The CSBA Team

The CSBA team is made up of a diverse group of CX professionals, from all walks of life and backgrounds. We come together to use our specialist knowledge, experience and expertise to help organisations create better customer experiences.

Meet the people that make CSBA the customer experience experts

Experts in our field, we’re experienced and knowledgeable. But we’re also passionately curious and inquisitive – always looking to learn and grow. Striving to work with you and for you, we aim to strike the right balance between thinking and doing – never losing sight of the task at hand and always delivering.

Inhouse call centre
Unlike many research companies, CSBA doesn’t outsource our call centre work internationally. Instead we have our own inhouse call centre, staffed by highly experienced interviewers who work flexible hours that allow us to reach Australians at the time that suits them.

CX Strategy

Paul van Veenendaal
Managing Director

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Over the last 15 years Paul has helped dozens of public and private sector clients create and deliver better customer experiences.

Paul’s passion for CX began long before he joined CSBA in 2003. He became a champion of the importance of CX and the positive impact innovative and improved customer experiences have on the bottom line, while working in Senior Management roles in the Service and Manufacturing sectors.

As a leader in the field, Paul is regularly called upon to speak at events and share his knowledge and insights. His work has been widely recognised and over the years he’s received a number of Awards for Customer Service Excellence.

Paul has a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) and MBA both from Melbourne University.

Sudipta Dutt
CX Director – Utilities

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Sudipta is an expert in her field with 15+ years of experience in research, analysis and consulting. Prior to joining CSBA, she has worked as a consultant with Forethought Research, focusing on the Utilities and Superannuation sectors. Originally from India, Sudipta has previously worked as a Lead Knowledge analyst and as a consultant at BCG and McKinsey, servicing clients across the globe. This unique experience leading marketing analytics projects and solving complex business problems across a range of geographies and functions adds depth to her consulting capabilities, enabling her to partner closely with clients for optimal business results.

She is a critical and strategic thinker and brings a passion for marketing and insights with a particular focus on actionability. Combining statistical rigour with marketing insights, Sudipta is passionate about solving client problems with clarity and relevance to client decision making, thereby delivering value to the customers. She has worked across a span of projects on CX programs and embedding the CX strategy into the business, brand strategy and positioning, customer segmentation, choice modelling and employer satisfaction programs, journey mapping, innovation strategy, product/concept/Ad testing and many more. She enjoys working in market research focusing on delivering value to customers, thereby improving customer satisfaction and retention and stemming out defection areas.

Sudipta holds a Masters degree in International Business and Science from Calcutta University.

Sam Monteath
CX Director – Finance

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A highly experienced marketing and research professional, Sam is passionate about customer insights and improving overall customer experiences. With over 20 years of experience working across a range of different sectors including FMCG, Retail, Local Government, Tertiary Education, Utilities and Finance, Sam’s commercial experience is vast.

Her research experience is equally as impressive and includes the design and execution of a broad range of complex qualitative and quantitative research projects and client relationship management.

Sam’s passion and energy for delivering value and driving improvement is built on solid foundations of reliability, integrity, knowledge and credibility. She’s heavily invested in understanding client needs to ensure research programs deliver deep, valuable insights that inform and drive change and is considered a trusted advisor and partner by many of her clients.

Sam has a Bachelor of Business from University of Newcastle.

Kate Gorman
CX Director – Local Govt & Education

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Kate has worked in the industry for 15+ years and is a driven and dynamic professional with a successful career in customer experience, business development and account management. Kate’s career has been built upon solid foundations of customer experience and sales disciplines combined with commercial acumen and entrepreneurial creativity. Abreast of innovative approaches to help clients enhance their customer experience, Kate thrives on partnering with her clients to develop programs to increase their customer satisfaction and advocacy.

Kate has the ability to interpret and translate customer data and insights to all levels in an organisation and is experienced in omni-channel customer experience delivery and requirements. Kate has been invited to contribute to the design and measurement criteria for various customer service industry awards including ARA, CSIA, FCA and AACS. Kate’s strong background in working in customer experience measurement within the retail sector led to her being invited to appear on A Current Affair, Sunrise, Can We Help, The Living Room and The Morning Show.

Kate brings enthusiasm and passion to every client and project she works on and is an advocate of exceptional customer service – some would say obsessed!

Tony Williams
CX Director Commercial

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Tony brings a wealth of expertise with over 25 years of experience in research and consulting agencies across both Australian and UK markets. He has delivered data-driven insights to dozens of blue-chip clients and designed and managed hundreds of consumer and business studies, including Australia’s largest Net Promoter and Voice of Customer feedback programs. Tony has a passion for using customer data and insights to drive business growth and improvement, working closely with clients to provide better customer experiences.

