Chairman & CEO

Robert Shestack, CVBS, CFF

Co-founded in 2008, Robert Shestack is the Chairman & CEO and Hall of Fame member of the Voluntary Benefits Association (“VBA”), the first national non-profit [501(c)(3)] trade association focused on Voluntary Benefits for employer and affinity groups. The VBA’s goal is to promote the education, administration, implementation, product development, compliance, technology, and enrollment of Voluntary Benefits in the workplace. In addition, Mr. Shestack is the Chief Strategy of Paylogix, the nation’s largest Licensed, Insured and Bonded Third Party Administrator (“TPA”) focusing on Voluntary Benefits. Paylogix represents over 25 Fortune 1000 companies as manages close to $1 billion in annual voluntary benefit premiums.

Mr. Shestack was the former EVP and National Practice Leader for The AmWINS Group, the largest insurance wholesaler in the United States, placing over $13 billion in annual premium. In his role, he was responsible for all carrier relations, business strategies, enrollment & implementation activity, and communications, as well as the execution of the 5-year strategic business plan. Prior to joining AmWINS, Mr. Shestack was Managing Director and National Sales Leader of Employer Benefits at Marsh & McLennan (Marsh US Consumer). Mr. Shestack’s experience working within the voluntary benefits industry includes product development, insurer relations, innovation, communication & enrollment strategies.

Mr. Shestack has been responsible for managing and developing high level sales talent and establishing client and partner relationships in the employer benefits industry. A 34+ year industry veteran, Mr. Shestack holds a Workplace Benefits Consultant  (“WBC”) certification, a Certified Voluntary Benefits Specialist (“CVBS”) designation and is a Certified Financial Fiduciary (“CFF”) as well as a bachelor’s degree in Actuarial Science & Risk Management from Temple University’s renown Fox School of Business, the nations top Actuarial Science & Risk Management program. Also, he is certified in Health & Welfare Cafeteria Plan Fundamentals through the American Academy of Actuaries. He is a Risk Management Capstone Course student advisor at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, where he and his wife also fund a $10,000 scholarship program for Fox School of Business undergraduates.

In addition to his responsibilities at the VBA and Paylogix, Rob was also inducted into the Workplace Benefits Hall of Fame in July 2010, joining an elite group of voluntary benefit industry leaders. An accomplished author published in over 150 articles and white papers, as well as an accomplished speaker, he wrote a chapter on critical illness in the 2008 book “Workplace Marketing — A Promise to Deliver” and is working on his next 2 books.

Mr. Shestack was featured as the cover story for Benefits Selling magazine in 2007 and he received the inaugural Voluntary Benefits Adviser of the Year award in 2011. The award recognizes outstanding service to group benefit plan sponsors by brokers and advisers, as well as overall contributions to the profession. In April 2013, he was honored with the prestigious H. Wayne Snider Distinguished Alumni Award from Temple University’s Fox School of Business recognizing Rob as someone who has distinguished himself or herself for at least 20 years in the field of Insurance, Risk Management and Actuarial Science. Mr. Shestack is the only industry professional to be inducted into both Halls of Fame and receiving the Benefits Adviser of the Year award…the VB industry’s trifecta.

In 2017, Rob received the South Jersey community service volunteer of the year award recognizing his unselfish efforts and dedication in making his community a safe place to live and raise a family. Dedicated to his community, Rob is an 8-time (24 years) elected official (Fire Commissioner) in his township representing over 60 career personnel and an annual budget exceeding $12 million. Rob also served as the Vice Chairman of the NJ State Joint Insurance Fund as well as past President of the New Jersey State Association of Fire Districts representing 985 state-wide fire commissioners. His township was recently selected by Money Magazine for their top 50 best places to live in the United States listed as #16 for 2020. Rankings were based on an array of factors, including but not limited too: low crime rate, education, municipal services and public safety. Additional factor were applied simply to be considered by Money Magazine, which included (but not limited to): A minimum of 25,000 residents, multi-cultural sites, and places with diversity narrowing the “field” down to 1,890 towns to be consideration.

Vice Chairman

Jake Velie, CPT

18 year value-based healthcare veteran, 6X healthcare founder, author, consultant/advisor to payors and providers, CEO, Chairman, husband and father. I’ve served in the healthcare setting working with physician groups, health systems, universities, Carriers and TPA’s, large companies and even families.

I’ve served as Founder and CEO of several integrative medical clinics and led multiple other healthcare companies. My clinics practiced family medicine, physical medicine, rehabilitation, lifestyle education and behavioral health, as well as fitness and personal training. My teams and I worked with thousands of patients, physicians and practitioners to develop clinical systems that employed functional/personalized medicine concepts, resulting in outcomes successful beyond conventional treatments alone. Our clinics also served as an internship and experiential learning location for medical and pharmacy students.

I am currently the Co-Founder and Chairman of Rx-Precision, a Health IT company that has developed a Clinical Genomics Solution that, through AI and clinical process automation, identifies genomic risk in any healthcare population and facilitates the process of a genomic intervention from beginning to end.

I also serve as Clinical Advisory Board Chairman of National Integrative Health (NIH) where we assist in development of clinical improvement strategies for employers, health systems and carriers across the U.S. NIH also serves clinical companies by engineering their service or product to be delivered in the commercial setting, work with different data sets and analytics to drive outcomes and measure VOI/ROI. Today, NIH works with companies specializing in Cardiology, Genomics, Behavioral Health, Health IoT, Medication Therapy Management and Diabetes Management.

