November 19, 2025

D H M S

CX & Marketing Conference 2025

In today’s competitive and experience-driven economy, customers expect more than just products—they expect connection, purpose, relevance, and consistent value. The Customer Centricity & Marketing Innovation Conference 2025 is a high-impact two-day gathering designed to equip marketing and CX leaders with the strategies, tools, and insights needed to thrive in this [...]
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CX and Marketing Conference South Africa: Empowering the Customer-First Revolution

In today’s competitive and experience-driven economy, customers expect more than just products—they seek connection, purpose, relevance, and consistent value. The CX and Marketing Conference South Africa stands as a premier two-day gathering dedicated to equipping marketing and customer experience leaders with the strategies, insights, and practical tools necessary to excel in an ever-evolving business landscape. Designed for forward-thinking professionals, this event provides a dynamic environment where ideas meet innovation and strategy translates into measurable impact.

Join us at the CX and Marketing Conference South Africa to explore cutting-edge approaches that redefine customer engagement, elevate brand loyalty, and drive sustainable business growth. As customer expectations continue to evolve, this conference offers a rare opportunity to step back, reimagine, and realign your customer and marketing strategies with the needs of the modern, empowered consumer.


Exploring Innovation at the CX and Marketing Conference South Africa

Over two transformative days, participants will delve into the intersection of marketing innovation, data-driven insights, and customer-centric design. Through interactive sessions, real-world case studies, and visionary keynotes, delegates will uncover how to humanise customer experiences, operationalise empathy, and lead transformation initiatives that resonate across every customer touchpoint.

From harnessing AI to deliver hyper-personalised interactions to cultivating authenticity and trust in digital ecosystems, this event provides actionable guidance tailored to today’s market realities. The CX and Marketing Conference South Africa will feature leading voices from across industries—marketing strategists, CX innovators, digital transformation experts, and brand leaders—sharing proven frameworks and future-focused ideas that challenge conventional thinking.

Attendees will gain access to insights that can be directly applied to strengthen their brand’s position, enhance cross-functional collaboration, and future-proof customer engagement strategies for 2025 and beyond.


Why Attend the CX and Marketing Conference South Africa?

Stay Ahead of Emerging Trends:
Gain exclusive insights into the next wave of customer engagement innovation, from AI-powered personalisation and emotional analytics to customer data platforms and experience design frameworks. Learn how leading organisations are leveraging technology to create meaningful connections with customers that translate into measurable value.

Learn from Industry Leaders:
Hear directly from top marketing and CX professionals shaping the customer-centric future across South Africa and beyond. Each session is curated to inspire, educate, and challenge conventional perspectives, offering valuable lessons from both regional success stories and global best practices.

Bridge Silos, Spark Innovation:
Discover how to align marketing, CX, product, and employee experience functions around shared objectives and a unified vision of customer obsession. Learn how collaborative cultures drive creativity, innovation, and agility in leading organisations.

Enhance Practical Capabilities:
Walk away with actionable frameworks, methodologies, and data-backed case studies that can be implemented immediately. Whether you’re focused on retention, acquisition, or customer lifetime value, the strategies gained here will empower you to deliver customer-first results that matter.

Be Inspired by Purpose:
Explore how purpose-driven brands are forging deeper connections with customers by integrating sustainability, inclusivity, and social responsibility into their marketing and CX strategies. Understand how authenticity and purpose can serve as powerful differentiators in an era of conscious consumerism.

Build Valuable Connections:
Network with a curated community of marketing executives, CX strategists, and innovation leaders. Exchange ideas, share challenges, and form partnerships with peers equally committed to redefining the customer-brand relationship in a digital-first world.


CX and Marketing Conference South Africa: Where Strategy Meets Inspiration

The CX and Marketing Conference South Africa is more than an event—it’s a catalyst for transformation. It’s where strategy meets inspiration, innovation fuels execution, and the future of customer experience and marketing excellence is collectively shaped. Through a series of keynote presentations, expert-led panels, and immersive learning opportunities, delegates will gain a holistic understanding of how to thrive in today’s customer-centric economy.

Whether you are a marketing director, CX strategist, innovation leader, or brand custodian, this conference promises to elevate your perspective and empower your organisation to lead with empathy, data, and creativity. It’s an opportunity to reconnect with the “why” behind your brand, to rediscover the power of human-centred design, and to reimagine marketing as a driver of meaningful relationships.


