Speakers
Todd Bailey
Todd Bailey, Premier Biotech CEO, helped pioneer and bring to market near instant drug testing with OralTox ®. OralTox delivers rapid results in just minutes, with the unique ability to send the same device into the lab for confirmation testing. Premier Biotech is a leading provider of rapid drug testing diagnostic devices backed by their CAP Forensic accredited laboratory located in Minneapolis, MN. Premier Biotech provides customized, drug screening services for customers in criminal justice/corrections, workplace, health & human services, and clinical based programs. Their commitment is to deliver the most innovative and flexible testing menu in drugs of abuse.
Thomas Brechtel
Thomas translates complex immigration laws and employment eligibility requirements into the most legally compliant and easy-to-use electronic Form I-9 and E-Verify solutions available. He assists employers in developing and maintaining compliant immigration-related employment practices by providing; comprehensive I-9 policy reviews, step-by-step electronic transition planning, assistance in developing new hires procedures and I-9 & E-Verify training. His ability to understand an employer’s “pain points” and create customized implementation strategies to maintain the integrity of their worksites, further differentiates First Advantage in the marketplace.
Ashley Caramanica
Ashley is a Director of Customer Success at First Advantage focusing on executive screening as part of our Investigative Research group. She has experience in investigations having started her career here nearly fifteen years ago as an investigator. She understands the types of information available to help you make informed decisions about your executives, partners, and vendors. Ashley attended Hofstra University.
Matthew Clarke
Matthew Clarke has been with First Advantage for 8 years and as SVP of Strategic Accounts is responsible for several of the companies’ large multi-national customers. Prior to moving to First Advantage, he worked closely with companies in the ATS and FinTech sectors. He is based in London but has travelled extensively gaining knowledge and experience of working with people and a broad range of organization around the world.
Aaron Cook
Aaron is an operations executive with 20+ years of experience leading transformational change and utilizing data-driven analysis to achieve meaningful performance improvements. A Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Aaron is the Chief Operating Officer, Americas, at First Advantage. He focuses on solving our clients’ most important problems using advanced statistical tools and a proven systematic, operational methodology.
Mike Cool
Mike has been with First Advantage for 10 years. Prior to joining First Advantage, Mike was the Division President leading Acxiom Information Security Services for 15 years, Director of Loss Prevention for a large drug chain for 3 years, and a police officer and detective for 11 years.
Karen Crider
Karen has been with First Advantage for 16 years. She focuses on building relationships with her key customers by providing first in class support. Because of the strong relationships Karen has with her customers, she is able to diagnose business issues and is able to offer strategic vision to improve her client’s programs to be able to Hire Smarter and Onboard Faster. Karen's success in supporting her customers is evident in her high Net Promoter Scores received each year.
Crystal Davis
Crystal is a manager in the Investigative Research department of First Advantage. She has nearly two decades of experience with investigations across multiple industries and nine years of extensive investigator experience in the areas of corporate, general background, and due diligence investigations. Other areas of focus include litigation research, asset tracing, and social media/adverse media investigations for individuals and companies, both domestic and international. Crystal leads her team to deliver high quality, accurate, and thorough reports to exceed the needs of her clients.
Rebekah Denmark
Rebekah graduated Magna Cum Laude from Arizona State University with a degree in Economics in 2007. Rebekah worked as a tax preparer at McGladrey, LLP before joining First Advantage in 2010. She began as a Tax Consultant handling accounts with a focus in Federal income tax credits and moved into a managerial role in 2016. Rebekah now oversees First Advantage’s Federal and State tax business.
Pamela Devata
Ms. Devata leads Seyfarth's nationwide Background Screening Compliance and Litigation Defense team, which currently has approximately 40 members nationwide. She helps employers to be aware of the myriad of laws regarding what they can ask, when they can or cannot ask, what information they can rely upon, and how that information can be used when conducting a background check. This includes the hyper-technical federal law, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and many other state and local laws throughout the country. Both employers and background screening companies (consumer reporting agencies) look to Pam for guidance based on her deep knowledge and experience practicing in this area for nearly 20 years.
Ann Marie Dumais
Ann Marie Dumais, VP of Strategic Programs at First Advantage, leads and executes on some of our largest global programs. Some of her more recent accomplishments include rolling out a Global Product Catalogue and Customer quote tool, Auto-Escalation workflow and Global Customer Care model in the Asia Pacific region. Currently she is leading an effort to migrate some of our largest Wellness customers to the newest First Advantage digital platforms, tools and services.
