Five Keynote Speeches to Address Important Service Issues During QUIS Conference at Cornell

The 12th annual International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management—QUIS12—has announced five diverse keynote speakers who focus on customer satisfaction and engagement, service excellence, and the role of RFID in service innovation. QUIS12 will be held June 2–5, 2011, at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, hosted by the Center for Hospitality Research.

The confirmed keynote speakers are: Stuart Greif, vice president and general manager, global travel and hospitality practice, J.D. Power and Associates; Conny Kalcher, vice president, consumer experiences, LEGO Group; Gina Pingitore, chief research officer, J.D. Power and Associates; Sanjay Sarma, professor of mechanical engineering, MIT; and Ted Teng, president and chief executive officer, The Leading Hotels of the World.

About the Speakers
A leader of corporate strategic planning, Stuart Greif has served on the executive team of both J.D. Power and Associates and its parent corporation, The McGraw-Hill Companies. He presented methods to analyze social media conversations at the recent Cornell Hospitality Research Summit.

Formerly vice president for global marketing and innovation, Conny Kalcher focuses on understanding the LEGO consumer to improve experiences for all LEGO fans. She has also managed several LEGO product lines.

Gina Pingitore, Ph.D., is responsible for the scientific rigor and oversight of the design and statistical analyses for all syndicated and proprietary studies conducted by J.D. Power and Associates. She is coauthor of the Cornell Hospitality Industry Perspective paper: "Making Customer Satisfaction Pay: Connecting Survey Data to Financial Outcomes in the Hotel Industry," with Dan Seldin and Arianne Walker.

A founder of the Auto-ID Center at MIT, Sanjay Sarma is part of the group that developed the technical concepts and standards of radio-frequency identification (RFID). The suite of standards developed by the Auto-ID Center, commonly referred to as the EPC, are being used by over a thousand companies on five continents.

As president and CEO, Ted Teng oversees and directs all aspects of business strategy, operations, and performance growth for The Leading Hotels of the World, which represents over 450 predominantly independent luxury hotels. A long-time hotelier, he has been responsible for the growth of some of the most prominent brands in the world, notably Wyndham International and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide.

About QUIS12
Held in a different location every other year, QUIS is the premier trans-disciplinary conference on service excellence. Conference co-chairs are Stephen Brown, Arizona State University; Bo Edvardsson, Karlstad University; Robert Johnston, University of Warwick; Richard Metters, Emory University; and Rohit Verma, Cornell University.

"We consider it a great privilege to host this leading conference," said Verma, who is executive director of the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research. "I am particularly appreciative of the five keynote speakers. Although they represent widely diverse fields, they all are thought leaders in services research. This captures the essence of the QUIS conference: rigorous research as it relates to management practice."

Call for Papers
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit an abstract describing their rigorous work for consideration for presentation during the QUIS. Abstracts (maximum 500 words) should be submitted to [email protected] by December 1, 2010. Read more.