CuSP: A Chicago Customer Success Community

Summer Sparks - AI, Customer Success and Revenue Lightning Talks

Thu, Jul 23 · 6:00 PM CDT

Workbox Chicago - River North, 306 West Erie Street, Chicago, IL, US

**IMPORTANT NOTE: Please RSVP here: https://luma.com/l05itl91

CuSP is excited to get ready for our BIG Annual Chicago Tech Week Event! We’re bringing together a series of fast-paced lightning talks designed to spark ideas, challenge perspectives, and share practical insights. Each speaker will present a topic they’re passionate about, followed by a brief audience Q&A, for a total of approximately 10 minutes per session.

Topics will focus on technology and tech-enabled innovation across Customer Success, AI, and Revenue, ranging from strategic and operational approaches to tactical best practices and future trends. Our goal is for attendees to leave with actionable takeaways, fresh ideas, and new perspectives they can apply immediately.

About our Sponsor:
We are so thankful for Sirra company to be our sponsor this evening!

At Sirra Company, we partner with organizations at every stage, helping founders build from the ground up, guiding Series A-C companies through the complexities of scaling, and positioning mature enterprises for structural efficiency and renewed growth. Most consultancies solve only one side of the equation. We pair product design leadership with go-to-market and customer experience expertise, designed together, not handed across a wall.

Website Link: https://sirraco.com/

Our Space Sponsor:

​*About Workbox - River North
​Workbox's mission is to foster meaningful connections within a dynamic community!
​Whether you're a growing startup or an established company, Workbox offers flexible coworking solutions designed to support collaboration, growth, and real business impact.
​Workbox is more than just an office—it’s a community designed to help your team thrive.
​If you're looking for a space that helps your team stay focused and feel connected, Workbox is the place to be.

​Event details:

• ​Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
• Location: Workbox - River North

​Agenda:

• ​6:00 - 6:30pm - arrival and networking
• ​6:30pm - 7:30pm - welcome and lightning talks
• ​7:30pm - 8:00pm - closing networking

​(8:00pm event ends.)

Speakers for tonight's event:

Sabrina Rønningen: First Speaker (extended lightning talk) and Sponsor of today's event

Title of Talk: The AI era's real competitive advantage: Radical Transparency

Bio: Sabrina is a Customer Success and Go-to-Market Executive Advisor with 20 years of experience in B2B customer-facing roles and 15 years driving organizational outcomes in Customer Success across businesses at every stage, from early-stage startups to large enterprise organizations. She now partners with early-stage founders, executives, and senior CS practitioners to scale high-performing Customer Success organizations, and holds fractional executive roles at two technology firms.

Sabrina brings a rare combination of operator depth and strategic clarity to the C-suite, VC, and senior IC audiences she serves. Known for her direct communication style and sharp business acumen, she specializes in translating complex GTM challenges, from NRR optimization and CAC payback to org design and acquisition readiness, into actionable frameworks that drive durable growth.

Jaime Acosta
Title of Talk: From manual Business Reviews to AI+MCP driven Business Reviews for Positive Customer Impact!

Bio: Jaime is a multi-faceted and experienced MBA and tech leader, with over 16 years of progressive experience in technology companies. Jaime's professional focus involves revenue-oriented strategy, operations, and customer success. He's passionate about scaling customer facing teams and empathetically extracting the most out of each of his team members, whether they are individual contributors or people leaders. He's been fortunate enough to work for high growth, category leading, creating, and/or disrupting technologies (i.e. Groupon, Mintel, Sprinklr, Slack, Salesforce, Ontic, TimelyCare, and G2) across various stages of scale - from series B through IPO, driving Customer Success and Client Experience work for anywhere between SMB to mid-Market, to Enterprise-level clients.

Jaime also has partnered with start-ups and scale-ups in an advisor and/or fractional senior leadership (VP+) capacity and often mentors other growth-mindset professionals. Presently, Jaime leads the AMER Enterprise and Strategic Customer Success group at G2, the world's largest and most trusted data source for B2B software His direct area of focus is within GTM and particularly in the realms of Customer Success, Account Management, Implementation Management, and overall Customer Experience to drive customer satisfaction, organizational growth and predictability, and achieve long-term success.

Kimberly Renee Knowles
Title of Talk: Beyond Productivity: Using AI to Reduce Cognitive Load in Customer Success

Bio: Kimberly Renee Knowles is a Customer Success, Revenue Operations, and AI Enablement professional with 20+ years of experience across higher education, EdTech, and SaaS. She specializes in helping teams make sense of complex information, connect the right stakeholders, and translate messy customer and operational context into clearer workflows, decisions, and next steps.

As an AI Enablement, Governance & Operations Strategist and CuSP volunteer board member, Kimberly is especially interested in the human side of AI adoption. Her current work explores how tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, NotebookLM, Copilot, and AI notetakers can help client-facing teams reduce cognitive load, protect customer signal, and preserve the human judgment that CS relationships still require.

Justyna Kuczaj
Title of Talk: We Forgot How to Listen: What's Actually at Stake?

Bio: Justyna Kuczaj is a Customer Success leader with more than ten years of experience helping organizations drive adoption, behavior change, and business outcomes. Throughout her career, she has been fascinated by a simple question: why do some customers succeed while others struggle, even when they have access to the same tools, resources, and support?

Currently a Manager of Customer Success at Fin, Justyna leads teams helping companies navigate the intersection of AI, customer experience, and growth. Her approach blends commercial thinking with a deep interest in human behavior, influence, and the moments that shape customer decisions.

Justyna brings a direct, practical perspective to an industry increasingly shaped by technology. She believes that while AI is changing how we work, understanding what matters to people remains one of the most valuable skills in business.

​About CuSP:
​Learn more about CuSP: A Customer Success Community and join our Meetup group: https://www.meetup.com/CuSP-A-Customer-Success-Community/

​Volunteer With Us: https://forms.gle/QYuwRcp3vEaofATz7
​Sponsorship Signups: https://cusp.typeform.com/to/hfo8vI
​Speaker/Panelist Signups: https://cusp.typeform.com/to/x9oMId
​QUESTIONS?

​If you have any questions, please contact Swati, Kimberly, or Parul via the CuSP Meetup group or connectwithcusp@gmail.com.
​#ConnectWithCuSP

​CuSP is ​Sponsored by Melo Associates, a Recruitment Firm focused on Revenue Roles with a big focus on post sales, customer growth, and customer success roles. Check them out here: meloassociates.com

​To learn more about the Customer Success Function, check out The Customer Success Association at https://www.customersuccessassociation.com/