Bo Engelhardt
Bo Engelhardt has been with First Advantage since 2008. He currently helps his team of Customer Success Directors provide an excellent customer experience by anticipating and fulfilling needs in a manner that exceeds customer expectations. Bo is a highly-trained customer success professional dedicated to helping his team transition accounts from sales through implementation and program launch. He is committed to creating a best-in-class program management experience by ensuring his team supports the day-to-day needs of clients throughout the customer relationship lifecycle, and consulting with them on proven best practices that can further strengthen their overall hiring process.
DeAnn Farrell
DeAnn is a Customer Success Director that has been with First Advantage for 6 years focusing on Healthcare clients and their unique requirements. Before First Advantage she worked for 20+ years in technical project management and solutions engineering roles in a global data and document management company. DeAnn is passionate about customer service and strives to find program efficiencies that will delight the customer and drive success.
Diana Finn
Diana Finn joined Staffing Industry Analysts in 2006 in the role of Strategic Solutions executive responsible for strategic solutions, memberships, and sales. Presently, as SVP Global Corporate Membership, she is responsible for overseeing the Global Corporate Membership team ensuring members are benefitting from value of membership for the respective organization, while growing the portfolio of members, globally. Diana possesses over 20 years of experience in the staffing industry working for Adecco North America, PRO Unlimited and ICGCommerce (now Accenture). Her experience includes managing all aspects of branch operations, successfully driving sales and profitability.
Rachel Fronapfel
Rachel Fronapfel is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a recognized leader in operations performance improvement. Her extensive background in operations management, behavioral modeling and statistics and product development, brings a well-rounded and fresh perspective to her engagements with First Advantage clients. For the last two years, Rachel has been a strategic consultant to clients tackling big HR business goals like streamlining high-volume onboarding processes, developing new background screening SOPs, reducing time-to-hire for new employees and more.
Heather Gupte
With her 30+ years of experience, Heather assists organizations with diversity and inclusion programs and culture change as founder of Samiracles Consulting. Her corporate HR experience includes serving in international HR and subsequently running operations with Choice Hotels; organization development, effectiveness, and talent management with Yum Brands; culture leadership at Darden Restaurants; Chief People Officer for OTG Management airport concessionaire; and field HR for BrightView Landscaping. Outside of the corporate world, she has led community organizing and legislatively lobbying for voting rights, criminal justice reform and immigration, as well as the efforts in Northeast Florida to restore voting rights to ex-offenders. Her education includes a BBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a Master of Liberal Studies at Rollins College.
Beth Hansel
Beth has been in the employment screening industry for more than 16 years with the last five of those years spent here at First Advantage. In that time, she has proven herself to be a results-driven individual with a passion for strengthening long-lasting partnerships with some of our more complex retail clients.
Stephanie Hegarty
Stephanie is a leader within First Advantage’s Customer Success team, specializing in the Staffing, BPO, and Call Center industries. She has 10+ years of experience in customer service and product innovation.
Barb Hester
Barb Hester joined First Advantage in May 2022 and currently serves as Senior Global Product Director for Small Business, Healthcare, Wellness, and Monitoring solutions. With 15+ years of experience in managing products and programs focused on HRIS and consumer data, and a background in higher-ed and healthcare industries, Barb is passionate about delivering customer focused solutions.
Kendra Holliday
Kendra Holliday leads the Staffing vertical key accounts at First Advantage. She has worked in the background screening industry since 2009 and brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge. As a native of Southern California, Kendra enjoys spending time with her nine-month-old son, Jackson, along with surfing, snowboarding and spending time outside. She graduated from University of Arizona with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Business.
Joe Jaeger
Joe is a talented executive with deep expertise in the Human Capital Management industry. He has substantial experience in developing growth strategies that drive customer success, resulting in increased market share, revenue and profitability. At First Advantage he leads the Customer Success, Marketing and Sales Organizations which provides a cohesive strategy for delivering a seamless customer experience. Joe graduated from Indiana University with a B.S. in Business and completed the Leading High Impact Teams Program at the Kellogg Executive Education School at Northwestern University.
Bret Jardine
Bret Jardine is the Vice President and General Counsel of First Advantage, with responsibility for all legal affairs from corporate governance to litigation management and regulatory compliance. In practice for more than 25 years, Bret brought his experience as a litigator, including class actions and regulatory inquiries, as well as corporate transactional work and corporate governance to First Advantage beginning in 2004. Bret has expertise and oversees a team of regulatory compliance officers regarding data privacy laws and regulations to assist in providing guidance to First Advantage and its global customers.
