The Experience Edge

Martha Cotton, Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase, brings 25 years of experience bridging anthropology, design, and enterprise transformation. Known for helping large organizations understand people, navigate change, and design for adoption, Martha shares how empathy, collaboration, and partnership shape modern design leadership.In this episode, she and Jochem explore how designers can speak the language of business, why data partnerships matter, and what it really takes to drive customer centricity inside legacy organizations. They examine the future of journey management, organizational transformation, and how AI will reshape creative work.Guest BioMartha Cotton is Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase, where she leads design research and drives customer centricity across one of the world’s largest financial institutions. With a background in cultural anthropology, she has built a career spanning boutique studios, global consultancies, and enterprise design leadership.Her work focuses on designing for adoption, shaping change inside complex organizations, and elevating design as a strategic partner to the business. Martha is also an educator and long-standing contributor to the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry community.TakeawaysDesigning for adoption ensures experiences deliver sustained customer and business value.Design leaders must articulate impact in business terms, not just craft terms.Organizational change succeeds when it’s driven top down, bottom up, and radiating from the middle.Strong partnerships between design and data unlock measurable outcomes and credibility.Journey management becomes transformative when supported by diverse data and cross-functional collaboration.Chapters 00:00 Setup and warm up 02:27 Intro to Martha Cotton 03:44 Martha’s career through line 05:46 Why empathy still matters in business 08:17 Skills needed to thrive in complex enterprises 12:04 Craft, business impact, and designing for adoption 14:42 How design leadership is evolving 16:37 The rise and pitfalls of design thinking 19:58 Making new ways of working stick 22:11 Breaking the glass ceiling for design 25:23 Moving from order taking to partnership 28:53 Charm offensive and influencing without disruption 30:57 Learning business context the hard way 32:40 Early days of digital transformation 33:45 Making transformation stick in enterprises 35:04 Top down, bottom up, and middle-out change 39:32 The challenge of creating opportunities inside enterprises 44:00 Design and data partnerships 47:26 The evolution of journey management 49:29 Data-enabled journeys and organizational reality 54:41 What Martha wishes she could change 55:47 Thinking about AI as a creative partner 58:29 Where to find MarthaLinkedInGuest: Martha Cotton Host Jochem van der Veer

Most CX teams struggle to show ROI because they’re looking in the wrong place. CX isn’t just one metric and it was never meant to be. As Jochem van der Veer explains, leaders don’t fund sentiment… they fund outcomes.In this episode, Jochem breaks down the three ROI lenses every mature CX organization uses to quantify impact across the business: customer outcomes, operational efficiency, and strategic influence, and how they work together to reveal the full-stack value of customer experience.If you want CX to be taken seriously, stop defending it with dashboards and start showing how the system behaves differently because of the way you work.What You’ll LearnHow to measure and prove CX impact through three enterprise-wide signals:Customer Outcomes. How reduced churn, faster time-to-value, and increased cross-sell/upsell probabilities drive revenue growthOperational Efficiency. How fixing upstream friction cuts avoidable support volume, eliminates duplication of work, and reduces delay-driven wasteStrategic Influence. How journey alignment accelerates prioritization, decision-making, and cross-functional clarityYou’ll walk away with a practical, system-level view of CX ROI that product, finance, and executive teams actually believe.KEYWORDSbusiness value of customer experience, customer experience ROI, CX strategy, customer retention, brand loyalty, experience management, CX metrics, customer insights, customer journey, customer feedback, business strategy, ROI, CX leadership, CX design, simon sinek, user experience, customer satisfaction, business growth, value proposition, customer service, customer relationships, marketing strategyWatch next:Bill’s full conversation on The Experience Edge podcast (link below). • Experience starts with the CFO – Bill StaikosSubscribe for more on journey management, CX strategy, and operationalizing customer-centricity at scale.Like, comment, and share with your team if you’re ready to move from dashboards to boardrooms.CONNECT WITH US:Website: https://www.theydo.com/LinkedIn: https://theydo-journey-managementTwitter: https://x.com/TheyDoHQ

