Speakers
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.
Wes Childers
As a Leader in Customer Success, Wes ensures the success of clients and the Success team in the delivery of services. Wes brings over 20 years of experience working with Success Teams and clients in the HR/Human Capital space and is recognized as a valued partner with a track record in developing beneficial relationships with internal and external clients, focused on client satisfaction and service delivery.
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.
Mike Cook
Mike Cook joined First Advantage as VP – Criminal Fulfillment in late 2023 and has over 35 years of experience serving many industries. Using a consortium approach, he has built dozens of unique industry leading fraud and identity risk applications. Mike has founded several identity related businesses and held roles ranging from Chief Operating Officer, SVP Operations, Chief Product Officer, and CEO. Considered an industry expert in data breach, fraud patterns and identity, Mike has authored several white papers speaks often at conferences and is a proven innovator who has been awarded 3 patents with 4 patents pending.
Bob Costello
Bob Costello is the Chief Economist & Senior Vice President of International Trade & Security Policy for the American Trucking Associations (ATA), the national trade association for the trucking industry. As Chief Economist, he manages all of ATA’s collection, analysis and dissemination of trucking economic information. This includes several monthly trucking economic indicators, motor carrier financial and operating data, an annual freight transportation forecast, driver wage studies, weekly diesel fuel price and economic reports, and a yearly trucking almanac. Bob also conducts economic analyses of proposed regulations and legislation affecting the trucking industry.
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.
Casey Drucker
Casey Drucker is VP, Strategic Clients at First Advantage. She drives customer outcomes through industry and product expertise, strategy, and program management in the retail space to deliver value and expertise to customers to help them hire smarter and onboard faster. She has in-depth experience in the investigative research suite of products including the BackTrack Report and the Executive Advantage Report process. She designed and launched products and served as General Manager for the BackTrack Report division.
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.
Reese Ewton
Reece is a seasoned healthcare strategist with 25 years of expertise, leading projects that boost operational efficiency and patient care. His focus on HR technology and quality improvement has fostered a culture of growth and people-centric practices in healthcare organizations. Reece's innovative approaches have delivered measurable outcomes, emphasizing his skill in overcoming complex challenges. Committed to enhancing healthcare standards through regulatory advocacy and team empowerment, his passion drives continuous advancement and mentorship.
John Frehse
John is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura, based in the New York office. He has more than 20 years of experience focused on labor and operations strategy. He has developed and implemented innovative labor and employee need solutions for more than 100 companies. John’s professional philosophy is that people are the most valuable resource of every company. His experience has proven that in order to create long-term success, a thoughtful and methodical approach to labor must be created. His work has spanned a wide range of industries, including food and beverage, automotive, chemical, electronics, pharmaceuticals, power, call centers, banking/insurance, distribution, telecommunications, mining, government and healthcare.
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.
Dr. Abe Hammell
Doctor Abe Hammell is the Chief Medical Review Officer at First Advantage. He is a licensed physician who leads the First Advantage team of medical review officer doctors tasked with the responsibility of examining laboratory results produced as part of an employer's drug testing program and assessing medical justifications for specific drug test outcomes.
Lauren Hancock
Lauren has been with First Advantage for 9 years. She has partnered with key financial and healthcare clients over the past 3 years, streamlining processes and helping organizations scale with M&A activity while keeping compliance and cost in check. Lauren has recently been promoted to Director of Customer Success for Corporate Screening, a healthcare-focused function of First Advantage. Lauren is passionate about partnering with healthcare organizations to create the best onboarding experience.
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.
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.
James Jaillet
Taking the long view on driver recruiting and retention is paramount to succeed in today’s labor market. While hiring needs have eased some since the height of the 2021-2022 economic recovery, fleets should look at today’s market as an opportunity to implement best practices, evaluate and benchmark their pay and benefits, re-map their recruiting and retention strategies for long-term success, and start preparing for the next hiring surge. A shifting economy and workforce demands means re-thinking your relationship with drivers, your hiring processes, and your long-term retention plans. James Jaillet, VP of Marketing at The National Transportation Institute will dive into the trends unfolding in 2024 in the market for professional drivers and how fleets can bolster their recruiting and retention strategies to meet drivers where they are, heed the demands of the new economy, and evolve their driver job opportunities so they can continue to meet the needs of their customers.