The Future Defined at the CX and Marketing Conference South Africa

As customer expectations continue to evolve in an increasingly digital world, the CX and Marketing Conference South Africa provides a roadmap for sustainable success. It challenges leaders to think beyond campaigns and metrics, to design experiences that inspire loyalty, trust, and advocacy. By integrating innovation with authenticity, this conference celebrates the future of customer engagement—one defined by relevance, empathy, and shared value.

Don’t miss your chance to be part of this transformative gathering that will redefine what it means to lead with customer centricity and innovation in 2025 and beyond.


Be part of South Africa’s most transformative marketing and CX experience—where ideas ignite progress and customer experience becomes your greatest competitive advantage.

SPEAKERS AND DATES

EVENT SCHEDULE

Enjoy the speeches from the best this industry has to offer!



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Welcome Speech & Event Opening

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Event MC: Mahlodi Kgatle - Keynote Speaker | Founder of Speakingdom, a Pan-African communication skills company, creating impact through the transformative power of communication.

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Customer-Obsessed Growth: Turning Empathy into Strategy

Thumbnail Khwathelani Tshikovhi

Explore how leading brands are embedding customer empathy at every level of business strategy. This session will uncover how to gather, interpret, and act on customer signals to design seamless journeys, build trust, and fuel sustainable growth in a hyper-competitive market.

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Designing Human-Centric Journeys in a Digital Age

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Discover how companies are mapping and personalizing customer journeys to balance digital efficiency with human emotion. Learn how to reimagine customer touchpoints using behavioural data, AI tools, and UX principles to deliver memorable, connected experiences across channels.

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Coffee/ Tea Break

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The Marketing Leader’s Role in Customer-Centric Transformation

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This keynote unpacks the evolving role of CMOs and marketing leaders in championing customer-centricity across the organisation. Learn how to break silos, realign teams, and become the internal voice of the customer while driving innovation and business impact.

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AI-Powered Personalisation: Beyond First-Name Marketing

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Move beyond superficial personalisation. This session dives into how brands can leverage AI and machine learning to deliver deeply relevant, context-aware customer experiences that increase loyalty, reduce churn, and maximise value at every touchpoint.

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Networking Lunch Break

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Voice of the Customer (VoC): Transforming Feedback into Action

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Explore best practices for capturing, analysing, and operationalising customer feedback in real-time. Discover how mature VoC programmes can predict customer needs, enable faster decisions, and create agile, responsive marketing and service models.

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Content That Connects: Storytelling for the Modern Buyer

Thumbnail Carmen Murray (PGDip) (She/Her)

In an age of digital fatigue, discover how emotionally intelligent storytelling and purpose-driven content can differentiate your brand. Hear from experts using data and narrative to craft campaigns that spark engagement and deepen customer connection.

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Reputation-Led Branding: Building Trust and Identity in a Digital-First World

Thumbnail Deidre Wolmarans

This session would explore how a brand’s reputation has become its most powerful currency — and how marketing and communication leaders can proactively shape, protect, and grow that capital across increasingly fragmented digital platforms.

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Predictive Marketing: Anticipating Needs, Creating Demand

Thumbnail Mathabo Sekhonyana

Understand how predictive analytics and real-time data modelling empower marketers to anticipate customer behaviour and optimise campaigns before customers even realise their needs. Learn how to convert insights into proactive engagement strategies that deliver ROI.

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Loyalty Reimagined: From Transactional to Emotional Bonds

Thumbnail Dieketseng Shabangu

Loyalty is no longer points-based—it's experience-based. Discover how forward-thinking brands are using personalisation, gamification, and emotional resonance to turn customers into brand advocates and communities into ecosystems of trust.

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Coffee/ Tea Break

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CX and EX: The Human Connection Between Brand and Employee

Thumbnail Steve Towers, ACXC® CPPC® CXMan

Customer and employee experiences are intertwined. This session will show how empowering your workforce with the right tools, data, and culture can improve customer outcomes and reinforce a brand’s promise from the inside out.

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Data with a Smile. Building First-Party Data & Engaging Your Audience While Staying Compliant in South Africa

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Understand what First-Party Data is and why it is so valuable. Learn how clicks, conversations, contests, and consent, following ethical practices, create engaging experiences and can turn audiences into loyal data contributors. Explore how to collect meaningful data through games, rewards, and interactivity that delight your audience and deliver insights.

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Networking Lunch Break

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Marketing Innovation Labs: Driving Continuous Experimentation

Thumbnail Jean Scheltema

Discover how organisations are establishing in-house marketing innovation labs and agile squads to test, iterate, and deploy new campaigns, channels, and technologies faster than ever before—without waiting for perfection.

