ICMI Certified Associates

Brad Cleveland is often cited as one of the world's foremost leaders and thinkers in customer service and contact centers. He has worked in over 60 countries, has advised numerous governments, and counts many of today’s service leaders – Apple, HP, American Express, and others – among his clients.  Brad is author/editor of eight books, including Call Center Management on Fast Forward , which won an Amazon.com best-selling award and is used in universities and corporate training programs around the world.  One of the initial partners in and former President and CEO of ICMI, Brad grew the firm into a global industry leader that is now part of United Business Media (London: UBM.L).  He now serves as a Senior Advisor to ICMI, and is an in-demand author, speaker and consultant.  His current research is focused on the future of customer service.

Laura is CEO of Harrington Consulting Group Inc. She is an experienced consultant with over 20 years of successful business planning, project management, traffic engineering and resource management. Laura draws on her dynamic and innovative background in service and manufacturing operations with high-growth industry leaders. She has developed unique operational solutions for companies facing the challenges of managing multiple skills in multiple centers spanning the globe, including site selection and facility design. She is deft at developing customer relationship strategies and drilling those strategies down to operational plans.

Laura, a frequent speaker at conferences, enjoys sharing her passion for customer service and exploring alternative and innovative ways to efficiently and effectively gain loyalty and retain customers. She has taught and lectured at several universities, and has published many articles on different facets of call center management including strategy development, deployment of resources, motivation of associates and forecasting and scheduling.

Laura is an ICMI-Certified Call Center Management Consultant. She earned her master degree in business administration.

Justin Robbins serves as Manager for Training and Development at ICMI. He brings with him over a decade of experience in the customer management industry, most recently as the Manager of Training and Guest Experience at Hershey Entertainment and Resorts. Justin has worn multiple hats in the contact center from agent to supervisor to senior leadership. At ICMI, he is responsible for developing training and professional certification content, global training partnerships, and training program delivery. Justin’s passions are relationship building, empowering leaders, and motivating others to provide legendary customer experiences. 

Cheryl is a contact center/telecommunications consultant and educational instructor. She has been involved in these two areas for over 21 years. Her career began in England as a technical instructor of contact centre technologies developed by Nortel. Cheryl has worked with and instructed clients all over Europe, Australia, Japan, the Caribbean, US and Canada. She brings a wealth of experience to her clients as a result of the broad range of businesses with which she worked - insurance, health care, airlines, hotels, automobile associations, software developers, helpdesks, manufacturers, telephony and mobility, utilities both gas and hydro (electric), along with governmental agencies. To develop a well-rounded and in-depth perspective of contact centers, Cheryl teamed up with ICMI in 1998 and has instructed courses, web seminars and engaged in consulting projects with ICMI ever since.

Cheryl’s specialty is with customer contact/call flow design ensuring the design meets the customer and business needs, along with the statistical requirements. Translating those requirements into workable solutions is her forte,and she has a proven ability to provide interpretation of statistics for clients from the ACD, work force management and IVR systems.

Gina Szabo is a Senior Certified Associate of ICMI and President of Szabo Marketing International, a company dedicated to building and improving contact center performance globally.  She has over 25 years of progression customer contact management, training and consulting experience in North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, China, Costa Rica, New Zealand and Australia.

Specializing in contact center performance improvement, Gina has been establishing and implementing organizational change, people development programs and business process improvements resulting in efficient, state-of-the-art customer contact operations. Her hands-on experience with small, medium and large enterprises has equipped Gina with proven models of success for contact center recruitment, training, workforce and campaign management, sales and service, monitoring, coaching, communications, bonus and incentive programs and reporting.

Gina is a committed professional who brings high energy, focus and positive outcomes to all her clients.  Her natural collaborative style coupled with outstanding communication skills allows for effortless skills transfer.

Rose Polchin is a senior consultant for ICMI. She brings over 20 years of contact center experience, including five years as an independent consultant and 15 years in contact center leadership roles in the financial services and health care industries.

During her tenure as senior director of customer service strategies for one of the country’s largest health care laboratory services, Rose’s leadership was instrumental in creating and implementing a common vision, strategy and processes across the company’s multi-site contact center network, which helped establish the contact centers as strategic assets for the business. Rose now continues her commitment to excellence in customer service through her delivery of ICMI seminars and by partnering with customers on key projects. Customers and attendees of her seminars praise her energy, knowledge and dedication to assisting them in creating value for their respective organizations and its customers. Rose is a member of the American Society of Training and Development, and is a certified DISC behavioral styles trainer.  She is a popular speaker at seminars and conferences throughout North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and authors articles on key topics for industry publications.

Tiffany LaReau is a Workforce Management Consultant with Human Numbers. She has been completely focused on the art and science of forecasting and scheduling for 16 years. She has worked with multiple call centers in a variety of industries across four continents. Tiffany's specialty is her dedication to customized forecast and scheduling solutions that bring the highest level of employee satisfaction with the shifts they are expected to work while still balancing call center goals. She strongly believes that an agent should be able to work their #1 shift choice whenever possible, and strives to make that happen by combining the best possible forecasting methods available with an endless supply of schedule optimization opportunities. When not working, Tiffany lives in Atlanta with her husband and enjoys playing classical piano.