Josephine Kenney
Josephine is the Chief Global Compliance Officer for First Advantage. She brings 25+ years of experience to her role and currently leads the Global Compliance Team. Josephine is responsible for tracking, providing updates and interpreting relevant new and amended laws to set governance and operational compliance strategies accordingly. She is a graduate of Smith College and the University of Connecticut, School of Law. She is licensed to practice law in the State of Connecticut. She also holds a Masters in Business Administration - Human Resources Graduate Degree from Thomas College.
Jeremy Kerns
Jeremy Kerns is an experienced sales and customer success leader. He has a proven track record building successful teams to deliver results through a focused and consistent approach. Jeremy is Vice President of Customer Success for our Business Services vertical team. He has over 15 years of experience building teams that perform and deliver a customer centric experience.
RajaGopal Kesiraju:
Raj joined First Advantage in January 2019 and currently took charge as Director of Product to lead Product and Strategy for Profile Advantage and solve candidate needs globally. He has over 15 years of Product Management experience in defining and implementing a product strategy from ideation, solution, and delivery across various industries. Raj loves to solve user-centric problems through design, user psychology, and data-driven decisions.
Irina Kovach
Irina Kovach joined First Advantage in March 2022 to lead Product and Strategy for North America. An influential Product Management Executive with over 20+ years of experience in running complex program and product overhauls for various industries, Irina is passionate in solving customer problems by introducing next-generation HR Tech focused products and services that align with current and future US market needs.
Brendan Leach
Brendan has seventeen+ years of experience within Public/Private Security, Close Protection and Safety both domestically and internationally. Currently the Corporate Manager for Veritiv Operating Company overseeing all aspects of the Transportation Safety Program for the United States and Mexico. I hold a CDS (Certified Director of Safety) certification along with numerous certifications from Texas A&M, George Washington University and New Mexico Tech in Anti-Terrorism, Emergency Management and Hazardous Materials and WMD Response/ Prevention.
Savanna Leavitt-Green
Savanna Leavitt-Green is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with over 14 years of experience in the background screening industry. She is an authority in solutioning, lean processing, client/internal training and education, project management and data analytics, having worked closely with some of the world's largest and most trusted brands to optimize their screening programs.
Brian Larrow
Brian is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with extensive experience optimizing client screening programs through data-driven analytics and results-focused engagements. He has pioneered new methods of analyzing key metrics such as turnaround time, adjudication, missing information and industry benchmarking. In his prior role with First Advantage, he leveraged his self-taught Mandarin Chinese languages skills in managing the APAC region for several large global clients. In addition to his supply-chain focused BBA from the University of San Diego, Brian is passionate about city planning and completed the [IN]CITY certificate program at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. An avid traveler, he has visited 30 countries, 48 US states, 30 Chinese provinces and more than 160 units of the National Park Service.
Tyler Lumaco
Tyler Lumaco is an experienced Human Capital Management sales leader. Specializing in recruiting, hiring and training high-performing, passionate sales professionals, Tyler has a proven track record of successful team building, driving new revenue and achieving results through a focused, consistent approach to sales. Currently, Tyler is Vice President of Enterprise Sales at First Advantage.
Kari Marquis
Kari Marquis is an industry veteran well-versed in leading customer-focused teams in human resources management systems. With more than 15 years’ experience as a leader in the space, Kari has lent her expertise to large enterprise and multinational companies and now serves as Chief Customer Officer for First Advantage. Kari first joined the organization in 2016 as a Vice President of Enterprise Sales and moved on from that role to serve first as Vice President of Sales—Staffing and then as Senior Vice President of Customer Success. In these roles, Kari and her team have improved First Advantage customer engagement, retention and satisfaction across the board.
Deborah Masak
With over 23 years of experience in people enablement, human capital management and screening industries, Deborah Masak, VP of Global Talent & Inclusion at First Advantage (FA) directs talent and DE&I strategies for employees. Prior to this, she was head of sales enablement and leadership development for FA’s North America Revenue and ran a sales organization. A disruptor in learning and development, she is leading the global transformation for FA associates in operations to onboard faster, increase productivity, and drive measurable business impact. She also leads FA’s award-winning people manager program, SOAR. A lifelong learner, she has completed executive programs in leadership at Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, DE&I for HR at Cornell University and achieved a Certified ROI Professional credential in 2022.