Sam Stern, Service Design Lead at LinkedIn and longtime CX thinker, joins TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer to explore how journeys, data, and behavioral science shape memorable experiences. With a background spanning Forrester, New Balance, and his own CX Patterns podcast, Sam reveals why perfection is overrated and why some friction, when engineered well, can actually deepen customer value.They dig into good friction, employee experience design, cross-silo collaboration, and how AI is reshaping research workflows. Sam challenges long held CX doctrines, offering a fresh lens on how to create experiences that customers remember and teams can deliver with confidence.Guest BioSam Stern is the Service Design Lead at LinkedIn, where he focuses on improving the employee and customer facing experiences that power the platform’s global ecosystem. Before LinkedIn, Sam spent nearly 16 years as a Principal Analyst at Forrester, shaping industry thinking on customer experience. He has also led CX at New Balance and is the creator of the CX Patterns podcast and newsletter. Sam is known for blending behavioral science, service design, and practical business insight to help organizations craft experiences that matter.Key TakeawaysGood friction can enhance memorability when intentionally designed, contrasted with the CX habit of removing all friction.Behavioral science principles like anticipation, contrast, and peak moments remain underused in customer experience design.Service design at LinkedIn prioritizes improving the employee experience for 12,000+ customer facing roles to strengthen customer outcomes.Journey readouts become dramatically more effective when grounded in video evidence from real users.AI accelerates research workflows but amplifies, rather than replaces, human judgment and context setting.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Sam Stern 02:00 Why another CX book 05:00 The concept of good friction 08:30 When friction helps and when it harms 12:00 Ethical considerations in engineered friction 16:00 How service design operates inside LinkedIn 21:00 Secrets to effective journey readouts 24:00 Helping product teams see beyond their scope 26:45 How prioritization works across product and CX 29:00 Journey atlas and cross org context 32:00 Blending CX, UX, and service design roles 35:00 Business impact and full stack builder 39:00 AI’s role in research and insight development 43:00 Can AI ever understand context 49:00 The future of service design and CX 58:00 Why silos aren’t going away 59:00 Where to find SamLinkedInFollow Sam Stern: Post on Good Friction Post on Book announcement Follow Jochem van der Veer:

After more than 20 years at Philips, Tina Lilje knows what it takes to make customer experience more than a metric. As former Global Head of Customer Experience, she built a CX strategy across 100+ countries and 75,000 employees—connecting the dots between service, design, and leadership.In this episode, Tina and TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer explore how healthcare is embracing AI without losing its human touch. From fixing design flaws that cost millions to turning executives into customer sponsors, Tina shares why the most successful CX strategies start with root causes, not dashboards—and why humans will always be healthcare’s most valuable premium.Guest BioTina Lilje is the former Global Head of Customer Experience at Philips, where she led the company’s global CX transformation across healthcare and B2B markets. Over two decades, she moved from marketing and M&A to executive CX leadership, designing a customer-first strategy spanning more than 100 countries. Known for operationalizing CX and aligning global teams around root-cause improvement, Tina now advises organizations on embedding customer-centric thinking that actually sticks.Key TakeawaysFix root causes, not symptoms: Sustainable CX impact comes from addressing systemic design flaws, not surface-level issues.AI in healthcare needs humans: Technology should enhance, not replace, human care, especially in regulated, high-stakes industries.Customer voice is the strongest lever: Bringing real customer stories into leadership discussions drives alignment and urgency.KPIs must match behavior: Incentives shape culture, customer goals only work when bonuses, priorities, and structures reinforce them.Consistency beats perfection: True CX excellence lies in reliability, authenticity, and operational follow-through.Episode Chapters00:00 Welcome and introduction 03:00 Why humans are a premium in healthcare’s AI era 06:00 Balancing innovation with regulation in clinical settings 09:50 How small CX fixes drive major impact 14:30 Discovering the “detector” moment: fixing root causes 18:00 Turning CX from a program into a lasting function 25:00 Finding mentors and building CX leadership credibility 33:00 Creating partnerships, not transactions, with customers 41:00 Why NPS failed and what replaced it 48:20 Embedding CX across functions and KPIs 52:00 Aligning around customer realities, not silos 56:00 Incentives, ownership, and the human factor 01:04:00 When to go “all in” on CX, and when not to 01:06:30 Tina’s next chapter and closing thoughtsLinkedIn ProfilesFollow Tina Lilje: Follow Jochem van der Veer (TheyDo):

