Advisory Board

ALISA J. BAKER is a partner at Levine & Baker LLP, where she specializes in counseling executives on the full range of compensation-related matters, including individual executive agreements, executive rights in M&A, and equity agreements. Alisa is the author of two books on equity compensation: The Stock Options Book (12th edition, 2011) and The Law Of Equity Compensation (Baker and Rosen, 2006). A prolific writer, her articles have appeared in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to the Journal of Taxation, and she is a frequent contributor to online and print journals in her field. Speaking engagements have included numerous appearances before industry groups including the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, the National Center for Employee Ownership, the E-Trade Business Solutions Group, and the Society for Human Resources Management. In 2009, Alisa was elected a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. Alisa’s professional board memberships include service on the CEPI Board of Advisors, the myStockOptions.com Board of Advisors, the NCEO Stock Option Advisory Board, and the editorial board of the Journal of Employee Ownership Law and Finance. She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center and is a member of the Board of Three Girls Theatre Company. She was a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School and an adjunct lecturer in Executive Compensation at Golden Gate University.

ERIC BRICKMAN is a Senior Vice President of the Strategic Solutions Group at The Newport Group, where he is responsible for Newport’s client experience platform and all of the firm’s technology and product/platform development. He is also responsible for strategic planning in the areas of technology innovation, web-based solutions, client service strategy, organizational development and partnerships, outsourcing, and alliances. Eric has nearly 20 years of experience leading business strategy and technology initiatives in the financial services industry. Eric earned his bachelor’s degree in marketing and economics from Muhlenberg College and a master’s degree in business administration and international management from Seton Hall University.

STEVE BROADBENT is a consultant with Fulcrum Partners, where he is responsible for analyzing and assisting in the design, funding, and security of nonqualified benefit programs for publicly traded and large, privately held corporations. Prior to joining Fulcrum Partners, Mr. Broadbent served 11 years as an executive benefit consultant for Clark Consulting. Mr. Broadbent began his career as an officer in the US Navy, where he served in assignments at sea and in Washington, DC. He worked at AT&T for 12 years in a variety of sales, marketing, and operations positions, including six years as the Sales Vice President in Los Angeles. Additionally, Mr. Broadbent was appointed by President George Bush to serve as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the US Department of the Treasury, where he worked throughout the Bush administration. While serving President Bush, Mr. Broadbent led White House Advance Teams on a number of diplomatic missions throughout Europe and the Mideast. Mr. Broadbent is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in Nuclear Engineering. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Arts in Public Policy from the George Washington University. At Fulcrum Partners, Mr. Broadbent works closely with corporate clients to design the most effective benefits programs to attract and retain key executive talent and promote the building of shareholder value.

JASON BURLIE is a Senior Vice President at MullinTBG, a Prudential Financial company. Jason’s responsibilities include business development, channel management, research, sales, and marketing. With over 20 years in the financial services industry, Jason’s expertise in executive benefits and retirement plan services is the foundation for his commitment to deliver real value to clients and partners. As the former head of MullinTBG’s Client Services and Administration, he has extensive experience in nonqualified plan design and operations for companies across all industry segments, from Fortune 100 giants to small-to-midsize firms. Jason has an MBA from the University of Southern California.

GEORGE CHAMBERLIN is a Founding Member and Managing Partner of Mentor Wealth Management, LLC, in Richmond, Virginia. Mr. Chamberlin has extensive experience in the areas of planning for high-net-worth clients, development and use of software for estate and gift planning, financial planning and education planning, research and writing, as well as compliance. He served as Vice President—Financial Strategies for Financeware, Inc., d/b/a Wealthcare Capital Management; as Product Manager by Mobius Group, a division of CheckFree Investment Services; and as Software Development Coordinator for the National Network of Estate Planning Attorneys. Mr. Chamberlin also worked in tax software development of Shepard’s/McGraw-Hill (now Lexis-Nexis) in its former Tax, Estate and Business Planning Unit and has authored a wide variety of legal reference material for a number of legal publishers.

