Leadership

Kathleen’s Bio
Kathleen Diamonon is a widely published, passionate Customer Retention and Loyalty marketing thought leader. She sees customer retention as the way companies can have sustained growth – not by just talking about it but integrating it in every customer touch point.

Kathleen’s extensive customer marketing experience and vivid imagination sparks the vision that characterizes the customer centric approach for delivering results for clients. She takes great pride in the company’s 10 Steps to Creating Customer Passion™ approach based on many years of customer marketing.

With a degree from University of Texas and graduating in the top 5% of her class, Kathleen began her professional career in marketing and sales management at Continental Airlines (Houston, TX) where she helped launch OnePass. Prior to co-founding The Turning Point Group, Kathleen was Vice President of Marketing at United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast where she launched several new programs and was a member of the National United Way Branding team. Prior to United Way, Kathleen was Director of Customer Retention at Houston Cellular (now AT&T) where she created a retention program adopted nationally by AT&T and BellSouth.

Personally, Kathleen is an active volunteer involved in numerous civic and non-profit organizations. She has served on the board of the Chicano Family Center (now Community Family Center).

Tom’s Bio
Tom Downing is a passionate Customer Retention and Loyalty marketing thought leader. He shares his passion for methodically developing Customer Experiences through public speaking throughout the United States and internationally; and by supporting business organizations directly as a consulting member of their management team. He also takes pride in the company’s 10 Steps to Creating Customer Passion™ approach based on many years of customer marketing experience.

Tom sparked his passion for customer loyalty marketing management at Pan American World Airways (New York City) where he develop offerings for the Pan Am WorldPass Program, consistently rated as the top frequent flyer program at its time. Prior to co-founding The Turning Point Group, Tom successfully developed customer loyalty, customer retention and customer experiences for national organizations like Cingular Wireless (now AT&T); Disney TeleVentures (Los Angeles, CA); Budget Rent A Car (Chicago, IL) and regional organizations like PG&E Energy Services (San Francisco, CA); Pacific Bell Awards (San Francisco, CA) and Houston Cellular, (Houston, TX).

Tom developed Public Relations and Marketing for the international musical show, “Up With People”, where he managed international public relations and marketing efforts for shows and events throughout North America and Europe.

Tom is an active mentor and volunteer, involved in numerous civic and non-profit organizations. He is a recent Leadership Houston graduate and he currently serves on the executive board of the Hermann Park Conservancy and the advisory board for the Council on Drugs and Alcohol Houston. Former boards include the national Board of Governors for the Human Rights Campaign (Washington, DC) and the executive board for Project Inform (San Francisco). He is an active member of the American Marketing Association Houston Chapter (AMA-Houston) and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). Personal civic honors include US Congressional Achievement Recognition and the US Congress Business Advisory Council.

Karen’s Bio
Karen Haney is a Customer Experience expert with over 25 years of experience in Healthcare. Her award-winning expertise in designing and implementing memorable patient, physician and employee experiences has resulted in measurable results and a competitive advantage for healthcare organizations.

Karen’s passion for delivering exceptional patient care began with a one-on-one experience as a Physical Therapist – working with patients and their families to create success. She developed a strong foundation of understanding what customers truly value. Building great relationships with patients, while inspiring and motivating employees, transferred over to managing excellence.

Based on her success, she broadened her focus to drive change for the organization through “employee engagement”. She developed a unique approach for managing over 100 employees to deliver consistent experiences that led to increased profits through efficiencies and patient loyalty.

Because of her proven leadership skills, Karen was asked to drive change with the 20,000 employees at 9 hospital locations as Assistant Vice President of Customer Experience Management at Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. Karen quickly delivered innovative management tools, reenergized customer-centric culture and the operational infrastructure needed to improve and sustain customer loyalty.

Her first hand experience with the effectiveness of Turning Point Group’s “10 Steps to Customer Passion” inspired her so much that she joined The Turning Point Group in 2008 to create change in hospitals and other industries nationwide – still inspired by the customer values she saw early in her career.

Karen is a frequent guest speaker at Patient Loyalty conferences and her work has been case studied by national organizations like Press Ganey, HCPRO (for HCAHPS) and by the Leader’s Board for Service Excellence. Her passion for the customer experience comes across clearly to participants, leaving them motivated and with the practical tools to create customer passion at their organizations.

Karen holds an MBA from Texas A & M.