Delia Medina
With more than 15+ years customer operations leadership experience, Delia oversees multiple global sites that house the day-to-day operations of customer service teams, providing outstanding service to both internal and external customers. In addition, she mentors and coaches supporting and developing leaders to meet or exceed established business objectives, while creating and maintaining a positive work environment resulting in the retention of top tier talent. Currently, Delia is VP, Innovation at First Advantage.
Jennifer L. Mora
Jennifer is Senior Counsel, Labor & Employment at Seyfarth. She brings a unique combination of traditional labor and specialized employment law experience to a broad range of industries, and has devoted nearly 20 years of her career advising employers on matters impacting them most. She has developed vast experience in traditional labor law matters to assist employers with strategic labor relations, planning, and dispute management, including Board litigation, union avoidance, collective bargaining, discharge and contract interpretation arbitrations, strikes, elections, and Section 301 litigation.
Chris Moreno
Christian Moreno is the Industry Training Program Specialist for Truckers Against Trafficking. In this role, Moreno educates the trucking industry with the knowledge to recognize and respond to human trafficking as well as develop relationships with various organizations. Along with speaking publicly at events, she works copiously to navigate development and collaboration with colleagues to implement Truckers Against Trafficking's vision across the nation.
Ryan Nardontonia
Ryan Nardontonia, Esq. serves in compliance and legal roles at First Advantage, primarily supporting Compliance in Canada, the United States, and Latin America. Reporting to the Chief Global Compliance Officer, Ryan’s scope of responsibilities include providing compliance, data privacy, and audit support to First Advantage product lines, including Background Screening, Drug Testing, and Fingerprinting. Ryan also speaks on state law and cannabis matters, specializing in legal trends.
Norma Niño
Norma Niño is a Customer Success Manger at First Advantage who strives for continuous innovation and efficiencies. Norma has 11+ years in transportation experience focused on Driver Management, Vehicle Services, FMCSA Regulations, and safety while working with retail, oil & gas, and international Motor Carriers. She is excited to share her knowledge with her clients and continue driving success.
Mike Nizzi
Mike is a Customer Success leader at First Advantage with more than eight years of experience helping customers streamline their Background Screening programs, and develop and manage best-in-class programs for their internal users and their candidates’. Mike currently leads our Transportation and Energy vertical, which is focused on creating a true end-to-end candidate onboarding process that includes both driver and non-driver candidates across Background Screening, Drug Testing and Driver Qualification File management.
Danny O’Toole
Danny has over 20 years of experience in the area of modeling, analytics, machine learning, and AI with some of the worlds biggest brands. He is most passionate about applying his love of mathematics to develop and pioneer new ways of solving real-world situations. Most recently, he rolled out SmartHubTM for First Advantage, driving savings for First Advantage customers. Prior to this, he pioneered new methodologies in marketing mix modeling (Trial Generation Model), sports marketing, and applied neuroscience, and is an expert at developing new products, processes, thought leadership, and client/internal relationships into productive, revenue-generating outcomes.
Michael Pilnick
Michael is the Chief Human Resources Officer for First Advantage and leads all human capital functions and processes. He has extensive experience in high growth, turnaround environments. Prior to First Advantage, he was Chief Human Resources Officer for Wolters Kluwer, a publicly traded €3.425 billion global business where he had strategic and day-to-day operating leadership of the HR function for Wolters Kluwer’s profit centers in the Americas, the UK and Asia/Pacific as well as the global shared services organization. Michael has a B.S. degree in Education and Anthropology from the University of Arizona and an M.S. degree in Human Resources Management with a specialization in organizational design from the New School for Social Research in New York.
Kimberly Reoh
Kimberly has been with First Advantage for nearly two years and is now the Sr. Director of our Customer Success team in the Transportation vertical. She brings 18+ years of Transportation experience with her. Kimberly enjoys learning the “why” behind the way things are done. This drives program improvements both internally and externally. She takes great pride in continuing to build out our Customer Success teams’ knowledge base and growth.
David Robillard
David is Senior Vice President for the Latam Team at First Advantage; he has more than thirty-five years of international experience in the fields of reputational and employment risks, having worked in Latin America, Europe and Africa. Prior to joining FA, he was the co-founder of Mexico-based MultiLatin Background Screening and held numerous management positions at a global risk consultancy, including that of Deputy Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently he is the Chair of the Latin American Task Force for PBSA (Professional Background Screening Association). Between 2013 and 2015 he was Board Chair for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Mexico.
