Exciting Announcement about CXA by New Chair Martin Newman

Exciting Announcement about CXA by New Chair Martin Newman
April 8, 2025 7:53 am

Shining a Light on Customer Experience — Why I’m Excited About the CXA and Its Future

Over the last few months, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with the team behind the Customer Experience Association (CXA) as it gears up for an exciting next chapter. As someone who has spent much of my career helping organisations become more customer-centric — often against the tide of short-termism, internal silos, or simply old habits — I’ve seen first-hand the power of getting CX right. And I’ve seen the commercial cost when it’s treated as a tick-box exercise.

So, what do I aim to bring to the CXA?

Raising the Bar for Customer Experience, Everywhere

The CXA is uniquely placed to be more than just another industry body. It can be the voice of reason, inspiration, and practical support for organisations genuinely wanting to serve their customers better — across sectors, sizes, and customer types. My goal is to help ensure we don’t just talk about best practice, but identify it, champion it, and help businesses adopt it.

I’m especially passionate about transforming the CXA into a space where:

  • Members can learn from leading-edge case studies, not just generic models.
  • Sponsors are genuine collaborators, contributing expertise and thought leadership rather than just logos on a website.
  • Professionals from all functions — not just those with ‘CX’ in their title — come to see customer experience as part of their role.

Whether you are working on service design, customer operations, digital journeys, employee experience, or proposition development, you should see the CXA as your community.

Opportunities for Members and Sponsors

The opportunities ahead for both members and sponsors are significant:

  • For Members: The CXA will offer access to some of the richest content and insights available. From practical toolkits and sector benchmarks to events and masterclasses, I want members to feel they’re part of something with real substance. Not just networking, but professional fuel for their own ambitions to improve the experience they deliver.
  • For Sponsors: There’s a real opportunity to step away from transactional sponsorship and become partners in shaping the conversation. The best CX sponsors won’t just fund; they will actively contribute to thought leadership, case studies, and events, making the CXA an even richer resource for its community.

The Transformation I Want to See

We have a window of opportunity to make Customer Experience more than a department — but a shared language across the C-suite, frontline, and back-office alike.

What does that transformation look like?

  • We will shine a light on world-class practice — in big brands, small disruptors, and public services.
  • We will lobby for CX to be treated as seriously as financial performance, promoting its role in value creation, trust, and long-term sustainability.
  • We will provide members with practical, implementable frameworks to take into their businesses.
  • We will help the industry move beyond NPS as the only measure of customer experience, and towards a more sophisticated understanding of customer value.

The CXA Conference

I’m also excited to say that our flagship CXA Conference is starting to look stronger than ever. We are finalising a refreshed agenda featuring some exceptional names, including:

  • Paula Kennedy Garcia
  • Simply Health
  • HSBC
  • LEGO
  • Westminster County Council
  • Talk Mobile

What I love about this line-up is its breadth — corporate, public sector, global brands, and customer advocates coming together to share and debate.

This will not just be another conference of tired slides and vague commitments. We’re aiming for a conference where:

  • Real stories are told, not sanitised versions.
  • Difficult conversations happen about where CX is falling short and where it’s genuinely making a difference.
  • Delegates leave with new tools, new inspiration, and a sense of urgency to drive meaningful change.

A Final Word

The world is full of organisations saying they are customer-centric, but few who can prove it day-to-day. I want the CXA to become the home of those who can, those who want to, and those who know they could be better — regardless of where they are starting.

I hope you’ll join us on this journey. Whether you’re a member, sponsor, or simply curious, the door is open. And if you join us at the conference, I can promise you this — it will be real, it will be useful, and it will shine a light on what great looks like.