[CX Industry Voices] Interview with Katie Stabler

Looking for real-world insights to level up your customer experience and service strategy?

You're in the right place.

That’s why we published the Top 100 CX Influencers in Europe — a curated list of professionals driving change, redefining customer relationships, and sharing bold ideas across the CX landscape.

As part of this initiative, our CX Industry Voices series features exclusive interviews with standout thought leaders from the list. We’re diving deep into what’s shaping the future of CX, how these experts are humanizing customer journeys, and what advice they have for companies that want to do better by their customers.

In this edition, we’re thrilled to sit down with Katie Stabler, founder of CULTIVATE, a consultancy that helps organizations build emotionally intelligent, purpose-led experiences. With a career that spans charity work, executive leadership, global speaking, and a MasterChef UK Quarterfinalist title, Katie brings a uniquely human and strategic lens to the customer experience conversation.

We talked with Katie about her journey, what it means to turn strategy into a movement, and why empathy is still the most powerful tool in a digital-first world.

Let’s dive in.

Like many CX Leaders, I started my journey (way back when) in customer service. I worked in front-of-house in restaurants, behind the customer service desk in the local department store, and on the front lines in contact centers. Then after university, I spent a decade in the not-for-profit sector and although my job roles didn’t have CX in the title, I strongly believe that there isn’t a more holistically customer-centric place than a charity. Then I left my position as the Deputy CEO of a Debt Support Charity to manage the Customer Experience department for Europe's 2nd largest Debt Collection Company, I progressed to the Director of CX for a Female Membership Organisation and finally, I founded my own consultancy in 2020.

I now work within industries across the globe from large financial institutions to local not-for-profit companies. During the last decade, I have also seen success as the co-author of Amazon’s #1 best-seller ‘Customer Experience 2’, solo publishing CX-ISM, being nominated as Cheshire Women of the Year, a frequent keynote speaker and content contributor. I am also recognised, year-on-year, as one of the top twenty Global CX thought leaders (Number 5 in 2024!) and happen to be a UK Masterchef QuarterFinalist.

For me, customer experience isn’t just part of the business — it is the business. It’s not a department, a dashboard, or a nice-to-have. It’s the soul of everything we do.

At CULTIVATE, we see CX as a philosophy — a belief system that shapes how we operate, how we lead, and how we connect with people. It’s about showing up with empathy, building trust, and creating emotional impact in every interaction. Whether we’re designing a workshop, writing a strategy, or simply replying to an email, we ask ourselves: How will this make someone feel?

We don’t bolt CX on to strategy — we build strategy around CX. It’s embedded in our decision-making, our culture, our language. Even our own internal practices are guided by the same principles we help our clients apply: be human, be intentional, and be kind.

Ultimately, customer experience to me is about purpose. It’s about remembering why we exist: not to transact, but to transform — people, teams, businesses. That belief isn’t just integrated into our strategy.

It is the strategy.

By remembering one simple truth: behind every click, tap, and chatbot is a human being with hopes, pressures, and emotions.

In today’s digital-first world, it’s easy to prioritise efficiency over empathy. But at CULTIVATE, we believe that technology should enhance humanity — not replace it. So our focus is on helping organisations embed emotional intelligence into their digital experiences.

We work with teams to shift the mindset from “How do we solve this quickly?” to “How do we make this feel better?” Whether it’s live chat tone of voice, email structure, or designing for vulnerable users, we build in what I call conscious digital care — small but powerful cues that say “we see you, we get you, we’ve got you.”

We also use behavioural psychology to help businesses understand the emotional journey behind the digital one. Because a process might be seamless on paper — but if it leaves people feeling unseen or unvalued, it’s not a great experience.

So yes, the world is digital. But the experience is still deeply human. And our mission is to keep that humanity front and centre — always.

I hope it's 'keeping the human and in an increasingly disconnected world'.

Take beyond past a strategy and make it into a movement. Oh, and work with CULTIVATE of course.