Victor Sachs
Victor Sachs is SVP, Customer Service and Digital Transformation at First Advantage. He offers a proven mix of business and technical skills with a strong customer experience focus. Vic drives transformation using Lean/Six Sigma/BPI principles for utmost efficiency. He is a seasoned Executive who has performed in the best IT-Driven companies by inventing Big Ideas, and executing them. He strives for continuous Improvement and Innovation specialist using Agile methodologies and leveraging Automation/AI. He is an industry speaker speaking at HP Discover, Salesforce Dreamforce, Dell CIO Forums, GE Fanuc Discover, Enterprise Connect, Avaya IAUG.
Edie Simon
Edie Simon is a Customer service manager (CSM) at First Advantage with 9 years of experience navigating FMCSA regulations, driver compliance, and vehicle regulations. Edie uses this experience along with strong customer service skills to help achieve her client’s compliance goals.
Shane Solheim
Shane is a dedicated executive with tremendous expertise in the human capital management industry. His breadth of experience provides a foundation to drive improved candidate and customer experience, while increasing revenue and profitability for both his clients and First Advantage. Shane has been in the screening industry for 24 years, leading various capacities including eight years in Operations Management, a year in Customer Success and 15 years in Sales Solutions. He earned his B.S. in Business from Nova Southeastern University and has completed several management training courses thereafter.
Scott Staples
Scott Staples joined First Advantage in April 2017 to lead the company to a public offering in 2021. Scott is known as a “growth entrepreneur” and was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Technology Services in 2015. He has more than 30 years of experience in the Services sector, having co-founded Mindtree, a digital transformation and IT services company, in 1999. Scott is a frequent contributor to industry magazines and journals, webinars, and conferences. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Delaware and a Master’s in Business Administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey.
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., SHRM-SCP, is President and CEO of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. With over 300,000 members in 165 countries, SHRM is the largest HR professional association in the world, impacting the lives of 115 million workers. A nationally bestselling author, Mr. Taylor is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work. He is frequently asked to testify before Congress and authors the weekly USA Today column "Ask HR."
Ellen Voie
Ellen is President and CEO of Women In Trucking Association. She founded the organization in 2007 and has grown the membership to over 5,400 corporate and individual members in ten countries. The mission is to increase the ranks of women employed in transportation careers.
Raymond Van Der Wal
Raymond joined First Advantage in February 2021 as Chief Product Officer International and plays an instrumental role in driving First Advantage into a technology first company. He has over 20 years of professional experience in leading large scale global ATS implementations, customer experience, building HR partner eco systems, and leading product strategy roles in the HR Tech SaaS space. With his product teams, he partners with industry leading FA customers representatives and the HR partner eco system on their digital transformation journeys to serve their HR stakeholders and their candidates in entirely new ways.
Kaitlin Wile
Kaitlin is a DOT Operational Analyst for SRS Distribution, working all three company verticals: building products, landscaping and pool supply. She has 10+ years of transportation experience serving in both Human Resources & DOT Compliance fields. She has an undeniable passion to support her 700 branches (an ever-expanding number) and strives to maintain excellence regarding FMCSA Regulations. Her primary focus is to keep her branches safe, educate in a relatable manner, and offer world class customer service.
Rod Weis
Rod brings proven success in building and leading results-oriented sales teams. Recognized for creating a winning culture, Rod’s experience designing and deploying industry-focused sales teams and go-to-market strategies have consistently led to accelerated revenue growth and an enhanced sales experience for prospects and customers. At First Advantage, Rod leads the Americas Sales organization focused on revenue growth through new customer acquisition and the expansion of our value-added products and services to customers.
Timothy W. Wiseman
Tim is a managing partner of the firm whose practice focuses on regulatory compliance. He defends DOT safety audits and civil forfeiture proceedings; drafts and reviews all manner of transportation contracts, employment/driver manuals and company policies to address DOT and OSHA regulatory compliance; conducts on-site due diligence audits in a number of areas, including DOT and OSHA compliance; and manages both workers' compensation and cargo claim litigation. Mr. Wiseman is a regular speaker before transportation industry groups, lecturing on such issues as DOT and OSHA compliance, hazardous materials transportation, and international trucking operations.
