Brent Leary is a CRM industry analyst, advisor, author, speaker and award winning blogger. He is co-founder and Managing Partner of CRM Essentials LLC, an Atlanta based CRM/CX advisory firm covering tools and strategies for improving business relationships.

He is the former chair of CRM Evolution, CRM Magazine’s annual industry event. Leary has written regularly for Inc.com, Black Enterprise, CRM Magazine and ZDNet, and is a founding member of Newseek's Expert Forum. He hosts the weekly One on One conversation series for Small Business Trends, the A Few Good Minutes livestream series, co-hostsThe CRM Playaz show as well as Pass the Mic, and is a regular on the Gillmor Gang show.

He's also arguably the biggest Rams fan you'll ever meet. And since he's writing this, he approves of this message.

Paul Greenberg is founder & Managing Principal of The 56 Group, LLC, an advisory firm, focused on customer-facing strategic services, including CRM, customer experience and customer engagement strategies.

His book, CRM at the Speed of Light now in its 4th edition, is in 9 languages and been called “the bible of the CRM industry”. It has been used by more than 70 universities as a primary text.

Currently, Paul sits on the Global Advisory Board of the SEAT Consortium as the only non-sports professional of a sports business professionals organization. Prior to this, Paul has been the EVP of the CRM Association, the Chairman of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management CRM Centre of Excellence Board of Advisors, a Board of Advisors member of the Baylor University MBA Program for CRM majors, & co-chairman of Rutgers University’s CRM Research Center.  He is also an Executive Advisory Board member for Powerfluence.

Paul is considered a thought leader in CRM and often called “The Godfather of CRM.” He has been published in numerous industry and business publications over the years. He was elected to CRM magazine’s CRM Hall of Fame in 2010 – the first non-vendor related thought leader in its history. He wrote for 13 years on customer-facing matters for ZDNet and currently writes for MyCustomer.com. He has won dozens of industry awards over the years in CRM, marketing, sales, and customer service as an influencer and thought leader.

In 2019 he released a book on customer engagement entitled “The Commonwealth of Self-Interest: Business Success through Customer Engagement”.

Paul currently lives in Manassas, Virginia with his wife of more than 40 years and 6 cats – and to be entirely clear – is a HUGE New York Yankees fan.