Banafsheh Ghassemi

Hello. I am Banafsheh Ghassemi, VP of eCRM and Customer Experience at the American Red Cross.

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As a thought leader and a technology trendspotter and trendsetter, Banafsheh has pioneered successful approaches in integration of business strategies and emerging technologies to deliver differentiated customer experiences for new and existing products and services across digital and offline customer channels.   In 2010, Banafsheh established the first customer experience organization at the American Red Cross with an uncommon charter within the non-profit sector that focuses on customer experience as a differentiating growth catalyst for a broad and diverse constituent-base that includes disaster "clients" financial donors, blood donors, volunteers, members of the armed forces and their families, preparedness, health and safety instructors and many more.   Prior to ARC, for 15+ years Banafsheh held executive leadership roles in the mobile and mobile internet industries in various capacities ranging from implementing innovative product and customer experience strategies, sales and channel strategy, CRM as well as other customer- centric technology investments.   As a thought leader and a technology trendspotter and trendsetter, Banafsheh has pioneered successful approaches in integration of business strategies and emerging technologies to deliver differentiated customer experiences for new and existing products and services across digital and offline customer channels. In 2010, Banafsheh established the first customer experience organization at the American Red Cross with an uncommon charter within the non-profit sector that focuses on customer experience as a differentiating growth catalyst for a broad and diverse constituent-base that includes disaster "clients" financial donors, blood donors, volunteers, members of the armed forces and their families, preparedness, health and safety instructors and many more. Prior to ARC, for 15+ years Banafsheh held executive leadership roles in the mobile and mobile internet industries in various capacities ranging from implementing innovative product and customer experience strategies, sales and channel strategy, CRM as well as other customer- centric technology investments.   Banafsheh has a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of Maryland and an MBA from The George Washington University.  

Founder: Product & Customer Experience /Technology Strategy & Deployment at Tangerine Lab

January 2009 - March 2010

SERVICES: Delivered customized services that devised end-to-end customer experience & relationship management solutions, from analysis to strategy to execution. --- Strategy Supported clients in establishing their customer experience objectives, performed industry and competitive benchmarking & developed the business case for the most appropriate customer experience strategies. Detailed and integrated strategies were based on thorough customer and environmental exploration and analysis. Developed detailed delivery plans that could include new or improved product offerings, refinements or alignment of customer touch-points, requirements for new or enhanced operational platforms for experience delivery, management and measurement across multiple channels. --- Technology Evaluation Leveraging advanced knowledge of the leading edge technologies in social media, social CRM and cloud computing assisted clients in evaluating technology solutions against their business requirements. The evaluation was based on capabilities, long term scalability, reliability, integration and compatibility with the client’s legacy architecture as well as cultural and brand imperatives of the client. --- Program Management & Implementation Led and executed the adopted strategies. The execution plans were driven from well-documented deployment ‘playbooks’ that include all or some combination of: - detailed project plans (milestones, timeline, resources) - contingency plans - organizational design - training curriculum/materials - business process baselining and redesign - technology installation, customization/configuration requirements - data management requirements - performance metrics

Director, Customer Program Management at XOHM, 4G mobile broadband

December 2006 - December 2008

Formed and led a high performance team of customer experience and technology professionals focused on commercial readiness of XOHM, the first large-scale 4G wireless platform in the US and the world. Highlights: •In collaboration with Product Development, Customer Management, Sales and Marketing led development of technology vision and capability requirements for an entirely digital customer self-service business model that employed the latest advancements in the web, mobile, eCRM and back-office technologies. Revolutionized customer experience and set new and differentiating benchmarks within the wireless and internet industries. •Performed design, code and performance governance of technology deliverables and set launch standards and priorities that prevented all major customer issues despite an aggressive deployment timeline. •Designed and executed an innovative customer experience simulation methodology that ensured commercial readiness of all components of the XOHM business. Readiness was established from the customer perspective.

Director, Sales Operations at Sprint Nextel

August 2005 - December 2006

After the Sprint Nextel merger, led 100+ sales operations professionals who successfully integrated the two sales forces of more than 4000 employees and countless external partners within the first 100 days of the merger close. Highlights: •Advised the Sales executive team, Product Management and Marketing and collaborated on product roadmap, channel strategy and marketing initiatives for the newly merged company. •Led rationalization of a large technology portfolio that included customer web portals, mobile applications, CRM, ID management, security and privacy architectures, data warehouses and business intelligence tools. Decreased operating costs by $28 million. •Developed a roadmap for customer experience strategy focused on delivering growth oriented, customer-centric interactions at all points of sale, online and offline. •Led selection and deployment of one of the largest and most complex Salesforce.com roll outs to 4000+ end-users. 80% user adoption, 100% pipeline visibility (from 46%) and increased deal close rates by 50%.