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Neuro-Marketing and Emotional Analytics in Customer Strategy

Thumbnail Dr. Lara Sukhdeo

Go beyond traditional demographics and dive into the emotional and subconscious drivers of customer decision-making. Learn how brands are using neuro-marketing tools and sentiment analysis to craft emotionally resonant campaigns that influence action.

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Sustainable Brands, Purposeful Marketing: A Competitive Edge

Thumbnail Antonia Oakes

Today’s consumers care about values. This session explores how purpose-led marketing strategies, ESG alignment, and transparency can enhance brand loyalty, attract new audiences, and create long-term differentiation in saturated markets.


GET TO KNOW THE

EVENT SPEAKERS


Keynote Speaker | Founder of Speakingdom, a Pan-African communication skills company, creating impact through the transformative power of communication.

Mahlodi Kgatle

Executive CX at Old Mutual Insure | Board Director of CXSA | Trailblazer in Customer Experience in Financial Services. Dynamic thought leader and sought after Keynote Speaker.

Antonia Oakes

Chief Commercial & Trade Officer at Wesgro | Experienced CMO | Board Member | Oxford Said Business School | Amazon Skills Centre ‘Demystifying Generative AI’ Trained

Jean Scheltema

Executive: CX, Marketing & Operations Strategist at Old Mutual | part-time GIBS faculty

Dr. Lara Sukhdeo

CEO at Mobitainment, Non-Executive Director of Direct Marketing Association of SA

Candice Goodman

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Mail & Guardian Top 200 South Africans 2024 (Technology & Innovation) | Rising Star 2024 (Africa Career Summit) | Marketing Leader 2024 (World Marketing Congress)

Mathabo Sekhonyana

Managing Director Arena Holdings | Motivational Change Leader, Action oriented CEO, Corporate and Brand Strategist.

Lyndon Barends

CEO at CMC & Conscious LeadHERS | Connected Marketer Leader for Fortune 500 | Architect of Authentic Intelligence | Podcast (50+ Countries) Speaker: Digital Transformation + Culture + Human Potential + Women Empowerment

Carmen Murray (PGDip) (She/Her)

Product Lead: Domo and Khoros at YOUKNOW Technologies

Alex Hoyland

Head: CX Strategy at Nedbank | Client Experience: Strategy and Culture

Taryn Shor

Head: Santam Experience and Client Care at Santam Insurance | ACXC®: Accredited Customer Experience Advisor CX Professional CXAD (Dip)Customer Experience

Khwathelani Tshikovhi

Head of Customer Experience Standard Bank Group | Senior Consumer Insights Professional/ Coach and Facilitator

Dieketseng Shabangu

Corporate LiveWire Global Awards Winner 2024/25 | MEA African Excellence Awards Winner 2024 | JCI Top Female Honouree | MEA Business Excellence Award Winner 2024 | E2 Media Global Award of Excellence 2025

Deidre Wolmarans


PAST EVENT

PAST SPEAKERS

Digital Futurist, Kickass Author, Keynote Speaker, Tedx Speaker | Bridging the Gap Between People and Technology

Nicky Verd

Digital Transformation & CX LeaderDigital Transformation & CX Leader at Cadena Growth Partners | M&G Top 200 Young South Africans 2020 | MBA Supervisor, GIBS | Ex-Deloitte

Tim Mitchell

Chief Executive Officer at Helm | Advisory Panel Member - Next Generation Enterprises & Institutions Cluster (Smart Society Division) at CSIR | Former Executive: Digital Marketing at Telkom

Dawood Patel

Local CXPA chapter Lead | Chief Customer Experience Officer | Management Consultant in CX Strategy and Implementation | CX Thought Leader and Speaker | CX Coach

Yugeshree Frylinck, CXPA

Chief Growth Officer Ipsos in South Africa | Experienced in CX, some say "expert". Budding Researcher, some say "newbie"

Clint Payne CCXP, ACXP

Head of Customer Experience Standard Bank Group | Senior Consumer Insights Professional/ Coach and Facilitator

Dieketseng Shabangu

Head of Customer Experience at Discovery Limited | Customer Centric Transformation | MBA | Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP)

Marnitz van Heerden

Head of Customer Growth - Personal Segment at FNB South Africa | Award-winning Digital Strategist | Executive Head | Speaker | Customer Value Proposition | Customer Growth Strategist | Tech Entrepreneur | Platform Business | MBA

Palesa Nhlapo





RESERVE YOUR SPOT

BOOK YOUR TICKET

Limited seats available, please book on time to secure your spot.

Location

EVENT TICKET

For Individuals
R 8999INCL.VAT
BOOK NOW

PHYSICAL TICKET

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