- Gartner client? Log in for personalized search results.
Gartner Expert
Penny Gillespie
VP Analyst
Penny Gillespie is a Vice President and Gartner Fellow within Marketing & Communications. Ms. Gillespie is responsible for conducting research and developing publications aimed at helping executives recognize digital opportunities, develop a competitive strategy for digital commerce as well as improve digital commerce performance and value. She focuses on best practices digital CX interactions, personalization, and building trust as well as overcoming the hurdles to online selling.
She introduced rogue thinking and continues to expand the reseach. Rogue thinking is an approach for idea generation to drive revenue and ignite transformation. Rogue thinking goes against conventional, mature business wisdom by connecting what may appear to be disparate elements in ways that redefine category norms and expectations that produce business value. It facilitates idea execution through the common barriers of benefit recognition, measurement, risk assessment, funding, delivery, and communications. In essence, rogue thinking is a recipe for identifying business opportunities. Rogue thinking has been applies to CX, privacy, value and B2B digital commerce in her research.
Previous experience
Prior to joining Gartner in 2012, Ms. Gillespie founded and managed Gillespie International, a consulting service providing insight to clients in the areas of mobile and online commerce, product development, market and product strategy, and financial supply chain automation. Earlier, she covered the e-finance space at Forrester Research and Giga Information Group with a focus on online banking, electronic billing and online payments, as well as mobile payments. She has published more than 225 articles. Over the years, she has held various roles in product and marketing management for such applications as global online banking, U.S. electronic bill presentment aggregation, and multiapplication campus cards, as well as various financial analyst positions for budgeting, loan servicing and real estate management.
She has diverse additional experience: two years as a Senior Product Manager in CyberMark (Sallie Mae subsidiary), four years as a Systems Development Manager/Financial System Analyst/Liaison in Sallie Mae, and nine years as a Real Estate Systems Manager/Analyst/Auditor in JCPenney.
Professional background
Gillespie International
Founder and President
Forrester Research/Giga Information Group
Senior Industry Analyst
Integrion Financial Network/Visa Interactive
Product Manager
Areas of coverage
CIO Technology and Innovation Leadership
Executive Leadership: Customer Experience Strategies
Executive Leadership: Innovation and Disruption Management
Digital Commerce and CRM Sales Technologies
Education
M.B.A., The George Washington University
B.S., cum laude, Greensboro College
Top Issues That I Help Clients Address
1Create a competitive strategy for digital commerce to fuel transformation and revenues.
2Identify new digital opportunities for revenue growth
3Embrace rogue thinking to generate new ideas and facilitate transformation
4Utilize personalization techniques to attract and retain customers
5Evaluate and select vendors for digital commerce platforms.