I have served as an expert guest in over 300 radio markets across the country in multiple syndicated radio segments and authored the lifestyle curriculum, ‘Healthy for Life University’, a 12-week guide to taking back control of your health and healing your body.

Specialties: Consulting with clinical services and product companies, corporate consulting in population health, scientific research around Precision Medicine, data analytics/AI/Health IT.

Chief Legal Counsel

Joel Horowitz, Esq.

Public, private, tax-exempt, and nonprofit entities rely on Joel Horowitz’s decades of experience and sound business judgment to find creative solutions for their executive compensation, employee benefits, nonprofit corporation, and tax exemption issues.

Joel Horowitz has delivered excellent results for employers and executives for more than 30 years. He advises on equity-based compensation, incentive pay, and employment, retention, and severance agreements. He has extensive experience in the design and operation of compensation and benefit arrangements. Joel also brings a unique combination of legal and business acumen to help tax-exempt and nonprofit organizations in their state and federal tax exemption matters as well as fundraising compliance and nonprofit corporation issues.

With a deep understanding of ERISA issues, Joel works alongside venture capital funds, investment advisers, and mutual funds on fiduciary responsibility, prohibited transactions, and regulatory compliance for tax-qualified plans and IRAs as well as plan-asset issues and transactions that may be restricted under ERISA. He assists clients with equity-based compensation and incentive pay and provides comprehensive guidance on tax-qualified plans, deferred compensation arrangements, and noncash benefits.

Joel assists public and private companies with the full spectrum of employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) transactions. He has acted as trustee’s counsel, lender’s counsel, and special corporate counsel in employee stock ownership plan transactions ranging up to $800 million. He also brings extensive experience in navigating the reforms and guidance issued by government agencies and how they impact employers’ business operations. He has represented clients before the IRS, US Department of Labor, and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and secured the first-ever IRS approval of health plan debit cards.

Joel frequently speaks on trending topics in the employee compensation and benefits legal landscape, including the latest in health plan design, workplace benefits, and executive compensation plans. He has also served as an adjunct professor in the Villanova University School of Law Graduate Tax Program for more than 35 years.

Executive Director

Sarah Hunt, CVBS

Biography coming soon!

SVP of Marketing

Lisa Ehli, MBA

Experienced Marketing Director with a demonstrated history of working in insurance / financial services. Expertise includes building the vision, the talent, and the strategy of digital first marketing in collaboration with cross functional, virtual teams. Skilled in Branding, Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Training, and Public Speaking. Strong marketing professional with an MBA in organizational leadership.

Software Experience:

• Content Management Systems (CMS) including WordPress, Craft, Webflow, and Wix.
• Document Management Systems (DMS) including Adobe Document Cloud, Microsoft SharePoint, Simple Booklet, and Bynder
• Project Management Tools including Robohead, VersionOne, Workfront, Trello, and working with Agile Teams.
• Adobe suite including, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Marketo, and Adobe Document Cloud.
• Google suite including Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google tag Manager, Paid Search, and Google Data Studio.
• Marketing Automation including HubSpot, Salesforce Pareto, Adobe Marketo, and Mailchimp.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) including, Salesforce, HubSpot, and LinkedIn.

General Skills:

• Experienced in Account-based Marketing (ABM) B2B customer journeys, complex sales cycles, pre-sales support materials, and post-sales customer success support materials.
• Experienced in Technical SEO including, Google Search, SEO Frog, SiteImprove, and Yoast and Traditional SEO including content creation, library curation, blogging, company newsrooms, official press releases (PR)
• Experienced in Marketing Campaign Management, Marketing Campaign Tactics and Attribution.

Senior Producer of Audio/Video

Marlee Snyder

Marlee Rose Snyder is a young, but experienced professional in the video production world. She kicked off her career working for Comcast Newsmakers, and early on received film festival awards for best overall films two years in a row, as well as a Best Editor award in 2017. She quickly picked up work for non-profits and realtors in her area thanks to these early and promising successes.

These wins eventually jumpstarted her corporate video services, which she provides to companies in the form of professional business profile and marketing videos. Her relationships have led her all over the world, too, taking her from her small hometown in Massachusetts to far-off countries like Singapore and Israel.

Today, she focuses on building her business and capturing the moments that highlight culture, people, and passion in the workplace, as well as the lives of the inspirational individuals with whom she collaborates.

Director of Design

Megan Bilik

Bio coming soon!

Director of Website Content

Roman Lupan

Bio coming soon!

Vice President
Board Secretary

Josh Verne

Josh Verne, Chief Commercial Officer

Driven by an unwavering dedication to service and commercial growth, entrepreneur and Fintech executive Josh Verne brings over 20 years of scaling, and selling multi-channel business’s to his current venture, Juice Financial.

From his early obsession with business in high school, Josh turned Home Line Furniture, his family-owned furniture wholesale company, into the 4th largest furniture company in the United States with 5 global operations. After exiting the business in 2010, Josh’s innovative leadership and vision created one of the first companies to allow employees to purchase multiple categories of high-ticket durable goods via their paychecks, all with no interest or fees, over a 12-month period of time. With nine figures in revenue, workpays.me was sold in 2014 to the largest alternative lender in the UK.

Josh’s next venture was launching FlockU, a college online community with 4M+ active students sharing open and unfiltered content nationwide. FlockU’s unique format drew commercial interest and success by gaining partnerships with T-Mobile, Amazon, Colgate-Palmolive, Uber, plus many more. In 2018, Josh sold FlockU to one of the largest brand marketing firms in the United States.