Director, Sales Operations, eCRM and Sales Automation at Nextel Communications

January 2004 - August 2005

Led planning and execution of the sales automation and eCRM strategy roadmap across all sales channels (direct, indirect, retail, web and telesales). Highlights: •Led selection and deployment of one of the largest roll outs of Salesforce.com (2000+ sales personnel). 85% user adoption, 100% pipeline visibility (from 30%) and increased deal close rate by 60%. •Pioneered development and implementation of mobile apps for a mobile sales force that delivered critical leads and customer information. Increased rep-customer face-to-face time by 100%. •Led the sales technology integration work-stream for the Sprint Nextel merger. In less than 6 months delivered shared desktop and mobile tools to the new sales force making them fully functional immediately after close.

Independent Consultant at Nextel

January 2003 - December 2003

Designed and successfully executed a strategic pilot initiative designed to: 1) focus Nextel’s direct channel on new customer acquisition while leveraging the lower cost channels for add-on sales to existing customers; and 2) lower the cost of sales per gross add (CPGA). This program was later adopted nationally.

Director, Data Policy at Nasdaq

April 2002 - December 2002

Chaired and directed the Data Operating and Steering Committees (DOC & DSC) composed of all C-suite executives. These committees formulated Nasdaq’s strategy for data policies, a regulatory requirement for its pending IPO. Highlights: - Established security, user access and distribution policies for real-time and historical market and issuer data. - Designed and implemented a multi-faceted, enterprise-wide education program for the new data policies. It included a pioneering web portal, road shows, and an enterprise data policy library. - Established the first ever baseline guidelines for selection or creation of Nasdaq’s data “gold sources”.

Director, Information Technology (IT) & Systems Integration at Nextel Communications

February 2000 - April 2002

Led hundreds of domestic and offshore system architects, requirements analysts, designers, developers and testers responsible for delivering all of Nextel’s enterprise platforms, as well as some of Nextel’s products and services. Partnered with business organizations across the enterprise to deliver a customer-centric technology infrastructure to serve the customer and product experience objectives of the company. Highlights: • Inherited and successfully pioneered enhancements to software delivery capabilities of the organization. The new agile and scalable software development processes increased Nextel’s annual software delivery capacity from 10,000 to 240,000+ development man-hours or from one small annual release to four major quarterly releases and eight smaller monthly releases. Prevented $20M in revenue loss, historically caused by delayed capabilities. • Upgraded all software quality assurance standards and consistently delivered releases with no negative customer experience impacts. Realized $12M cost savings by preventing post release customer refunds and billing reruns.

Recent at SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS, PROFESSIONAL PANELS, INTERVIEWS & MEDIA

December 2000 - December 2000

http://www.terrapinn.com/2011/the-customer-show-usa/SPK-ms-banafsheh-GHASSEMI.stm http://sentimentsymposium.com/speakers.html http://vimeo.com/32735540 https://plus.google.com/105987275853284881224/posts/VDBe7b4b8ck#105987275853284881224/posts/VDBe7b4b8ck http://zine.openrightsgroup.org/features/2011/the-wisdom-of-crowds/ http://www.allanalytics.com/author.asp?section_id=1411&doc_id=235347 http://www.thecmosite.com/author.asp?section_id=1246&doc_id=205206 http://www.convio.com/files/downloads/CRM-Change-Management-Workshop-Slides.pdf http://www.istrategylabs.com/2011/04/washingtonian-tech-titans-2011-the-missing-names/ http://socialmediaweek.org/washingtondc/board/ http://breakthroughanalysis.com/2012/01/02/from-sentiment-analysis-to-enterprise-applications/ http://socialmediatoday.com/neilglassman/483737/customer-engagement-multi-channel-proposition-convo http://socialmediatoday.com/496791/audio-archive-social-media-and-non-profits-networking-cause http://www.slideshare.net/smtoday/social-media-and-nonprofits-networking-for-a-cause

VP, Marketing - eCRM & Customer Experience (CE) at The American Red Cross

March 2010

Leading the design and implementation of enterprise-wide CE and eCRM strategies for the largest non-governmental humanitarian and disaster relief organization in the United States. These strategies define customer-centric relationships between ARC and its diverse constituents that include financial and blood donors, corporate sponsors and partners, corporate customers, disaster victims, volunteers, and members of the armed forces. They are to position ARC as a preeminent brand in the 21st Century, grow a humanitarian movement that is accessible, empowered and relevant and create constituent preference, engagement, loyalty and action. The strategies include processes, organizational design, technology, as well as customer insights and business intelligence. Highlights: •Developed a comprehensive roadmap of eCRM business and technology architecture that will deliver a cohesive “one Red Cross” customer experience across 5 currently “siloed” lines of service. •Have begun phased execution of the roadmap with initial focus on individual and corporate financial donors. Developed and currently leading implementation of process, people and technology enablers and capabilities that ensure engagement and sustained giving during nonepisodic periods, promote advocacy (peer-to-peer and word-of-mouth fundraising) and attract new donor segments (e.g., youth and minorities). •Developed the integrated technology vision that enables the designed customer experience across ARC’s online and offline channels and have begun selection and implementation of these technologies. They include best-in-breed eCRM technologies.

The George Washington University - School of Business

MBA

University of Maryland College Park

BS

Concentration: Mechanical Engineering

emerging technologies, painting, world travel, blogging about street art