Can AI actually help you understand your customers - or is it just noise at scale?As teams lean into AI to handle discovery work, it’s tempting to treat all insights as equal. But not all research sources are created equal - and AI isn’t great at everything.In this episode, Jochem Van Der Veer breaks down where AI actually supports discovery... and where it silently sabotages it. This is a guide for anyone using AI to scale research, sift through feedback, or make sense of customer data.What You’ll Learn: • A side-by-side breakdown of 8 key research sources - and where AI helps (or fails) • Why AI performs well on written support data but fails to read tone, sarcasm, or urgency • How AI misses the intent behind interviews - and why that matters for product decisions • The danger of over-trusting CRM notes, sales transcripts, and survey sentiment without context • How to combine AI-assisted insights with human nuance to get to real customer truthFollow Jochem van der Veer on LinkedInLearn more about Journey Management with TheyDo

Dan Sullivan, Director of Journey Management at CHG Healthcare, revolutionizes customer experience by integrating data and insights to align customer needs with business outcomes. He explains how journey management goes beyond mere mapping to reshape decision-making across teams. Dan highlights the importance of storytelling for engagement, the creation of an immersive 'Journey Museum', and balancing customer focus with business goals. His innovative approaches demonstrate how organizations can foster lasting change and align their strategies with customer-centric thinking.

Raymond Otero, Director of Global Customer Experience at Microsoft, bridges customer success and experience to create truly journey-centered transformation. With nearly three decades of experience, Ray’s approach brings operational cohesion, data-driven insights, and a cultural shift that makes customer obsession real inside the enterprise.In this conversation with TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer, Ray unpacks how Microsoft is blending CX and CS through journey-based operating models, how AI enables proactive coaching, and why humility and alignment—not hierarchy—drive lasting success.Guest BioRaymond (Ray) Otero is Director of Global Customer Experience at Microsoft, where he leads strategic programs that connect customer success, experience design, and data insights across the organization. With over 25 years of experience spanning Citrix, Microsoft, and advisory roles with the Customer Success Collective and Influence Board, Ray helps global enterprises shift from reactive account management to proactive, journey-based transformation.TakeawaysCX and Customer Success must operate as one journey, not separate functions.“Leaning left” means involving success teams early—before the sale—to drive outcomes.AI should enhance human connection by removing repetitive tasks and surfacing insights.Journey health is the new north star—measuring alignment, not just satisfaction.True leadership requires humility, collaboration, and a culture of shared learning.Chapters 00:00 Meet Raymond Otero, Director of Global Customer Experience at Microsoft 02:00 Redefining CX and Customer Success at Microsoft 06:00 Why silos hurt the customer journey 10:00 The “lean left” principle and early success engagement 14:00 CX as data, analytics, and rhythm of business 17:00 Journey as the organizational glue 19:00 Turning journeys into joint operating models 27:00 From tactical fixes to strategic programs 31:00 How AI reshapes customer success roles 36:00 Will AI replace CS jobs? 44:00 Building better CX organizations and roles 49:00 Structuring OKRs and aligning CX metrics 55:00 Journey-centered metrics and global alignment 59:00 Creating cultural cohesion and removing silos 01:03:00 Where to find Ray and final reflectionsLinkedInRaymond Otero Jochem van der Veer Websitesmicrosoft.com (Company) (Personal) (Personal)

