Recommendations
Recommendations
Teresa da Costa, Strategic Program & PMO Leader | Enterprise Transformation | Strategic Initiatives | Al-Enabled Operations
"James is one of the strongest and most compassionate leaders I have ever worked for. He genuinely cares about his people and is always available to offer guidance, support, or simply listen. As any individual contributor knows, a manager with that mindset is gold. I absolutely loved working for him.
James has an exceptional ability to translate strategy into action and aligned our team around the work that mattered most. He built an entire operating model and found ways to put it into practice within weeks. He brought structure and clear direction while always remaining flexible and genuinely open to new ideas about how we could make things better.
Because James is such a joy to work with, he built strong relationships across our entire organization and with other leaders throughout the business. He understood how our teams needed to work together, where we should focus, and how to turn our priorities into meaningful business results. He also knew exactly how to advance our enablement and outreach programs.
One thing I especially loved about working for James was how intentional he was about recognizing his people. He never waited for a formal review cycle to acknowledge excellent work. He noticed my contributions and those of other team members in the day-to-day and made sure we felt valued.
Anyone would be fortunate to work for James, and any company would be lucky to have him. I would welcome the opportunity to work with him again and feel truly grateful that I had the chance."
Dana Sprole, Learning & Enablement Expert
"James is one of the most exceptional managers I’ve worked with throughout my career. He excelled at giving our team the autonomy and trust to own our work and get things done, while always being right there to help troubleshoot, remove roadblocks, and keep projects moving forward.
During moments of ambiguity, James empowered us to make key decisions and steer our customer training site in the direction that made the most strategic sense. He was always ready to step in and support the team no matter what, and he consistently went out of his way to champion our work and showcase our team's impact across the organization. Any team or company would be lucky to have James in leadership."
Michael Edwards, Video Producer & Editor
"James is an incredible leader who empowers his team at every step. Whenever I encountered obstacles, stalls, or organizational pushback, James was right in front of it all, proactively clearing friction to ensure my progress was never impeded. He excels at shielding his team from operational roadblocks so they can focus on delivering high-impact work.
Beyond his talent for clearing pathways, James leads with a perfect balance of strategic vision and genuine support. He acts as both a protective leader and a true thought partner, creating an environment where team members feel supported to innovate and execute at their best.
While my time under his direct leadership was short, it was nothing short of exceptional. Any organization would be immensely fortunate to have a leader of his caliber driving their teams forward."
Julia Chang, Senior Programme Manager
"I was lucky to be able to work with James for several years, and he is a powerhouse in the workplace. He is an extremely hard worker and devotes himself to his role and his team.
He is very proactive both as a people manager and as a contributor, and actively seeks out opportunities to improve processes and integrate new technologies and capabilities.
James has a very steady leadership style, and leads with confidence while still being receptive to feedback. He is able to navigate tough situations and advocate for his projects and team, as well as create structure where there is none to reduce ambiguity for his reports. He was able to smoothly transition into taking on a much larger team, and ensure proper channels of communication were established.
He is very dependable as a manager and leader, and can also easily switch into the role of a thought partner and collaborator. He demonstrates a lot of care and thought into his work and for his teammates, and would succeed anywhere he goes."
Mark Oehlert, Leader in L&D, Customer Education, Innovation Management, Al transformations, and Future of Work
"I can't recommend James highly enough. He is a unique blend of operational pragmatism, genuine curiosity, and capacity to care for the people on his team. James manages to work not just as an effective leader but a thought partner who can bring out the best in his team. He is a recognized leader in CX, leans forward to embrace technologies like AI - in ways and places that make sense. I watched James bring order to chaos and guide a blended team to operation effectiveness. Whether on leadership, management, and/or domain knowledge, literally any org should be overjoyed to land someone like James. "
Sandra de Zoysa, CX Leader of the Year 2020 award judge and CX Leader of the Year 2019
"James epitomises the desire, perseverance and passion that is required in a CX leader, one that genuinely cares about the customer. It is highly impressive the number of initiatives that he put in place at the Post Office, and to do this in a public sector organisation is even more commendable."
