right away.

Brad is a CX advisor, author, and keynote speaker focused on customer experience, leadership strategy, and customer service innovation. He’s worked in 60+ countries with clients like Apple, American Express, and USAA, and he teaches CX courses as a LinkedIn Learning instructor. If you want practical, data-driven CX that builds loyalty and improves operations, you’ll value his independent approach and his books, Leading the Customer Experience and Contact Center Management on Fast Forward. Follow him if you want clear takes on contact center management and how to make CX a driver of growth in your work.

Dominic Brasoveanu is a CX consultant and founder of ROCA.WORK. Known as “Dominic The CX Guy” on YouTube, he shares practical Zendesk and CX how‑tos. He’s spent 15 years in customer experience and 10 years as a Zendesk consultant (he previously worked at Zendesk). He focuses on implementations, onboarding, and optimization, so you can see what good looks like and apply it in your work. If you run support or build on Zendesk, you’ll value his hands‑on, system‑first style and the way he teaches for real “A‑HA” moments in your team.

Bernd Schmitt is a Columbia Business School professor and head of the EX GROUP, where he advises on customer experience, innovative strategy, and global brands. He’s the author of Customer Experience Management: A Revolutionary Approach to Connecting With Your Customers, with books in 25+ languages. Schmitt has worked with 100+ companies, including American Express, Audi, and IBM. As a CX leader, you’ll appreciate his research-based frameworks, clear cases, and global lens you can put to work right away. He also pushes you to examine the future of experience—human vs. robot—and favors practical, interactive workshops that help your team drive change.

If you’re a CX executive, you’ll value Nate Brown’s practical lens as Head of Education & Enablement at Metric Sherpa and co-founder of CX Accelerator. He’s spent 15+ years across customer service and CX, and has built a 4,000+ member community to share playbooks that you can apply in your own program. He writes and speaks on CX fundamentals (including The Ultimate CX Primer) and centers his approach on enablement, culture, and community. If you want practitioner-led guidance with real-world applications for your team, he’s worth following.

You’ll find Ian Golding focused on helping you “operationalise” customer experience. He runs a consultancy founded in 2012 that consults, trains, mentors, and he speaks across 35+ countries in sectors like banking, healthcare, education, transportation, manufacturing, and supply chain. He believes in the “science” of CX and turns ideas into practical programs that drive employee engagement and execution. If your work needs a clear, workable CX plan, his book, Customer What? The Honest and Practical Guide to Customer Experience, and his hands-on style make him a useful voice to follow.

Mike Wittenstein is the founder and managing partner at Storyminers and a strategic storyteller and experience designer who helps leaders with customer experience, strategy, and change. He previously served as IBM’s eVisionary for Global Services and holds CSP, CMC, CCXP, and DTM credentials, plus an MBA. He focuses on retail, hospitality, travel, and technology, using story as a practical tool to align teams and turn strategy into clear actions. If you’re shaping the future of CX within your organization, you’ll appreciate his direct, story-led approach to making decisions people can follow and execute.

David Avrin is a customer experience keynote speaker and consultant who pushes companies to be “Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With.” If you lead CX, you’ll get clear, usable ideas on simplifying how customers engage with your business and aligning to changing expectations. He’s a CSP and Global Speaking Fellow who’s delivered talks across North America and in 28 countries, and he’s the author of seven books including Why Customers Leave, The Morning Huddle, and Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With. Follow him for advice you can take to your team without fluff.

Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP, is the Founder and Chief Experience Investigator at Experience Investigators. She focuses on CX governance, customer journey mapping, voice of the customer, and helping teams shift from reactive service to proactive CX using her CXI framework. She’s an award-winning keynote speaker whose work includes engagements with companies like Verizon, PayPal, and Siemens, and her perspectives appear in outlets such as Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. If you lead CX, you’ll value her clear stance that CX is a mindset, strategy, and discipline that requires cross‑functional commitment.

You’ll know Bill for his customer service and CX speaking and training, built on 30+ years in luxury hotel and resort management. He’s led at The Inn at Bay Harbor, Turnberry Isle Resort & Club, and Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club, and earned Marriott’s Renaissance GM of the Year and Leadership Excellence awards. His take: the “world’s best” experience is what one customer feels, and “Think RELATIONSHIPS or Go Broke” guides how you lead teams and earn loyalty. If you run CX, you’ll get practical, hospitality-tested ideas you can put to work with your frontline.