John McWhorter
Political Commentator, Linguist & Professor at Columbia University
Annette Franz
Founder & CEO, CX Journey™ | CCXP | Customer Experience Strategist | Bestselling Author of Customer Understanding
Annette Franz is the voice organizations turn to when customer experience strategy needs to move from concept to competitive advantage. As Founder and CEO of CX Journey™ and a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP), she has spent over three decades helping companies build customer-centric cultures that drive measurable business results.
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Annette Franz biography
Annette Franz is one of the most recognized voices in the global customer experience field — a practitioner, strategist, and educator who has spent over three decades helping organizations stop guessing what customers want and start building cultures that consistently deliver. As Founder and CEO of CX Journey™, she works with companies across industries to align employees, processes, and strategy around the customer, translating abstract CX principles into operational change that sticks.
Customer experience speaker Annette Franz earned her Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) credential — the industry’s most respected certification — and has used that foundation to advise and coach Fortune 500 companies, mid-market firms, and startups alike. Her work is grounded in a deceptively simple but often overlooked truth: customer experience transformation fails when organizations focus on the experience without first focusing on the people who deliver it. Her methodology centers on employee experience as the precondition for customer experience excellence.
She is the author of two books that have become go-to resources for CX practitioners and business leaders. Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business) demystifies how organizations can genuinely know their customers through listening, characterization, and journey mapping. Her follow-up, Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value for Your Business, shifts the lens to organizational design — arguing that sustainable CX improvement requires building culture from the inside out, not patching touchpoints from the outside in.
Building Cultures That Compete on Experience
Franz has been named one of the top CX influencers and thought leaders globally by multiple industry publications and research firms. She has written extensively for platforms including Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and CMSWire, and contributes regularly to the broader conversation about what it means to put customers — and employees — at the center of business strategy. Her insight is sought after precisely because it is operational, not aspirational: she knows what actually breaks in large organizations and how to fix it.
As a speaker, Annette Franz brings rare clarity and candor to audiences that have heard too many CX keynotes heavy on buzzwords and light on substance. She delivers talks that are research-grounded, practically structured, and immediately applicable — whether the audience is a C-suite leadership team, a conference of HR and operations leaders, or a room of customer success professionals. Attendees leave with a sharper understanding of the link between culture, employee engagement, and business outcomes, and with concrete tools to accelerate their own transformation.
Annette Franz Speaking Videos
Annette Franz
Annette Franz - Putting the Customer into Customer Experience
Annette Franz Keynote Topics
Most CX initiatives fail not because the strategy is wrong, but because the culture hasn't caught up. In this keynote, Annette Franz challenges leaders to look beyond journey maps and metrics to the deeper organizational shifts required for lasting customer-centricity. Drawing on her three decades of advisory work, she outlines the principles, leadership behaviors, and structural changes that separate companies that talk about the customer from those that are genuinely built around them.
Customer experience and employee experience are two sides of the same coin — and organizations that invest in one without the other consistently underperform. Franz makes the business case for treating employees as the primary driver of CX outcomes, offering a practical framework for diagnosing cultural disconnects and designing workplaces where people are equipped and motivated to deliver exceptional service every day.
Most organizations believe they understand their customers. Few actually do. In this session, Franz draws on her book Customer Understanding to walk audiences through three concrete methods — listening programs, customer characterization, and journey mapping — that transform assumptions into evidence-based insight. Attendees leave knowing how to collect the right data, make sense of it, and translate it into decisions that meaningfully improve the customer experience.
Inspired by her book Built to Win, this keynote presents culture not as a soft HR concern but as a strategic capability that determines whether a company can compete over the long term. Franz outlines the five design principles behind customer-centric cultures that endure — from leadership alignment and shared values to employee empowerment and closed-loop feedback — and shows audiences how to assess where their own organization stands and what to prioritize next.
FAQs on Booking Annette Franz
Why Annette Franz?
Booking Annette Franz for your event means bringing one of the world's most credible and operationally grounded customer experience experts to your stage. As Founder and CEO of CX Journey™ and a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) with over 30 years of hands-on advisory experience, she delivers more than inspiration — she delivers frameworks that work. Her talks resonate with C-suite leaders, operations teams, HR executives, and anyone responsible for building organizations that compete on experience. If your audience is navigating culture transformation, employee engagement, or CX strategy, Annette Franz is among the most impactful investments you can make. Contact Aurum Speakers Bureau to check her availability and discuss your event.
What is a CCXP and why does Annette Franz's certification matter?
The Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) designation is the gold standard credential in the CX industry, awarded by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) to practitioners who demonstrate mastery across customer experience strategy, metrics, organizational adoption, and customer insights. Annette Franz is one of a relatively small number of practitioners globally to hold this certification, and she was among its earliest recipients — a reflection of both her depth of expertise and her long-standing contribution to professionalizing the field.
What is CX Journey™?
CX Journey™ is Annette Franz's consulting and advisory firm, founded to help organizations design and deliver exceptional experiences for both customers and employees. Through assessments, coaching, workshops, and speaking engagements, CX Journey™ works with companies across industries to build the internal capabilities — culture, process, measurement, and leadership alignment — required for sustainable CX transformation.
What topics does customer experience speaker Annette Franz cover?
Annette Franz speaks on a focused and highly relevant set of topics for today's business environment: customer experience strategy and culture transformation, employee experience as the foundation for CX excellence, customer journey mapping and persona development, voice-of-the-customer programs, and the leadership behaviors required to build and sustain customer-centric organizations. Her sessions are tailored to executive audiences and ideal for leadership summits, operations conferences, HR forums, and customer success events. Reach out to Aurum Speakers Bureau to discuss which program best fits your event.
How to book Annette Franz as a keynote speaker?
Aurum Speakers Bureau can help you book Annette Franz as a speaker for your next event, conference, or board meeting. Simply fill out our contact form to inquire about Annette Franz's availability for a speaking engagement. One of our booking agents will respond to your request immediately and contact the speaker to let them know you want to hire them. We will assist you with obtaining speaking fees, booking information, and confirming availability for Annette Franz or any other top keynote speaker or celebrity of your choice.
How much is Annette Franz speaking fee?
Annette Franz speaking fees are determined by several factors, including the event's date, whether it's a virtual or in-person event, the duration, format, preparation required for their speech, and more. The same applies to the cost to hire any other top expert speakers and celebrities. The Speaker Fee Range listed on our website is simply a guideline and is subject to change without notice. If you would like to hire Annette Franz to deliver a keynote speech for your event, please fill out the contact form or email us at info@aurumbureau.com with as much detail as possible. One of our experienced agents will get in touch with you and let you know exactly how much it will cost to book Annette Franz.
How can I contact Annette Franz?
We only work with Annette Franz on paid speaking engagements. Aurum Speakers Bureau can assist you in booking Annette Franz and will handle all negotiations, contracts, and logistics associated with having Annette Franz speak at your event. We will be your sole point of contact throughout the process. Get in touch with Aurum Speakers Bureau today, and we will reach out to any motivational speaker or celebrity you want to enquire about speaking at your event. If you wish to contact Annette Franz for any other reason, we will be unable to assist you as we are not authorized to provide personal contact information.
Can I book Annette Franz for a virtual keynote?
Yes, Annette Franz is available for virtual keynotes and webinars. To book Annette Franz for a virtual event, please complete the contact form or send us an email to inquire about the special fees for virtual engagements.