JAMES M. CLARY is Founder of Clary Executive Benefits LLC, where he consults with leading corporations on both strategic and tactical issues dealing with their nonqualified executive benefit planning. Before starting his own firm, he was President of MullinTBG, a Prudential company and one of the nation’s largest providers of executive benefits consulting, administration, advisory services, and creative financing solutions. He has more than 25 years of experience in this highly specialized field. Jim has served on the Board of Directors of the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU) and has chaired the Nonqualified Plan Issues Committee. He is also a member of World at Work, the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Chicago Compensation Association. Jim has written and lectured extensively on executive compensation and nonqualified benefits plans. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BusinessWeek, CFO Magazine, Compensation and Benefits Review, Corporate Board, and Journal of Compensation and Benefits. He has also appeared on national television programs to discuss the subject of executive compensation and benefit planning.

RICH DEVITA (now deceased) was an Executive Benefit Consultant with The Todd Organization, which specializes in the design, financing, and administration of executive benefits plans, serving companies in all major industries throughout the United States. Rich was a graduate of The Citadel, and worked in the executive benefits marketplace for over 20 years. He was the 2017–2018 president of the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU), a Washington, DC-based organization known for advocating on behalf of company sponsored nonqualified deferred compensation plans. As a board member of the AALU, he served as the chairman of the AALU committee on nonqualified deferred compensation plans.

ALAN DYE is a partner with Hogan Lovells in Washington, DC, where he specializes in securities matters. Before joining Hogan Lovells, Alan spent two years at the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance and served for two years as Special Counsel to the SEC Chairman. Prior to that, Alan served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ellsworth A. Van Graafeiland of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He graduated from Emory University (magna cum laude) and the University of Georgia School of Law, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Georgia Law Review. Alan is an active member of the American Bar Association, where he served as Chairman of the Securities, Commodities, and Exchanges Committee of its Administrative Law Section and currently is a member of the Committee on Federal Regulations of Securities in its Business Law Section. He also is a member of the Securities Law Committee of the Society of Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals. Alan has written extensively on various stock compensation issues under the federal securities laws, including his co-authorship with Peter Romeo of the Section 16 Treatise and Reporting Guide (Executive Press, Inc., 2008) and the Section 16 Forms and Filings Handbook (Executive Press, Inc., 2009). He is a frequent lecturer at professional seminars, a member of the District of Columbia and New York bars, and a member of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals Advisory Board. He formerly was an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

RICHARD FRIEDMAN, before his retirement, was the Vice President of the Benefits & Compensation Group at The Ayco Company, a leading provider of financial-planning services for executives at public companies. In addition, he was the editor of the Ayco Compensation & Benefits Digest and a speaker at national conferences and corporate meetings on employee benefit issues. Previously, Richard was an estate and gift tax attorney at the Internal Revenue Service. He graduated with a BA in History from the University of Pennsylvania. He later received his JD from St. John’s University School of Law and his LLM in Taxation from New York University School of Law.

MICHAEL GOLDSTEIN is the Executive Vice President at The Gottlieb Organization. Previously, he was the CEO and President of Summit Alliance Executive Benefits, a Summit Alliance Financial company. Before taking that position, he was Senior Vice President and National Director of Strategic Development at Clark Consulting, a retirement services and asset management firm specializing in the design, funding, and administration of qualified and nonqualified retirement plans. Mr. Goldstein has written dozens of articles on the subject of nonqualified plans and co-authored the American Bar Association Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section’s Life Insurance Counselor book Taxation and Funding of Nonqualified Deferred Compensation: A Complete Guide to Design and Implementation.

JOHN LAWSON is a former (now retired) Vice President of Executive Compensation at Tompkins Financial Advisors in Pittsford, New York, where he counseled executives to make informed decisions regarding their executive rewards for over 20 years. Before joining Tompkins, he was the VP of Executive Compensation at AM&M Financial Services.

