In the vibrant landscape of customer experience, certain individuals stand out as pioneers, reshaping the way businesses engage and satisfy their clientele. Selected as World’s Best Emerging Leader, Marie Raccuglia is one such luminary, wielding expertise and vision in the realm of
crafting unparalleled customer experiences.
Marie Raccuglia is an exemplar in the art of understanding, designing, and
executing exceptional customer experiences. Her journey is distinguished by a
profound comprehension of customer needs, fostering engagement, and
driving strategies that resonate deeply with the audience.
Pioneering Strategies for Customer Delight
As an expert in the domain, Raccuglia’s guidance and influence have been
instrumental in pioneering strategies that transcend conventional practices.
Her initiatives delve into redefining the very essence of customer satisfaction,
weaving a tapestry of personalized, impactful, and seamless interactions. At
the core of Raccuglia’s philosophy lies an ardent advocacy for
customer-centric approaches.
Her strategies revolve around nurturing a culture that prioritizes and
champions the customer, paving the way for enduring relationships and
loyalty.
Raccuglia’s expertise extends across various industries, leaving an indelible
mark in sectors such as cutting-edge technologies, innovation lab, fashion,
mass distribution sectors, hotel and service sectors retail, consortium CX and
innovation. Her insights and customer-centric methodologies have
revolutionized and elevated engagement standards.
Marie Raccuglia honoured as World’s Best Emerging Leaders 2023 at the
House of Lords in London. Awarded by Rt Hon Baroness Sandip Verma and
British Member of Parliament Barry Gardiner Inspiring Industry Paradigms
Looking forward, Marie Raccuglia’s impact in the customer experience domain
continues to radiate. Her unwavering dedication to innovation,
customer-centricity, and pioneering strategies places her at the forefront,
inspiring industries to adopt progressive methodologies.
Marie Raccuglia’s journey epitomizes the essence of customer experience,
expertise, reshaping the way businesses approach and engage with their
audiences. Her advocacy for customer-centric practices and groundbreaking
strategies positions her as a trailblazer, inspiring industries to embrace
customer delight as a cornerstone of their operations.
She has worked in customer experience, innovation and strategy for fifteen
years. As a CX expert, she joined the European Customer Experience
Organization and 8 other international innovation organizations.
She became chair of judges at the International Customer Experience Award.
Her goal is to share best practices and imagine and create the future of the
customer experience. In addition, she has created Hack Social Days, a charity organization to promote the richness of diversity and inclusion, and she promotes women’s rights by joining France United Nations women.
In conversation with Marie Raccuglia
What makes a strong leader? What are your key leadership strengths are
make the strongest attributes of success?
The most important for me first is commitment and rigor. I have been working
most of the time on new missions, handling complex projects in a fast way.
My cross-disciplinary background allowed me to develop a permanent
curiosity and creativity, allowing me to think outside the box and find
innovative solutions easily.
My passion enables me to convince and federate the project teams I work
with around common objectives to guarantee a One vision, one goal.
My Credo: “Be a leader meaning, to be a facilitator, and to put the human
being at the heart of the creation and innovation process.
An accomplishment that you consider to be the most significant in your
career? What challenges did you face to reach success?
I defined the entire customer experience and omnichannel strategies for an
international group. I had to find the right way to convince all stakeholders to
converge towards a common goal and guarantee the feasibility and then the
success of the transformation of the omnichannel strategy. I host an online innovation channel on a virtual reality platform, including Innovation leaders interviews, the goal was to share their expertise with my audience, democratize innovation, and give the keys to the new generation to rethink tomorrow and dare to undertake.
I joined various innovation consortiums to promote and support innovation,
which works as advisor for the French government’s digital minister. The goal
is to set up the legal and economic authorities and governance into the future
virtual world experience and design the future of experience 3.0 together.
What is a role of leader in these challenging times. List 5 in order of priority.
In my opinion, today’s leaders need to do even more:
- Be clear in your vision, know how to communicate it, and unite people
directly and through the company’s network. Objectives must be clear
and realistic. 10-years visions no longer make sense in today’s
economic context. - Be innovative, listen out for weak signals, use new tools, avoid creating
technological gaps, be creative, be a forerunner to stay ahead of the
market rather than just following it. - Be able to question yourself, be flexible enough to adapt from an
organizational, human, technological, business and financial point of
view… - Be analytical and vigilant in an uncertain environment, and surround
yourself with the best experts on your sector’s key issues and risks. - Accept failure as a step to success.
What is your vision, and how do you share that with your shareholders,
employees, and others?
I think it’s essential to have a pragmatic and inspiring vision, but not a
fantasized one, so as not to create frustration, disappointment, or
discouragement because of over-ambitious goals.