AI Won’t Fix Broken Customer UnderstandingAre you speeding past discovery and straight into irrelevance?Generative AI has made it easy to ship. Everyone can prototype, design, and launch faster than ever. But faster doesn’t mean better, and skipping discovery is a mistake teams keep making.In this episode, Jochem Van Der Veer (CEO of TheyDo) challenges the illusion of progress AI creates, and shows why the real return on investment lies in how we use AI for discovery - not delivery.What You’ll Learn: • Why skipping discovery leads to false confidence and wasted effort • The overlooked ROI of AI: freeing time for deeper customer understanding • How a scratched-up skate shoe saved Lego and what that means for your product strategy • The limits of AI in research: where human insight still matters most • A shift in mindset: from shipping more to learning fasterFollow Jochem van der Veer on LinkedInLearn more about Journey Management with TheyDo

Bruno Monteiro, VP and Head of Digital Experience at HealthEquity, is driving one of the boldest CX transformations in healthcare - reorganizing the company around customer journeys. Drawing on his time at JPMorgan Chase, where he pioneered the “experience object” strategy, Bruno explains what it takes to turn journey theory into business impact.In this episode, he and TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer explore how to align teams, data, and leadership around outcomes that balance customer intent and business value. The conversation reveals why shared ownership, empathy, and orchestration, not technology alone, power true transformation.Guest BioBruno Monteiro is VP and Head of Digital Experience at HealthEquity, where he leads the transformation of web and mobile experiences helping millions of Americans save and invest for health and wealth. Formerly Executive Director and Head of Service Design at JPMorgan Chase, he developed the “experience object” model and the UNDesign framework, applying systems thinking to reimagine how large enterprises align around journeys. Bruno also teaches at the School of Visual Arts and contributes to the Service Design Network.TakeawaysJourney management succeeds when accountability, not ownership, drives collaboration.Taxonomy and shared language are essential to aligning business and customer outcomes.Product owners are evolving into “journey orchestrators” focused on end-to-end experiences.Metrics must layer: KPIs + CX scores + UX signals = true visibility.AI accelerates discovery but cannot replace empathy or human insight.Chapters 00:00 Intro and the Trojan Horse at Chase 03:07 What it means to lead with journeys 07:33 Jobs to be Done vs. Journeys vs. Experiences 10:28 Journey architecture and taxonomy 14:10 Journey ownership and org structure at Chase 18:18 Accountability and the role of journey owners 21:34 Balancing business and customer outcomes 25:50 Coordinating the journey architecture 28:58 The evolution from product to journey management 34:33 Designing metrics that resonate with the business 39:37 Starting small and building behavior change 42:28 Selecting the first journeys to transform 43:41 Why NPS isn’t enough 46:00 Using layered metrics to reveal friction 50:04 Upskilling product owners for better discovery 51:40 Structuring research around journeys 55:27 AI’s limitations in customer empathy 58:16 Synthetic users and bias in design 01:02:29 AI can support, but not replace, deep research 01:05:27 Building empathy through real customer contact 01:08:16 Final advice and the vision of UNDesign 01:10:17 Where to find Bruno and follow his workLinkedInBruno Monteiro:   LINKEDINJochem van der Veer: LINKEDINKEYWORDS:  #CustomerExperienceDesign #JourneyBasedTransformation #DigitalExperienceLeadership #CXMetricsAndKPIs #ProductToJourneyShift #HealthcareCX #FinancialServicesCX #ExperienceArchitecture #CustomerIntentData #OrchestratedCustomerJourneys #DesignForOutcomes #UNDesignFramework #AIInCX #EmpathyDrivenDesign #ServiceDesignLeadership #CustomerExperience #JourneyManagement #DigitalTransformation #ProductToJourney #ServiceDesign #CustomerEmpathy #SystemsThinking #EndToEndDesign #ExperienceBlueprinting #CXLeadership #JobsToBeDone #CustomerIntent #CXMetrics #AIAndCX #UNDesignMindset #CX #Journeys #Design #Empathy #AI #Leadership #Data #Strategy #Systems #Innovation #Metrics #Blueprints #Outcomes #Ownership #Discovery

