Teresa Cottam

Teresa Cottam is Chief Analyst and founder of Omnisperience, specialising in telecommunications customer experience, emerging technologies, and enterprise communications. With over 30 years' expertise across the telecoms sector, she has held senior positions at Analysys Mason, Informa Tech, and Ovum, advising operators, vendors, and enterprise clients on customer-centric transformation. Teresa serves as a judge for the GSMA Global Mobile Awards and World Communication Awards, and recently authored Telecoms Customer 2035, which challenges operators to prioritise genuine customer value over outdated engagement metrics. Her sessions equip leaders with practical frameworks for preventing customer issues before they arise, leveraging AI and data-driven insights to build proactive service strategies that drive loyalty, reduce churn, and create sustainable competitive advantage.

After 30 years of watching telecommunications companies invest billions in technology whilst customer satisfaction remained stubbornly flat, Teresa Cottam wrote the book that exposes the uncomfortable truth: the industry has forgotten the customer. Her 2026 publication, *Telecoms Customer 2035*, challenges operators to confront their own organisational narcissism and rebuild their business models around genuine customer value rather than internal convenience. As Chief Analyst and founder of Omnisperience, Teresa has built her career on asking the questions others avoid and delivering the analysis the telecoms sector needs to hear, even when it makes industry leaders uncomfortable. Her expertise spans SME and enterprise telecoms, customer experience, and emerging technologies including AI, IoT, 5G, and FTTP, but her focus remains relentlessly fixed on one principle: customer first, last, and always.

Teresa's credibility stems from three decades of senior analytical roles at leading firms including Analysys Mason, Chorleywood Consulting, Informa Tech, and Ovum (now Omdia), where she developed deep expertise across diverse vertical markets from retail and manufacturing to banking, hospitality, and energy. Her analytical work extends beyond traditional telecoms infrastructure to encompass the intelligent home space, workplace transformation, and employee experience. She serves as a judge for prestigious industry awards including the GSMA's Global Mobile Awards for customer experience and enterprise innovation, the World Communication Awards, and the UK Cloud Awards, positions that give her unique insight into both best practice and widespread failure across the sector. Teresa contributes regularly to TM Forum and industry publications, advocating for real-time, data-driven customer insights over outdated satisfaction metrics. Her willingness to call out industry shortcomings has positioned her as an analyst who says what others won't when established practices fail to deliver customer value.

Teresa equips audiences with practical frameworks for shifting from reactive customer service to proactive problem prevention. She demonstrates how organisations can move beyond automation that serves internal efficiency towards technology deployment that delivers measurable customer outcomes. Her presentations challenge leaders to examine whether their companies exhibit the characteristics of organisational narcissism: grandiose self-importance, constant need for validation, lack of empathy, and exploitative behaviour towards customers. Audiences leave with actionable strategies for leveraging AI and emerging technologies whilst maintaining human-centred service design that predicts and prevents customer issues before they arise. Teresa's insights enable telecommunications operators, technology vendors, and enterprise leaders to navigate digital transformation in ways that reduce churn, build lasting customer relationships, and create sustainable competitive advantage in an industry where genuine customer-centricity remains the exception rather than the rule.