The environment has become highly volatile and difficult to predict, making it
all the more important to consider exogenous and endogenous elements to
define the scope of a global strategy and always think ecosystem, as
everything is now interconnected. Untangle the organization’s silos to increase
its flexibility and ability, making it more resilient and sustainable.
Climate and societal issues must also be part of this strategy, as they are
both competitive and federative for employees, who are increasingly involved
in these issues.
How do you drive active business renovations, and how does that impact
your subordinates?
For any renovation or reorganization within the company, I proceed step by
step, respecting the critical stages of change management because this is
70% of the success of an internal transformation. I carry out an analysis phase, set up bodies and governance to facilitate arbitration from the C-Level to the macro level to ensure project sustainability and full implementation, appoint sponsors and co-construction committees to involve employees in the creation of their ecosystem, and take into consideration key cross-departmental stakes and constraints, to improve
efficiency, speeding up project delivery, minimizing costs (roll back) and
ensuring buy-in from all concerned.
How do you integrate corporate philanthropy or corporate social
responsibility as a part of your business strategies?
I set up Hack Social Days, an organization dedicated to philanthropic projects
with a corporate responsibility focus :
● I create Breast cancer hackathons to find solutions to improve the daily
lives of breast cancer patients.
● I co-design a solution to help older people cope with loneliness
● I trained as a volunteer teacher for people affected by digital illiteracy to
learn computer tools and reintegrate them into the professional world.
● I develop projects related to ecology and sustainable development.
● I promote or create projects to promote inclusion: conferences on
disability, diversity, and neurodivergent disorders to show that they are a
strength, not a weakness, for innovation and the development of
society.
I’m also a Patron of the “Emergence program” by ARELI, an organization that
helps young people with high intellectual potential from underprivileged
backgrounds pursue higher education.… (ARELI)
What has been your driving force or philosophy in life?
4 words: Passion, People and challenge & learn.
First, passion for my job. Innovation is creativity and curiosity, where almost
anything is possible. Innovation means starting from a blank page to reinvent
the world of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Innovation is also my
hobby, my work, my passion.
As Confucius said, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a
day in your life.”
It’s my case, and I know how lucky I am daily. Secondly, People. I believe in the power of collective intelligence and, more precisely, in the richness of diversity in collective intelligence.
For me, innovation means bridging ideas and people to reinvent the world of
tomorrow.-Thirdly, Clear-sightedness, learning from yesterday, building for today,
thinking/designing for tomorrow, and imagining the day after tomorrow to
capitalize on the experience.
Keep in mind the concrete added value provided to date and reinforce it.
Never forget to limit risks by thinking about tomorrow and setting a course to
inspire and build the competitive leverage of the day after tomorrow.
Remember to learn from these mistakes; mistakes are part of the path to
success. Challenge yourself and learn.
How do you plan to drive your business at a global level?
Create partnerships and branches to maintain flexibility and ensure I have
people who know their environment, culture, and the human needs and
constraints specific to the different geographical areas.
It is vital to support and implement structured processes and communication
channels. In this way, the Group’s DNA will be communicated harmoniously
and consistently, but too many processes can also be detrimental, be careful.
How do you define success, and how do you measure up to your own
definition?
In my opinion, success means achieving the life goals you’ve set for yourself.
The entrepreneurial spirit passed on to me as a child, the human values of
helping others, and open-mindedness that led me to create and support
causes bigger than myself.
Doing my bit for human change gives meaning to my existence.
As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in this world.”
It is the reason why I’m fighting for inclusion, disability and social exclusion,
and employability and training for the poorest.
I decide what I can or can’t become, not how others look at me or the context.
Even if it was tough, it taught me perseverance and resilience, which greatly
help me in my job today. I fight for all young people and even more for young
girls who want to follow their dreams.
In your opinion what is the most significant aspect of leadership?
In my opinion, one of the essential aspects of leadership is knowing how to
consider the human dimension, appointing the right people to the right jobs,
setting the framework but allowing a certain degree of entrepreneurship to
engage employees, knowing how to recognize successes but also knowing
howto take the time to give frank, honest and constructive feedback in the
event of failure, and not just judge the non-success.
Learning how to juggle a global view with a capacity for micro projection to
ensure the coherence and added value of macro strategies at the micro level.
Your perception of an empowered society. How far your industry has/can
contribute for the same?
It also sends a message to employees that they have the ability, skills, and
intelligence to organize their work in such a way as to achieve the objectives
set for them. We engage employees by showing them that they can be trusted, by making them feel valued and valuable within the company, and by enabling them to
be actors rather than spectators, making them want to get more and more
involved, day after day. The innovation sector helps organizations rethink tomorrow, de-risking their innovation projects, providing tools that enable automation, empowerment and autonomous employee learning.
Implement new organizational styles in an iterative, continuous improvement
process. Provide access to new tools and methods to achieve their goals
more fluidly (generative AI, predictive AI, etc…)
