Our Faculty & Leadership

Meet Our Customer Experience Program Faculty and Leadership

​The commitment of our faculty and leadership to build an energetic and collaborative learning environment is what sets the Customer Experience Certificate Program at the University of California Santa Barbara Extension, apart from the rest. Our roster of experienced practitioners and UC Adjunct Faculty are experts in their area of focus. Together, they deliver a unique blend of vision, inspiration, and practical skills to challenge your thinking and present new concepts to help you drive innovation, improve performance and propel your organization to new levels of success. You'll emerge with critical thinking and decision-making skills that you can apply immediately at your organization.

​Carol Buehrens

As our Lead Instructor, Carol Buehrens is the author of the best-selling customer experience book Happy RAVING Customers!  Carol is a leading customer experience expert and speaker, and has been constructing extraordinary customer experiences for over 30 years for major companies such as Liberty Mutual, Northrop, McDonnell-Douglas, Bechtel, GE, Mercury Marine, and ICW Group Insurance Companies.

Carol’s passion for improving customer experience has resulted in numerous awards, including the prestigious “CX Innovation Award” from the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), ICW Group CEO Award, the Liberty Mutual Star Award, and is listed in the World's Top 30 Customer Service Professionals.

A Founding Member and Expert Panel Member of the international Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA), Carol is also an active member of the San Diego Customer Experience Special Interest Group (CX SIG), and Professor at California State University Fullerton and University of California San Diego.​

JC Quintana

JC is a best-selling author and researcher focused on the psychology and process that leads to quality stakeholder relationships. His impressive career spans over 25 years of leadership guiding Customer Experience, Employee Engagement, and Channel Alliance efforts for SAGE, ADP, HP, and DXC Technology in Managing Partner, Regional Vice President, and Global Head of Innovation roles. He holds advanced degrees in Organizational Psychology and dedicates his research to developing corporate cultures that promote genuine relationships with all of its stakeholders. He currently lectures on relationship psychology and human-centered design topics at 11 US universities.

Michael Truett

Michael is known for creating, improving and executing Collaborative Design Thinking sessions and Customer Experience frameworks across diverse industries at different stages of growth. He has worked with companies such as Spotify, The New York Times, Dow Jones, Tech start-ups, and Telecom providers globally.

JP Saini

JP Saini is a C-level IT executive for a B2B company with 20 years of in-depth business, technology, operations experience and strong leadership skills. Developed from his portfolio of business, technology and operations experience is his ability to advance the overall strategic direction of information technology in alignment with strategic business plans, growth goals and position IT as a strategic business enabler and partner. His sharp focus on Excellence is driven by his knowledge of client service and performance based metrics.

Mr. Saini has been successfully managing IT business and strategy through the harnessing of technology for business growth and profitability, risk mitigation, and the identification of commercial opportunities.

​Erich Dietz

Erich Dietz is the Vice President of Worldwide Strategic Accounts for InMoment. He has over 15 years of executive experience spanning consulting, business development, and solutions architecture. Erich joined InMoment in 2003 and primarily works with InMoment’s large, complex client organizations within their B2B, B2B2C, and B2C markets. Erich partners with clients to architect and implement Customer Experience Management (CEM) & Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs that enhance critical business measures including; revenue generation, operational efficiency, cross-channel service alignment, customer retention, base management, loyalty, and brand advocacy. He is also a designated CXPA Expert and regular contributor to the community’s Google+ Hangouts and other events.  
 
Prior to InMoment, Erich was a Management Consultant for several global consulting firms. He holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Rutgers School of Engineering.​

Jordan Zimmerman

​Jordan Zimmerman is Founder, Chairman and architect of Zimmerman Advertising, now the 14th largest advertising agency in the world with published billings in excess of $3 billion. In 2015, Jordan co-founded Zschool, an educational consulting firm focused on helping universities develop world-class executive education programs.