Mid-stride at a $13 billion platform
There is a problem that nobody talks about when a software company starts printing money at scale: the faster you grow, the better you get at hiding your failures. Customer satisfaction gaps don't disappear during hypergrowth - they just get louder in the background, muffled by the noise of new logos and expanding ARR. Matt Lombardi has made a career of turning up the volume on that background noise.
As Global Vice President of Customer Experience at ServiceNow, Lombardi oversees a team of 59 people spanning customer success, AI engagements, digital journeys, and customer outcomes functions. ServiceNow's platform now generates over $13 billion in annual revenue. His job is to make sure the company's existing customers feel as valued as the deals signed last quarter.
The work is deceptively operational. It involves journey mapping, voice-of-customer programs, feedback loops, and satisfaction metrics - the unglamorous infrastructure of keeping enterprise clients loyal when the alternative is a competing platform with a compelling demo. But Lombardi frames it as something more fundamental: the difference between a company that treats retention as a finance problem and one that treats it as a design problem.
"CX improvement opportunities can get hidden under massive growth."
- Matt Lombardi, ServiceNowBefore ServiceNow, Lombardi ran client experience at ADP and held earlier roles at SAP Concur, building customer listening programs and retention strategies at companies where the customer relationships were just as complex - just at different price points. The through-line across every role: connecting customer satisfaction data to numbers that finance can read. Not feelings. Revenue impact.
That philosophy arrived with him when he joined ServiceNow in April 2019 as Head of Customer Experience. By July 2022 he was promoted to Global VP - a title that reflects both scope and organizational trust. His team doesn't just report on customer health; it actively redesigns the experiences that determine it.
One telling example: Lombardi's team discovered that some of ServiceNow's most loyal customers - the ones buying multiple products - were simultaneously experiencing some of the worst outcomes. Poor integration between product lines, fragmented account management, no unified view of their relationship with ServiceNow. The customers who had bet most heavily on the platform were getting the most frayed experience. That finding triggered a comprehensive services transformation project. It is the kind of insight that only surfaces when a CX team is built to look for inconvenient truths rather than confirming ones.
In 2025, Forbes named Lombardi to its World's Most Influential CMOs list - recognition that CX leadership at this scale is no longer a support function but a strategic one. The announcement came in Cannes, the sort of setting that tends to reward brand storytelling. Lombardi's distinction is more data-center than film festival: he builds the systems that determine whether a customer buys again.
He grew up in Paxton, Massachusetts - a Worcester County town small enough that leaving it for Bates College in Maine probably felt like expanding the map. At Bates, he rowed. He studied political science. Neither obvious preparation for running the customer experience function of a global cloud platform, but both useful training in understanding how systems of people behave under pressure.
He has also co-founded a business outside his primary career and serves on non-profit advisory boards - details that sketch the outline of someone who finds problems interesting beyond the ones his employer is paying him to solve.
The three-step CX playbook
Lombardi has distilled his approach to building and scaling customer experience teams into a framework he's shared publicly - a useful map for anyone building CX from scratch inside a fast-growing organization.
Secure Executive Buy-In - First 90 Days
Underinvesting in this step is the number one reason CX teams fail. The business case must connect customer satisfaction to retention and growth - not feelings, not NPS alone, but a growth narrative that CFOs and CEOs can act on. Build it in the first three months or spend years fighting for resources.
Track and Report Value Continuously
No other function in the organization is asked to justify its existence as repeatedly as CX. Lombardi's response: build the reporting infrastructure to win that argument every time. Balance quick wins with longer-term projects. Let the data speak before stakeholders ask the question.
Stay Relevant Through Adaptation
Customer needs shift. Pain points migrate. The CX team that mapped a perfect journey in 2021 is working from an outdated blueprint in 2024. Continuous listening programs, closed-loop feedback, and a willingness to redesign processes - not just report on them - keep the function from becoming a rearview mirror.
What he has built and won
Forbes CMO RecognitionNamed to Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list in 2025, announced at Cannes - recognition of CX leadership as a strategic marketing function, not just a support role.
ServiceNow CX TransformationBuilt ServiceNow's global customer experience organization from the ground up starting in 2019, scaling it to a 59-person team covering customer success, AI engagements, and digital journey design.
Thought LeadershipCo-authored four foundational CX strategy guides for ServiceNow's Workflow publication, covering voice-of-customer programs, journey mapping, feedback best practices, and building customer-centric cultures.
Fortune 500 CX Track RecordBuilt and scaled customer experience functions at multiple Fortune 500 companies including ADP and SAP Concur before bringing that institutional knowledge to ServiceNow.
EntrepreneurshipCo-founded a business outside his primary career - demonstrating a broader appetite for building that extends beyond the corporate track.
Non-Profit LeadershipServes on non-profit advisory boards - a signal of community investment that goes beyond the LinkedIn headline.