WILLIAM L. MACDONALD is the founder of Plein Aire Strategies, LLC, a global sales and marketing strategy firm consulting to financial and professional service organizations. Mr. MacDonald has a wealth of experience in the executive compensation and benefits industry, where he was the founder and CEO of many leading firms. He founded RCG in San Diego in 2002 and served as the firm’s President and Chief Executive Officer. Earlier, Mr. MacDonald founded Compensation Resource Group (CRG) in 1978, which was later acquired by a NYSE company (Clark Consulting) in 2000. He then presided as President and Chief Executive Officer of the executive benefits division until 2002. Mr. MacDonald has consulted on executive compensation and benefit issues for more than 25 years for numerous public and privately held firms across a variety of industries, including a large number of Fortune 500 companies. He wrote a book, Retain Key Executives, published by CCH, and has authored numerous articles on the subject of executive compensation and benefits. In addition, Mr. MacDonald has been quoted frequently in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Bloomberg, as well as in a number of industry trade journals. A frequent lecturer, Mr. MacDonald has spoken on the subject of compensation and benefit planning to various organizations, including The Conference Board, World-at-Work, Forbes CEO Forum, the Association for Advanced Life Underwriting (AALU), Million Dollar Round Table, and the Young Presidents’ Organization. Mr. MacDonald serves on the Board of Directors for the San Diego Boy Scouts of America, National Association of Corporate Directors, and the Board of Visitors for the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University. He is also a member of the World Presidents’ Organization, San Diego Harvard Alumni Club, Chief Executives Organization (CEO), and Financial Executives International. Mr. MacDonald graduated from Northeastern University, and The President’s Program on Leadership from Harvard Business School.

BRUCE J. MCNEIL is an attorney with Stoel Rives LLP in Seattle, where he practices in the employee benefits area. Previously, he worked for The Wagner Law Group, Littler Mendelson PC, and the Employee Plans Technical and Actuarial Division of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, DC. He is the author of over 25 books, including 17 editions of Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plans, published by Thomson/West; Tax-Sheltered Annuities Under § 403(b) and Nonqualified § 457 Plans, published by the RIA Group; Employee Benefits in Mergers & Acquisitions, published by RIA Group; and three editions of 401(k) Plans: A Comprehensive Guide (1993), published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. He is the Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Pension Planning & Compliance, and the Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Deferred Compensation, both published by Panel Publishers. He has written over 75 published articles on employee benefit matters.

MIKE MELBINGER (now retired) was a partner in the law firm of Winston & Strawn LLP, and global head of the Firm’s Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits Practice. He was also an Adjunct Professor of Law at both the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Illinois College of Law. Mike is the author of the CCH treatise Executive Compensation, now in its Second Edition, the American Bankers Association’s Compliance Guide to Employee Benefit Trusts, and more than 70 articles on executive compensation and employee benefits topics. He is also on the editorial board of Practical Tax Strategies, and writes the popular Melbinger’s Compensation Blog for CompensationStandards.com. He is frequently quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and other national publications. He has appeared as a guest on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, the Fox News Business Report, and other nationally broadcast television programs. Mike practices exclusively in the area of executive compensation and employee benefit issues for corporations, partnerships, executives, boards of directors and fiduciaries. He also handles the benefits and compensation issues in litigation, bankruptcy, change in control, and public offering situations. Mike was elected as a fellow into the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel in 2005. Each year since 2007, he has been named a Leading Lawyer for Business by Chamber & Partners and one of the top 100 lawyers in Illinois by Illinois Super Lawyers. He is a member of the ABA and NASPP. He also handles pro bono matters for Adoptive Families of America, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the Donors Forum, and other nonprofit entities. Mike received a BA from the University of Notre Dame in 1980 and a JD from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1983. He serves on the Board of Visitors of the University of Illinois College of Law.

JOHN N. SMITH, III is a Vice President and Deferred Compensation Specialist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and has a national practice. John focuses on working with companies to design, informally fund, and implement deferred compensation plans. He also consults with financial advisors within Merrill Lynch who consult with employees that participate in, or are considering participating in, deferred compensation arrangements.