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.
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.
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.
Colin Lyle
Colin Lyle is a Talent Acquisition Leader, Speaker and Coach with over 17 years of experience. His expertise includes leading and transforming teams to maximize process efficiencies, implementing innovative sourcing strategies, pipeline analytics and workforce planning. He has had the great privilege and pleasure to share his best practices as a speaker at national conferences including ASHHRA, LEAP, LHC Basecamps, Human Capital Institute, SIA and the Healthcare Source Talent Symposium. Colin and his ELITE Talent Acquisition teams are nationally recognized and have won prestigious awards for Leader of the year by ASHHRA, Top TA Leader by ONCON, best in class Candidate Experience from CANDE, Hiring Manager Satisfaction and Top Talent Acquisition Organization in the Healthcare field awarded by RogueHire (formally Lean Human Capital), the nation’s largest Healthcare TA Benchmarking organization.
Colin Lyles
Colin serves as the Vice President, Customer Success leading and developing the Healthcare and Financial Services vertical strategies at First Advantage. He is a 15+ year industry veteran and is your subject matter expert, delivering insights, industry trends and strategic consulting to ensure First Advantage alignment with your business priorities.
Alan Marblestone
Al has been with First Advantage since 2022. He is our VP of Customer Care focused on delivering an exceptional client experience throughout our global footprint. He spent the previous five years with a global ecommerce retailer, leading Supplier Operations and Customer Service Teams as the company expanded to three times its size during his tenure. Al learned the importance of teamwork at the start of his career, serving as a US Naval Flight Officer in the P-3C Orion Aircraft, accumulating more than 2,500 flight hours and rising to the rank of Commander.
Debbie 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.
Aleksandra Mika
Aleks joined First Advantage from Brown Brothers Harriman, the oldest and one of the largest private investment banks in the United States with 18 offices around the world and over US$ 55 billion in assets, where she spearheaded their agile and digital transformation efforts. At her time at Brown Brothers Harriman, she worked to modernize product management and development processes across the bank which resulted is shorter time to market and 20% decrease of development cost by achieving zero design rework post production. A certified agile trainer and coach, Aleks brings 20+ years of demonstrated success in driving development of new software products and the modernization of existing corporate platforms, all while keeping users and clients first. When she isn't busy guiding meaningful changes through data, you’ll find her with her twin girls, Emily and Nataly, and her two pups, Bobby and Ziggy. She also loves to hike and mountain ski with her husband.
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.
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.
Nuno Ricardo
Nuno Ricardo joined the FA Strategic Consulting Team in November 2020. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with more than 15 years of product and operations management. With a diverse background in consumer segmentation, geographic information systems, and data analysis, he has the ability to sift through vast datasets, to find meaningful insights to effectively address challenges in background screening.
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.
Katherine M. Russell
Katie Russell is a Senior Director of Customer Success for our Staffing/Call Center/BPO vertical. Prior to joining First Advantage, she spent more than 10 years in the staffing industry working for The Adecco Group. She joined us in January of 2018 and manages top-tier enterprise accounts within her vertical. Katie maintains a unique perspective, having coming from the client side of the house and has been integral in helping to drive customized, vertical-focused business efficiencies. Katie is passionate about the industry she supports and is an expert in understanding how to support the diverse nature of its business model. A proven problem solver, Katie is sought after by many of her team members to help tailor solutions for their customers. Katie understands the challenges that are facing the industry and works to help customers find that perfect blend of risk avoidance for their business.
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.
Joelle Smith
Joelle has held leadership roles within First Advantage (FA) since 2017, advancing from Executive Vice President to Chief Experience Officer, to her current role of President, Data, Technology, and Experience, where she has delivered results since 2022. Joelle maintains responsibility for the organization’s global product and technology P&L, which includes strategy, innovation, and development for all products and services offered by FA. Passionate about the positive impact inclusivity has on organizational culture, Joelle has also served as the executive sponsor of the Women’s Employee Resource Group (ERG) since 2021.
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."
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.
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.