Allison Velez serves as the Chief People Officer at Marathon Health, where she leads Human Resources, Internal Communications, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Over her five years with the organization, she has played a key role in scaling the workforce from 600 to 3,300 employees, driving talent strategy, and cultivating a high-performance, mission-driven culture.

With a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Colorado Denver and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Azusa Pacific University, Allison brings 25 years of experience leading people strategy, organizational transformation, and leadership development across public and private companies.

She has deep expertise in strategic HR, culture building, and M&A. Her last 15 years have been focused in healthcare, where she led HR transformations, post-merger integrations, and leadership alignment to accelerate business outcomes. Prior to Marathon Health, she held senior HR roles at DaVita, DaVita Medical Group, and Optum, as well as in global building materials and engineering sectors.

In addition to HR, Allison oversees enterprise-wide internal communications, fostering connection, clarity, and alignment across a distributed workforce. Her work is rooted in creating systems that empower people, strengthen culture, and drive performance.

Originally from Hawaii and raised in Southern California, Allison now lives in the Denver area with her husband and their three teenage daughters—all competitive dancers. Outside of work, she’s a dedicated dance mom and enjoys yoga, hiking, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. She has served on the boards of City Year Denver and Junior Achievement Colorado, reflecting her passion for leadership and community impact.

Liz Thomas is a seasoned Total Rewards and People Operations leader with more than a decade of experience building and scaling programs that help companies attract, retain, and grow exceptional talent. She currently leads Total Rewards at Handshake, where she’s been driving a full transformation of the company’s compensation and equity programs – developing new philosophies around promotion equity, equity refresh, geographic pay, and more. She also partners closely with the Compensation Committee on executive compensation, equity forecasting, and burn modeling.

Before joining Handshake, she led the People Operations and Total Rewards team at Checkr, where she built the function from the ground up – growing the team tenfold and overseeing everything from compensation and benefits to people analytics and HR tech. She’s also held People leadership roles at Omada Health, Rigetti Computing, and Lithium Technologies, where she played a key role in launching and refining total rewards programs, enhancing HR systems, and designing strategies that aligned people practices with business goals.

With 30 years in nonsurgical musculoskeletal care and 15 years in regenerative medicine, Mark brings active clinical insight to the employee benefits space.

He works with employers and benefits professionals to integrate Regenexx into their plans—helping reduce elective orthopedic surgeries, lower costs, and increase access to appropriate musculoskeletal care.

At the benefits table, he brings a clinician’s mindset: do no harm, focus on value, and align benefits with the evidence-based care models used in today’s clinical practice.

Outside of work, Mark is a girl dad who enjoys music, cooking, exercise, time outdoors, and exploring ways to stay healthy as he ages.

Eric Silverman, Founder and Owner of Baltimore Maryland based Voluntary Disruption (VD), a division of Silverman Benefits Group (SBG), is considered one of the most recognized authorities and disruptive forces in enhanced employee funded benefits (the industry formerly known as “voluntary”).

Eric is widely known as a subject matter expert with more than 22 years of employee benefit sales, marketing, management and recruiting experience. He is often sought after and interviewed by various journalists from multiple industry publications such as BenefitsPRO, ThinkAdvisor (formerly LifeHealthPRO), and Employee Benefit News (EBN) online and print magazines. He is also frequently hired to deliver key notes and to speak on various expert panels at national industrywide and carrier conferences each year.

Eric has received the “Voluntary Adviser of the Year” award by Employee Benefit Adviser (EBA) magazine – one of the highest industrywide honors given to only one “voluntary” adviser annually. He is also a contributing author to the Amazon Best Selling employee benefits book, “Breaking Through The Status Quo.”

Eric is the host of his nationally recognized podcast, #RockstarsRocking, which can be found anywhere you consume and download podcasts – including Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon and many others. He’s been honored as a “Rising Star in Advising” by Employee Benefit Adviser magazine and can be found within the online and print pages of American’s Benefit Specialist, BenefitsPRO and EBN magazines as a regularly featured columnist and commentator.

Over the last decade alone, Eric has recruited, trained, and developed more than 2,000 commission sales agents, interns, and broker partners, which led to the securing of more than 2,500 commercial worksite payroll accounts and the generation of more than $200 million dollars in gross annualized sales revenue.

Prior to the insurance business, Eric had zero professional experience; starting his career as a college intern and quickly propelled into management; focusing most efforts on new business development through the procurement and development of new broker partners and the recruiting of college interns and career agents to support his broker focused initiative. His unique management style, coupled with his tenacious focus on detail, customer service, ethics and integrity are what has assured his consistent growth each year.

Bruce Shutan is a contributing editor to Employee Benefit News. He has written and edited for the publication for 37 years and was conference program director for Benefits Management Forum & Expo for two of those years. He has written for nearly 140 publications, corporate entities and individuals and has been quoted about employee benefit trends in various media outlets. In addition, he has ghostwritten three books.

​In a past life, Dave worked as an Underwriting Strategist at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota where he designed pricing methodologies that satisfied Blue Cross Blue Shield’s strategic objectives. During his tenure, Dave acted as an internal liaison between actuarial, underwriting and sales and assisted with BCBS’s lobbying efforts to expand the High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) marketplace.

Today, Dave spends much of his time traveling around the country educating employers and legislative bodies on the many counterintuitive and nuanced components of effective healthcare cost management. A true educator, Dave uses a whiteboard to illustrate how many employers have been and continue to be misled by the industry, resulting in unsustainably increasing healthcare costs for both employers and their employees.

Dave is the ​Director of Underwriting Services at Brown & Brown, where he develops and maintains financial tools and methodologies that improve customers’ ability to effectively manage their employer-sponsored health plans. Dave’s role keeps him actively involved in managing key accounts, representing more than 300,000 members across the country.

Cass brings her expertise in leading human resources, talent acquisition, learning and development and employee experience at growth stage companies to Progyny. Prior to joining Progyny, Cass was Director of Talent at SignPost and TravelClick, a global provider of innovative, cloud-based and data-driven solutions for hotels.

As Senior Vice President and Benefits Consultant at Corporate Synergies, Harrison J. Newman is a trusted expert in employee benefits strategy with 16+ years of industry experience. He partners with HR and Finance leaders to design benefits programs that do more than check a box—they build company culture, attract and retain top talent, and drive long-term business success.

Harrison works with organizations ranging from 50 to 5,000 employees, bringing a proactive approach to managing healthcare costs while ensuring benefits remain a competitive advantage. He helps companies allocate resources to the benefits that provide the most value, striking the delicate balance between financial sustainability and a strategy that reinforces company identity, values, and workforce priorities.

An active leader in the HR community, Harrison serves as VP of Communications for NYC SHRM and hosts the Talk HR podcast. A sought-after speaker, he shares his expertise on industry panels, podcasts, and conferences.

Alicia McNamara leads the Enterprise Team at Quantum Health, where she partners with self-insured employers across industries to enhance the member experience and achieve meaningful results through their benefits strategy. With more than 20 years of experience in healthcare and a strong background in client-facing roles, Alicia brings deep expertise in healthcare navigation, member engagement, and aligning solutions to employer goals. She is known for building trusted relationships with HR and benefits leaders, driving strategic execution, and delivering measurable value through innovative programs.