2026 Speakers
Mary Cook, Customer Experience Transformation Executive, Slalom
Mary Cook is a contact center and customer experience transformation executive with over 20 years of experience revamping how organizations deliver service at scale. She doesn’t simply inherit a CX operation and make minor adjustments—she dismantles the operating model, re-engineers the service delivery architecture, and rebuilds it around the metrics, systems, and governance that transform contact centers from cost centers into competitive advantages. With full P&L accountability for up to $150M and direct oversight of more than 1,500 agents across multi-site, multi-channel environments, Mary has led comprehensive CX transformations for PE-backed platforms, Fortune 500 outsourcers, and high-growth service organizations—building the operational infrastructure that makes customer experience predictable, measurable, and scalable. Her track record in contact center operations is extensive and specific. As COO of a PE-backed BPO consolidator, Mary standardized service delivery across 300,000 square feet of contact center facilities—implementing workforce management systems, quality assurance frameworks, agent performance scorecards, and omnichannel routing architectures that drove measurable improvements in first-call resolution, average handle time, and customer satisfaction scores. She led post-acquisition CX integration for a rapidly scaling platform, harmonizing disparate telephony stacks, CRM environments, and reporting structures into a single operating model. She directed a $300M global service delivery portfolio spanning voice, chat, email, and back-office processing to 98% client retention and $22M in annual savings—demonstrating that operational excellence and customer experience are not competing priorities but the same discipline executed with rigor. Mary’s CX transformation work goes far beyond the contact center floor. She has designed and implemented enterprise-wide customer journey mapping initiatives, built centralized quality programs that set consistent service standards across 250+ locations, and expanded a regional services network from 2 to 10 sites in less than 12 months, resulting in 38% revenue growth by developing a CX delivery model that can be easily replicated without compromising the customer experience. She has integrated traditional contact center operations with digital CX channels—combining AI-assisted workflows, self-service automation, and real-time analytics into legacy service environments—and secured $5.5M in growth capital by creating thorough, data-driven investment cases that directly connect CX improvements to EBITDA margin growth. Mary holds an MBA from Strayer University and a B.S. in Business Management & Leadership from Judson College, and she is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Law, expected to graduate in 2027. She offers a rare blend of deep contact center operational expertise, CX transformation leadership, and private equity fluency—making her equally effective in a boardroom presenting an EBITDA improvement thesis as she is on an operations floor diagnosing why handle times are increasing or CSAT scores are declining. She thinks like an owner, operates like a builder, and has zero patience for any gap between the customer experience a brand promises and what its contact center actually delivers.