Analyst Profile
Penny Gillespie
VP Analyst
9 years at Gartner
,
32 years industry experience
VA USA
Roles and Responsibilities
Penny Gillespie is a Vice President and Gartner Fellow in Gartner's Customer Experience/Digital Commerce team which resides in the larger Applications and Software Engineer Leaders Group. Ms. Gillespie is responsible for conducting research and developing publications aimed at helping IT leaders recognize digital opportunities, develop a competitive strategy for digital commerce as well as improve digital commerce performance. She focuses on best practices for personalizing customer experiences and overcoming the hurdles to online selling. This year she introduced new research on rogue thinking, 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.
Penny Gillespie's Recent Gartner Activity
Latest Research
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The Gartner Digital Commerce Vendor Guide, 2021
14-Apr-2021 -
Use Rogue Thinking to Drive Digital Transformation
30-Mar-2021 -
Industry Vision: Commerce to You
10-Feb-2020
Background
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
Forrester Research/Giga Information Group, Senior Industry Analyst, 5 years
Gillespie International, Founder and President, 7 years
Integrion Financial Network/Visa Interactive, Product Manager, 4 years
Education
B.S., cum laude, Greensboro College
M.B.A., The George Washington University
Languages
English
