IsabellaVillani

Keynote speaker, author and company director

Helping organisations win and keep customers in the age of AI.

Isabella Villani is a customer experience keynote speaker, two-time globally published author and company director, with more than 20 years advising boards, CEOs and executive teams. She brings the customer’s view and the boardroom’s view to one question: how to use AI and keep a human in charge.

Isabella Villani smiling, standing in front of a grey brick wall
2 globally published books on customer experience
20+ years in customer experience and transformation
GAICD with an Order of Merit

Clients through Exceed Global include

  • Telstra
  • NAB
  • Westpac
  • ANZ
  • IAG
  • Medibank
  • Service NSW

Published, interviewed or quoted in

  • Australian Institute of Company Directors
  • The CEO Magazine
  • CMO Australia
  • Business First Magazine

Isabella’s approach

Human in Charge.

How to use AI and still win and keep customers. It runs through every keynote, workshop and board briefing Isabella delivers.

  1. Automate the predictable

    Let AI handle routine, rules-based work, so your people have time for the moments that matter.

  2. Humanise the memorable

    The complaint, the hardship conversation, the thing that went wrong. Customers remember these moments, so a person should own them.

  3. Keep a human in charge

    Name one accountable owner who checks the AI, can switch it off and can explain its use in public.

See the keynotes

What’s new

Work with Isabella

Speaking, books and advisory.

Isabella Villani speaking at a lectern

Speaking

Keynotes, workshops, executive briefings, conference chairing, MC and panel roles, in person or virtual.

Explore speaking
Cover of the book Transform Customer Experience by Isabella Villani

Books

Two books on customer experience, with bulk orders for your team, customers or event.

See the books

Speaking

Eight signature keynotes.

Every topic can run as a keynote, workshop, executive briefing, panel or virtual session, tailored to your audience and industry. Topics can be blended into a custom keynote.

Check availability
  1. Welcome to the Age of Empathy: Keeping the Human Touch as AI Reshapes Your Business
  2. Customer First, AI Enabled: The Future of Customer Experience
  3. Who Is Checking the AI? What Boards and Executives Should Settle Before Saying Yes
  4. The Rise of Agentic AI: When Your Customer Is a Machine
  5. Good to Great CX
  6. Transform Customer Experience: From Strategy to Execution
  7. Game-Changing CX Starts with Employee Experience
  8. The CX Money Story: Proving Experience Pays

Also available: Don’t Answer AI with AI, Customer Journey Mapping that Delivers, Personalisation Without the Creep Factor, and Digital Experience Reimagined.

See every topic and what audiences take away
Cover of Transform Customer Experience: How to Achieve Customer Success and Create Exceptional CX, published by Wiley

Books

Transform Customer Experience

How to achieve customer success and create exceptional CX. Published by Wiley.

A guide to putting your customer first, from planning to execution: developing your CX strategy, aligning your culture around it, mapping your customers' journeys and responding to trends such as artificial intelligence.

‘Transform Customer Experience … is absolutely jam-packed with the latest thinking, the most competitively successful ideas and practical case studies from around the world.’
Don Peppers, best-selling author and global CX authority
Cover of Good to Great CX by Isabella Villani

Also by Isabella

Good to Great CX

Practical advice, case studies and templates for designing, implementing and sustaining a ‘wow’ customer experience. Published by Major Street Publishing. This title is not for sale.

Watch the 90-second showreel. Pictured: The Geelong Club, 2026

On stage

Keynoting, chairing and facilitating at major events.

  • ACEM Day 2025Keynote
  • Verint annual conference900 delegates
  • Aspect ACE conference, Orlando1,000+ international delegates
  • Acquia Engage Asia PacificConference
See all engagements
She thoroughly researched our company and audience to ensure her topic and presentation would resonate. We had some of our highest engagement rates ever, with our attendance targets almost doubled.
Nicole Stirling, Director of Marketing, Acquia
Portrait of Isabella Villani outdoors beside a river

About

Founder, author and board director.

Isabella is founder and Executive Chair of Exceed Global, the advisory, training and talent firm she established in 2011. Her keynotes draw directly on live consulting work, so audiences hear what is working right now.

  • Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Order of Merit
  • Deputy Chair of GMB Water and a director of DV Safe Phone
  • Books distributed to more than 10,000 retailers worldwide
  • Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and executive coaching qualifications
  • Writes on AI governance for the Australian Institute of Company Directors
More about Isabella

Enquire

Tell us about your event.

A keynote, a workshop, a panel or an executive briefing. Send the details and Isabella will come back with availability and a quote.

Prefer to talk it through?

+61 407 889 987 isabella.villani@exceedglobal.com Book a 15-minute call

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