Customer experience visionary

With her strong academic background and extensive experience in customer experience management, Sod Sodtsetseg Ganbold is one of Mongolia’s rising stars, as shown by her significant impact on the global stage, where she has sharing her expertise at international conferences in several countries, including Japan, Singapore and Mongolia.

Blending expertise in economics and psychology, she is currently pursuing her PhD in the field. An alumna of Germany’s esteemed Konrad Adenauer School, she has also demonstrated her entrepreneurial spirit and bold leadership by competing in the TV show, The Apprentice Mongolia.

There she was pushed beyond her comfort zone, competing alongside 13 other contestants facing a wide range of challenges, demonstrating their business acumen against the clock.

After finishing the show, Sod began shaping her vision for the future of customer experience. In May 2023, she launched CMI in partnership with the International Customer Experience Institute (ICXI) under the theme ‘Advancing the Customer Experience in the Digital World.’

“The vision of the CMI is to partner with the world’s leading organizations to create a valuable and meaningful future,” Sod tells The CEO Magazine. “Our international partnerships provide invaluable opportunities to learn not only from their knowledge bases and expertise but also from the uniqueness of various cultures and mindsets.

“This collaborative philosophy empowers us to enhance our consulting services for both private and public sectors, equipping our clients with international best practices, methodologies and frameworks. By partnering with renowned consulting institutes and associations globally, we have successfully served numerous leading corporate organizations across various industries.”

This is made possible through close collaboration between CMI and esteemed organizations, including ICXI and the National Institute for Human Resources.

“Our partnership approach is centered around a strategic mindset,” Sod explains. “We recognize that collaboration can unlock new opportunities and enhance our capabilities. By fostering relationships built on trust and mutual benefit, we can create value for everyone involved. When we collaborate with strong stakeholders, we can build robust communities and systems that support sustainable success.

“Our partnerships have opened doors to high-profile international conferences, and we take pride in joining these platforms alongside our client organizations to share valuable insights and their results. The end of 2023 was especially rewarding, as CMI collaborated closely with clients and top Mongolian enterprises to co-develop presentation content for the keynote speech at Japan’s leading Proseed Benchmark Summit. Top enterprises from Mongolia’s banking, healthcare, trade and telecommunications sectors joined us to share their CX innovations and experiences.

“I have delivered speeches at numerous conferences and had the honor of serving as chairman at the CX Live Show Asia in August 2024. Collaborating with our esteemed client Khan Bank, the largest bank of Mongolia, to deliver workshops during the event was an invaluable experience that deepened both our connection and impact,” she adds.

Although CMI is headquartered in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, it is an accredited partner of the ICXI in the Asian region and is working toward expanding its reach on a global scale.

“When companies focus on differentiating themselves and cultivating their unique strengths, they can gain tremendous value from training and consulting with international experts,” Sod says. “This approach enables organizations to view themselves through diverse perspectives and uncover new opportunities for growth. At CMI, we welcome collaboration in this journey.”

Leadership lessons

In February 2025, CMI expanded its business by establishing the CMI Academy, an executive training program designed to empower leaders and drive organizational growth. Sod’s own strong academic background, with degrees in both psychology and economics, has driven her to encourage others to expand their knowledge and network across the global stage.

“Continuous improvement and learning are essential for the sustainable existence of organizations,” she points out. “I advocate for cultivating a culture of learning and continuous enhancement, empowering team members to pursue excellence in their performance for both our clients and their own futures.”

This perspective shines through in Sod’s leadership, too.

“Leaders must recognize that their strategy can either guide them toward an efficient and valuable future or lead to inefficiencies where time and knowledge are wasted,” she adds.

“This same effort can yield vastly different outcomes based on the leadership’s strategic direction. I strive to ensure that our strategies are thoughtfully designed to generate meaningful results for everyone involved.”

As CMI grows from strength to strength by gaining new customers and partners, Sod remains reflective about the challenges of running a business in a highly competitive market.

“One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received is to ‘define the rules of the game, then play it.’ This notion has profoundly shaped my approach to business strategy. To that end, I strive to cultivate collaboration over competition,” she says.

“While viewing other organizations as a competitor is easy, partnering with successful players leads to more significant innovation and resilience. By working together, we can leverage each other’s strengths, share resources and create a more stable environment for all stakeholders.

“In pursuit of long-term stability, I focus on building strong partnerships that can weather challenges together rather than simply competing for short-term gains.”