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Meet Our Consultants

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    Steven H. Brown, Ph.D.

    Consultant — Selection & Assessment

     

    Brown currently works with LIMRA in the areas of product enhancement strategies, online selection platform development, and validation research.

    He retired from his previous role as vice president and director of Assessment Solutions in 2007. In this role, Brown directed a department of professional staff engaged in human resources research, selection product development, and recruiting and selection process consultation designed to enhance the marketing efforts of member life insurance and financial services companies in the United States, Canada, and around the world. He served as research advisor to numerous domestic and international recruiting and selection project teams and oversaw ongoing selection research, product development, and daily operations.

    Brown joined LIMRA in 1977. Prior to coming to LIMRA, he was with the Department of Personnel of the State of Minnesota.

    Brown holds a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Minnesota. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the American Psychological Society, and is a member of the Academy of Management. Brown has published numerous articles in professional journals about personnel and sales selection. He has served on the editorial board of Personnel Psychology, and was a member of the task force that wrote the Principals for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures for the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

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    Dorothy A. Kramer-Kawakami, CLU, LLIF

    Special Consultant

     

    (860) 651-4308

    Kramer-Kawakami works with LIMRA in a special consultant role, participating in projects through several areas of the organization. She works on consultation projects in marketing and strategic planning, distribution development, and organizational learning and change. She has worked with member companies in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. Outside the LIMRA membership, she does organizational development consulting through her separate corporation, Re:Sources, Inc.

    While she was full-time staff at LIMRA, Kramer-Kawakami had overall responsibility for managing LIMRA’s management and executive development operations, which include the LIMRA Leadership Institute and its Strategies for Executive Advancement program as well as executive development consultation services.

    She joined LIMRA as a consultant in the Human Resource Development Group of the Company Operations Division in 1984 and advanced to senior consultant in 1986. In 1987 she was named director, was promoted to assistant vice president in 1990, and became second (corporate) vice president in 1993.

    Kramer-Kawakami began her life insurance career in 1975 as an independent broker. In 1976 she was named assistant brokerage manager for Transamerica Occidental Life in Miami and became brokerage manager the following year. In 1981 she joined James Croke Associates as a consultant in insurance management and executive search.

    She is a graduate of the University of South Florida, where she also earned a master’s degree.

  • David Macchia

    David Macchia

    Senior Consultant

     

    781-222-3038

    Many LIMRA members have identified retirement income distribution as a business which is vital to their future success. To help members attain their strategic objectives in the retirement income market, LIMRA senior consultant, David Macchia, helps organizations navigate the complexities of retirement income, define organizational success and produce an actionable plan to realize objectives.

    Macchia is a retirement income thought leader whose expertise encompasses both academic theory and practical solutions. He is a founding member of the non-profit Retirement Income Industry Association (RIIA). He headed Member Services, was the organization's Secretary for two years, and served as a Board member from 2006- thru 2013.

    Macchia is also Founder & CEO of Wealth2k, Inc., a leading provider of asset-gathering solutions for the retirement income market. At Wealth2k, Macchia works with insurers, banks, broker-dealers and asset managers on issues related primarily to retirement income and retirement asset consolidation.

    Macchia earned an MBA, with Honors, from Boston University Graduate School of Management. He holds the RMA™- Retirement Management Analyst professional designation. He is also is a member of the Board of directors of the March of Dimes, Massachusetts Chapter. 


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    Erica Michaud

    Senior Actuarial Consultant

     

    Michaud consults with LIMRA member companies on all aspects of financial management, which includes providing compensation modeling services, financial projections, peer analyses, and models of life insurance operations. Prior to being named to her present position, she was manager of Actuarial Services where she directed LIMRA's intercompany persistency studies, compensation studies, and product surveys.

    Michaud, who joined LIMRA in 1988 as an associate analyst in the Financial Management Research Department, was formerly with Monarch Life Insurance Company in the actuarial area of the Health Products and Marketing Development Department. She graduated from the University of Connecticut with a B.A. in Mathematics/Actuarial Science and is a member of the Society of Actuaries.

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    Dan Veto

    Senior Retirement Consultant

     

    Veto is a Senior Retirement Consultant in LIMRA's Consulting services group where he works with LIMRA member companies on their retirement product and distribution strategy, retirement marketing and PR, and retirement sales tools and systems. With 25 years of experience, Veto has worked with dozens of leading firms on their most important home office and field-based retirement initiatives. He has an unparalleled handle on the pulse of retirement having conducted retirement forums in over 100 cities and towns across the English speaking world.

    Veto began his career as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. He subsequently held senior corporate leadership roles in financial services companies and has worked with retirement think tank Age Wave. He holds a B.S. in engineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from INSEAD.
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    John M Wellborn

    Consultant

     

    The former head of LIMRA's Consulting services, Wellborn brings his valuable experience and expertise to his role as a LIMRA consultant. He has advised many of the largest financial services providers in establishing distribution benchmarks, sales performance targets, and supporting sales compensation systems. He is well known worldwide for his work in relationship-based distribution and cross-selling reward systems.

    In 1999 Wellborn expanded the practice to include the technology requirements for effective management of distribution. As part of this initiative, LIMRA entered a strategic partnership with a leading technology provider with the objective of combining LIMRA's distribution design expertise with distribution software capabilities to provide client companies with the technical capability to compete in the marketplace. Wellborn created LIMRA's Distribution and Sales Compensation Seminars, designed to provide a participative learning experience based on industry data and company practices.

    A graduate of Lyon College, Wellborn also holds a Master of Science degree in financial services from the American College. He is the author of numerous articles and speaks regularly at industry meetings and seminars.

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    E. William Weeks, CLU

    Consultant

     

    Bill Weeks, CLU is a Senior Consultant with LIMRA. He focuses on sales and incentive compensation and improving distribution costs. With over 25 years of experience, Weeks has helped more than 75 client companies revise more than 200 compensation plans within all manner of distribution channels. He is particularly attuned to assessing the current state of a company’s distribution system and developing a roadmap to further success. He also connects companies to appropriate opportunities to participate in LIMRA benchmarking studies, distribution costs studies, and other research, as well as other services and solutions that help them design compensation plans and understand their competitive position. Previously, Weeks was Vice President of Sales Compensation for Prudential Financial, where he was responsible for all of Prudential’s sales and sales management compensation plans. Prior to this, he was an Agency Officer for (the former) Connecticut Mutual. Widely published in a variety of industry and compensation publications, Weeks is a frequent speaker at industry and compensation-related conferences. On the topic of LIMRA’s cost ratio research and managing distribution economics, he authored the article “Distribution Economics: Making the Most of Your Field Offices” (LIMRA’s MarketFacts Quarterly, Number 1, 2012). He holds a master’s degree from Syracuse University.