Tony has a first-class Bachelors of Anthropology (Hons) degree from University College, London. He is a Satmetrix certified Net Promoter Associate and holds an Advanced Certificate in Market Research from the MRS (UK).

Michael Eliot
Director Consulting

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Michael has over 20 years experience in Business Consulting with particular expertise in organisational transformation, business improvement, process improvement, performance and measurement.

He was a Partner at Andersen, in the Business Consulting division where he lead the Business Integration Practice, with responsibility for large scale business improvement projects.  And at Australian Consulting Partners he worked in small joint client/consulting teams with a focus on strategy.

At CSBA, Michael oversees all CX Strategy projects.

Helena van de Linde
Research Consultant

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Helena is marketing and market research professional with over 25 years experience.  To CSBA she brings a deep understanding and experience using a variety of methodologies ranging from online, face to face interviews as well as focus groups and workshops.

Helena has completed Customer Experience projects for AGIG, ATCO, TasNetworks, Hunter Water, BankVic, Qantas Super, AusNet Services and SA Power Networks. These projects include significant customer experience measurement, including market segmentation, development of customer experience dashboards and Customer Journey Mapping.

Helena is passionate about helping clients to use their research measures and insights to initiate change.

Quality Assurance and Training

Narelle Warburton
General Manager – QA and Training Portfolio

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Over the last decade Narelle has held a variety of different roles at CSBA, from leading the Field Operations team, to Client Services and most recently General Manager of the QA and Training portfolio.

Narelle was integral to the conception, development and creation of CSBA’s highly regarded SenseCX Quality Assurance program and in her time with CSBA has helped ensure the company remains at the forefront of contemporary customer experience thinking.

Working closely with clients across all sectors, but in particular Local Government, Tertiary Education, Commercial and Utilities, she drives the design and implementation of quality monitoring and training programs that result in better experiences – for customers and employees.

Vivian Hoang
Client Service Manager

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Over the past several years, Vivian has held a variety of different roles at CSBA. She’s led the QA Field Operations team, and most recently moved into Client Services.

In her time with CSBA, she has gained extensive experience managing and coordinating large-scale quality assurance projects, using a variety of different research approaches, standards, and methodologies. She is passionate about supporting her clients to achieve continuous improvement in the quality of their customer interactions.

Kiri Thom
Client Services Manager – Learning and Development

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With more than 15 years experience working with Australian contact centres in the telecommunications, banking, education, marketing, utilities and non-government organisations sector, Kiri has a wealth of customer experience knowledge and hands on experience.

Her team leadership, call centre management, coaching, quality monitoring, conflict resolution, complaint handling and sales and service training knowledge, combined with her collaborative and engaging nature makes her a great facilitator, trainer and coach.

Chris Martlew
Client Services Manager

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Chris has been working in and around contact centres for 7 years.  Starting in customer service on the phones and working up through coaching, QA and into process and project management.

Chris is huge advocate of customer experience and continuous improvement, and armed with his experience working with Australian and overseas contact centres is able to effectively communicate with all parties to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Niamh Cooke
QA Field Operations Manager

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Niamh leads the CSBA Quality Assurance Assessment Team, carefully managing, planning, and tracking each assessment program to ensure it runs smoothly and that deadlines are met. Working closely and collaboratively with each individual member of the QA Field team, Niamh ensures that all assessments are calibrated with the SenseCX methodology and meet CSBA’s Best Practice Standards.

Prior to being promoted to Field Team Operations manager in 2021, Niamh gained extensive research and QA experience, working in a variety of different roles at CSBA, including as an interviewer, a QA Assessor, and a supervisor. In her time at CSBA, Niamh has gained experience managing large-scale projects, supporting the team, and training new QA Assessment Team members on a wide variety of research approaches, standards, and methodologies.

Janine Mitchell
Training and Development Consultant

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Janine is a highly accomplished customer contact professional with over two decades of experience managing effective, award winning contact centre teams.

Responsible for developing the operations of some of Australia’s best-known and loved brands and customer service leaders, Janine is highly respected throughout the industry.

She’s passionate about employee engagement and firmly believes it is an essential ingredient in business success. At CSBA, Janine helps our clients improve their customer experiences through staff coaching and development and assists in driving business improvement by providing leadership coaching and guidance.

Pier Dartnell
Training and Development Consultant

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Pier is an accomplished Customer Experience Development professional with expertise in designing and implementing end-to-end solutions spanning brand development, service definition, recruitment, training, performance management and quality programs.

With over 20 years of local and global experience across award winning airlines, customer care, call centres, local government, hospitality and the education sector, Pier has effectively managed frontline teams, set up training units and a product and service development department that has delivered business results in a dynamic environment.