Michael Hinshaw, CX Leader of the Year 2020 award judge and President at McorpCX
"I was struck by the ways James has driven key aspects of experience excellence into the Post Office - clearly defined strategies, customer listening, a cultural shift towards individual and group empowerment and a shift away from top-down, centralised control via training and education, process improvements and customer understanding, to name a few!"
Ian Golding, CX Leader of the Year Head judge and Global Customer Experience Specialist
"What James has achieved in an organisation such as the Post Office is worthy of recognition. Complex and widely dispersed geographically, aligning a business like this behind a customer centric message is no mean feat – and the metrics speak for themselves. James makes a very worthy winner of CX Leader of the Year."
Chris Sawkins, Senior Sector Director
James is a really great guy to work with, his positivity and outlook on everything we have worked together on has been refreshing. James has done an excellent job of rolling out a best in class Customer Experience programme for Post Office, and everyone I have introduced James to from Qualtrics has been very impressed. James is highly skilled in public speaking and I look forward to seeing him up on stage as a key note speaker at our global X4 event.
Bruce Temkin CCXP, Customer Experience Visioary, Founder of CXPA, Head of Qualtrics XM Institute
I've had the pleasure to get to know James and his excellent work at the Post Office. He's done a great job of combining CX best practices with a deep understanding of how the organization actually operates. The Post Office has a unique environment; it's an extremely large organization that's pretty much a collection of small business owners (Postmasters are actually owners of their stores). One of the hallmarks of a great CX leader is the ability to apply best practices in situationally appropriate ways.
Jesus De Sousa, Area Manager at Post Office Ltd
It’s rare that you come across an outstanding talent like James
I had the pleasure of working with James for the last four year at Post Office , as a Head Of Customer experience James is the dream person to work with.
I was particularly impressed by James’s ability to put customers first at everything he do even in the toughest situations —effortlessly. Creating Strategy to delivered Customer service is a skill it seemed to come perfectly naturally to him.
As a customer experience manager and as a great leader , James earns my highest recommendation.
Nicole Huyghe, Managing Director at boobook.world
James was keynote speaker at an event we (boobook) organised at the Belgian Embassy in London (Oct2016). The event was about Data Driven Innovation and Strategy Development. James gave an extremely good talk. It was very clear that James has a wealth of experience in driving innovation. He is also an excellent and inspiring presenter. The audience was captivated by his talk from beginning to end.
Kurtis Williams, Chief Product Officer at InMoment.com
James is one of the best board members that I’ve worked with. He was extremely active as a board member, which immediately set him apart. In addition he gave very useful and actionable feedback. He was forthright, candid, and direct while being collaborative and easy to work with. I can enthusiastically recommend James as a board member without reservation.
Simon Childs, Search Practice Principal
James is an expert in the development and implementation of customer acquisition and retention strategies. He combines a highly developed knowledge of retail operations with a strong business acumen. James possesses the unique ability to “troubleshoot” and transform under performing business areas through the delivery of innovative propositions that accelerate customer acquisition, growth and retention.
Jon Snow, Chairman at Directors’ Club
James presented a session as part of the Directors’ Club Autumn Webinar Festival showcasing the Champions & Innovators Of Customer Experience. James spoke with authority and is a very engaging presenter. James is now a member of our Faculty and will be invited to share knowledge and know-how at future events.
Clive Taylor, Director, Ingelby.com
James has an in depth understanding of how new digital channels can deliver opportunities for Post Office, both customer facing and for employee engagement. James has provided us with advice and helped manage the working relationship between the companies business analysts and internal clients launching a number of new initiatives to help Post Office broadens it’s digital offering to the postmaster community.
A clear thinker and can do attitude makes working with James refreshingly different, equally he’s not afraid to challenge proposals, ensuring that whatever is being designed/produced is fit for business today and for the future.
Steve Forrest, UK Managing Director, Brickstream Corporation
In all my years of working with various people/roles on enterprise projects, James stands out as one of those exceptional people. James is very professional in his approach to everything, very clear in defining expectations/next steps and follows up on all actions he agrees to manage. I have no reservations or concerns when it comes to recommending James
Steve Gibbs, Director at SG EP Services
James gets the job done and understands the customer requirements. his work is always to a high standard and he anticipates demand and generates bespoke solutions.