About Us

CX Talks: The Customer Experience Summit was originally an in-person event series focused on local one-day conferences in major markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and Seattle.

Our mission has always been to bring CX professionals together from a wide variety of disciplines and industries to connect, learn and share what each of us know about the growing CX profession.

Our format, which was initially built around the idea of TED Talks, features short talks (15-20 minutes) on a wide range of CX related topics from Design Thinking to VOC. We expanded the TED concept into a full day meeting with networking for business professionals.

Now, while meeting in-person is not an an option for most, we created CX Talks Online Sessions to keep the community connected through regularly scheduled webinars with advanced virtual networking as well as occasional informal meetups and workshops.

 


How CX Talks Started

CX Talks was conceived by Carlos Pimenta and Mark Michelson in 2016 after hosting a CXPA event at Macquarium for CX Day. During this event, 10 speakers gave 10-minute Ted Talks style presentations to an audience of around 100 attendees.

Following this event Carlos had the idea to bring together various associations in Atlanta who represent different CX disciplines, including UX, CRM, Martech, store design, VOC, research, mystery shopping and more. Working together, Carlos and Mark invited 18 associations to meet and discuss planning for what is now known as CX Talks.

 


Our Future

We are planing on expanding our geographic coverage through online events including webinars, meetups, virtual networking and workshops. When we can safely meet again, we are planning to have events in North America in the following markets:

Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington DC

We are also interested in expanding internationally to Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. If you would like to join us in hosting or participating in our local events in international markets, please contact Mark Michelson mark@cxtalks.org or +1-404-308-7173

CX Talks Founders

Carlos Pimenta

CEO, Macquarium and Principal, CX Talks

Carlos is an experienced digital leader, passionate about the role that design can play in transforming business. Carlos currently leads the Macquarium team in the shaping and delivery of their Experience Strategy and Design service offerings. Before joining Macquarium in 2012, Carlos led Studiocom, a multi-national digital agency that delivered award winning work for Fortune 500 brands including Coca-Cola, Kimberly Clark, Dunkin Donuts, McCormick, Activision, Sony and Mattel.

Earlier in his career, Carlos ran Progress Software’s Professional Services team, led Agency.com’s East Coast Business Development team and founded FranchiseWorks, a company that provided digital marketing solutions to franchise companies. With an engineering background, Carlos has also created enterprise applications and business intelligence solution, and consulted with clients such IBM, Otis Elevators, Central Hudson Gas & Electric.

Carlos has enjoyed serving on the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) board since 2015


Mark Michelson

CEO/Producer, CX Talks
Founder/Principal, Threads Marketing Research

Mark Michelson is the CEO/Producer of CX Talks. He is responsible for the day-to-day management of all CX Talks events.

In addition to managing CX Talks, Mark is the principal of Threads Marketing Research, which focuses on customer experience research using online focus groups, mobile ethnography and online surveys.

Mark’s experience as a market researcher includes 35+ years of developing and implementing strategic marketing research studies involving store design, UX, journey mapping, and experience auditing for many of the world’s leading brands in a variety of industries including technology, food service, healthcare, retail and CPG. His work has taken him to 70+ countries and 49 states in the course of his career.

Mark is the founder/co-founder of several international marketing research trade associations including, the Mobile Marketing Research Association (MMRA), the Social Media Research Association (SMRA), The Mystery Shopping Professional’s Association (MSPA) and has served on the board of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) as well as helping to plan and manage events for the Atlanta LNE of the Customer Experience Professional’s Association (CXPA)

Mark is a passionate advocate for CX and has been actively creating customer experiences and events as a musician, entrepreneur and connector since an early age.