Pier is particularly successful in improving customer advocacy (Net Promoter Score), customer satisfaction and problem resolution through customer service and training initiatives. She has a reputation for building strong stakeholder relations as well as engaging teams from diverse cultures and backgrounds to achieve individual and business goals.

Pier has been the lead Project Manager and Trainer for two large tertiary institution projects focussed on consultative, needs based customer service framework development and deployment for CSBA in the last 6 months. She has unrivalled experience in training in the tertiary Student Services environment.

Research

Vibeke Johansen
Research Manager

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Vibeke joined CSBA in May 2014, bringing with her extensive experience in a variety of different areas of customer experience and customer service.

Having spent eight years focussed on mystery shopping and retail audits, Vibeke also has extensive expertise in customer loyalty and staff reward and recognition programs. Through this experience, she has built a comprehensive end-to-end view of how to run successful customer service assessment projects.

In her time at CSBA, Vibeke has managed a wide variety of tracking, ad hoc and syndicated research work across the Education, Government and Finance sectors. She brings a meticulous attention to detail and inquisitive mind to all her projects.

Bridget Keena
Research & Insights Manager

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Bridget joined CSBA in 2021, bringing her passion for finding the story within the data to the research team.

Having previously worked in research agencies and the public sector, she has solid experience in managing and coordinating all activities of fast-paced projects that require integration of qualitative and quantitative components.

Innately curious, Bridget is enthusiastic about deriving actionable insights from data and communicating this effectively to improve outcomes for her clients and the broader community.

At CSBA, Bridget helps ensure that clients ask their stakeholders and customers the right questions. She analyses research and business data to identify trends, derive strategic insights, and report on key performance indicators, providing the results to clients via quality reports, presentations, and online dashboards.

Bridget is also an experienced qualitative interviewer and focus group moderator.

Alex How
Research Manager

Gabriela Lira dos Santos
Research Assistant

Sam Litinksy
Qualitative Specialist

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Sam loves talking to people and understanding why they behave as they do.  She is a creative Qualitative Specialist with 15+ years experience.  Sam can apply qualitative research and consulting techniques to uncover exciting commercial opportunities and develop ‘ah ha’ moments for clients.

Sam is proficient in a number of qualitative methods and likes to use story-telling to bring insights to life.  Sam’s experience extends across multiple industries including Banking & Finance, Business Services & FMCG, and she is confident managing both B2C & B2B projects.

Sam is highly experienced moderating focus group and in-depth interviews at all levels, including executive level and vulnerable customer groups.  Her background spans across both agency and client-side and this enables her to deliver executable qualitative research to CSBA’s clients.

David Bowers
Operation & Field Team Manager

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David is a highly experienced Market Research Call Centre Manager, having worked with IPSOS, the second largest global market and social research company.

With over a decade of experience running CATI call centres in both Australia and New Zealand, David has experience in all aspects of market research. He is inquisitive by nature, loves to ask questions, probe beneath the surface and use data to create better customer experiences.

In his role as Field Team Manager at CSBA, he is responsible for the day-to-day operations and management of CSBA’s market leading CATI call centre and field team.

Nath Leungsuwan
Data Scientist

Sophie Couch
Data Analyst

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Sophie has a passion for data and loves using it to communicate on complex topics. Always ready to learn, and with a curiosity about many subjects, Sophie is skilled in taking in the full context of a situation, condensing it down to its relevant parts, and presenting it in a simple yet informative way.

Sophie studied Astrophysics at University and from that gained experience with coding and data, especially with research involving large data projects.

Sophie prepares data for projects and constructs dashboards for clients to interact with and extract meaningful insights from.

 

Operations

Julian Graham
Commercial Manager

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Prior to joining CSBA, Julian worked as the Chief Financial Officer for the ASX-listed companies PSC Ltd and Wellcom Group Ltd. His breadth of experience in the Commercial sector allows him to seamlessly drive improvement and outcomes across strategy, procurement marketing, IT, pricing, sales and change management within a growing business.

In his role as Commercial Manager at CSBA, he reports to the Board of Directors, providing financial and management advice and liaising with legal, banking and accounting providers. He is also is also CSBA’s Privacy Officer.

Julian has a Bachelor of Business (Finance) and is a member of the CPA Association.

Cristina Ainsworth
Office Manager | Executive Assistant

Kristy Horsfall
Sales and Marketing Executive

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As CSBA’s Office Manager and Executive Assistant, Cris is integral to the day-to-day operations of the business. With more than 25 years experience supporting Executive Managers and Managing Directors in large multi-national organisations, Cris has an intimate knowledge of operational management, process efficiency and what is required to achieve business excellence.

A dynamic and agile professional, with exceptional organisational and people management skills, Cris supports the leadership team across all functions of the business, including tender and proposal development, CRM management, communications and events.

Want to explore how CSBA can help you create better customer experiences?