In this episode of The Experience Edge, Jochem van der Veer speaks with Bruno Monteiro, VP and Head of Digital Experience at HealthEquity, about what it truly takes to transform large organizations around customer journeys. From implementing journey management at JP Morgan Chase as a "Trojan horse" strategy to now leading an experience-centered transformation in healthcare, Bruno offers sharp, practical insights into how CX leaders can move from theory to enterprise-wide practice.Bruno unpacks the challenges of scaling journey ownership, balancing business metrics with customer intent, and creating visibility through journey architectures. He dives into the need for shared accountability, behavior change, and empathy-building through real customer insights, beyond the limitations of synthetic data and dashboards. For anyone driving or scaling journey-based transformation, this episode is a masterclass.Guest BioBruno Monteiro is the Vice President and Head of Digital Experience at HealthEquity, where he leads digital transformation across web and mobile platforms to help millions of Americans manage their health and wealth. Previously, he was Executive Director and Head of Service Design at JP Morgan Chase, where he pioneered journey-based transformation using the "Experience Object Strategy." He is the creator of UNDesign, a mindset and methodology to dismantle legacy systems and drive systemic change. Bruno also teaches at SVA’s MFA in Design for Social Innovation and is a contributor to the Service Design Network.TakeawaysJourney Management Requires Real Accountability: Journey owners must have end-to-end decision-making power, not just titles.Balance Customer and Business Outcomes: True impact comes from aligning customer needs with measurable business value.Taxonomy is Foundational: Organizations need a shared language around journeys, jobs to be done, and experiences.Start Small, Then Scale: Begin with high-friction, high-volume journeys to prove value and gain traction.Design for Alignment, Not Just Execution: Orchestrating roadmaps across multiple teams and OKRs is key.NPS Isn’t Enough: It's useful for stakeholder buy-in, but real transformation needs layered metrics and operational data.Blueprinting Should Include System Decisions: “Service archaeology” reveals legacy constraints that block innovation.Don’t Just Show the Journey, Make It the Source of Truth: Create accessible, dynamic journey architecture systems.AI Has Limits in Empathy and Intent: Human insight is still essential for identifying emotional and contextual signals.Product Owners Must Evolve: The journey owner role is the next step in aligning teams around end-to-end outcomes.UNDesign Is About Dismantling to Rebuild: Bruno’s methodology encourages questioning, unlearning, and system transformation.Chapters00:00 Intro and the Trojan Horse at Chase 03:07 What it means to lead with journeys 07:33 Jobs to be Done vs. Journeys vs. Experiences 10:28 Journey architecture and taxonomy 14:10 Journey ownership and org structure at Chase 18:18 Accountability and the role of journey owners 21:34 Balancing business and customer outcomes 25:50 Coordinating the journey architecture 28:58 The evolution from product to journey management 34:33 Designing metrics that resonate with the business 39:37 Starting small and building behavior change 42:28 Selecting the first journeys to transform 43:41 Why NPS isn’t enough 46:00 Using layered metrics to reveal friction 50:04 Upskilling product owners for better discovery 51:40 Structuring research around journeys 55:27 AI’s limitations in customer empathy 58:16 Synthetic users and bias in design 01:02:29 AI can support, but not replace, deep research 01:05:27 Building empathy through real customer contact 01:08:16 Final advice and the vision of UNDesign 01:10:17 Where to find Bruno and follow his workLinkedInFollow Bruno MonteiroFollow Jochem van der Veer