GEO AWARD WINNERS 2022

Tom Paleka joined Gallagher in September 2008 as Vice President of Global Compensation, a newly created role. Promoted in 2016 to lead the global rewards function, he has overall responsibility for guiding the company’s equity, compensation, benefit, mobility and payroll organizations. In 2018, he was named an officer of the company. 

Prior to Gallagher, Tom had twenty years of extensive background in human resources, sales compensation, sales management, and sales operations, with such companies as AT&T, Ameritech, and Tellabs. 

Tom has served on the Global Equity Organization (GEO) Board of Directors since 2017, and was voted Chairman of the Board of Directors in 2024. He has been a member of the Executive Committee since 2022 and served as Judge for the GEO Awards for ten years, eight years as Lead Judge. He previously served as Chair of the Issuer Advisory Council for six years. He also has been an active member of the Fidelity Stock Plan Services Client Advisory Board. He has spoken at conferences for such organizations as GEO, NASPP, IBIS, CEPI, Equilar, World at Work, and the Conference Board. Tom has also been involved with Junior Achievement for 42 years, and has served on the Junior Achievement DuPage County Board of Directors for over 20 years. 

Joseph Blasi is a Distinguished Professor  and sociologist at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. He recently served full-time and then part-time as an official in the U.S. Department of the Treasury as an advisor on employee share ownership. He teaches the undergraduate and graduate courses on employee equity compensation and corporate governance. His work includes the social and economic history of the corporation, particularly broad-based employee share ownership, equity compensation, profit sharing, and public policy in these area, in countries, in industries, for example, with a special focus on Silicon Valley, and in different historical periods of American history. He is also a Fellow of Kellogg College at Oxford University.

He has written 16 books including Employee Ownership (Harper and Row, 1988), The New Owners with D. Kruse (HarperCollins, 1991),   A Working Nation with various co-authors (Russell Sage Foundation, 2000), In The Company of Owners with D. Kruse and A. Bernstein (Basic Books, 2003),  Shared Capitalism at Work with D. Kruse and R. Freeman (University of Chicago Press, 2010), and The Citizen's Share (Yale University Press, 2013), the Oxford Handbook of Mutual, Co-operative, and Co-Owned Business with Jonathan Michie (Oxford University Pressm, 2017), Employee Share Ownership and Profit Sharing with Jonathan. Michie (Routledge, 2025 and 2026) His articles have appeared in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, Industrial Relations, The International Review of Applied Economics, and the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, among others.

Cherie is the Director of Global Equity at Hilton. She has overall management responsibilities for Hilton’s Global Equity Plans. She has a broad depth of experience in all facets of equity compensation with responsibility for strategic planning, worldwide regulatory and tax compliance in over 100 countries, global communications, vendor management, overhang, burn rate and stock plan reserve analysis.

Cherie's issuer experience includes oversight of employee stock plans in various M&A transactions, development and implementation of ESPPs, working with internal and external partners on best practices for share plan requests, new vendor implementations, insider trading compliance, accounting and valuations, and overall plan administration.

Cherie holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and has earned her CEP.

Yael has broad experience of building and running global projects and programs. Design, implementation, communication plans, and management, for equity compensation and recognition plans.

At Teva Pharmaceuticals, Yael was responsible for managing the global recognition program for over 42K participants and the company's equity programs in over 67 countries, Shareholders database and company dividend process.

Yael’s experiences and responsibilities also includes management of affiliate transactions and the insider trading policy, proxy and financial reporting, M&A transactions, monitoring and implementation of regulatory developments worldwide, as well as administration of special equity-related projects which included but were not limited to the options exchange program, special dividend/dividend reinvestment issuance, share depository transition and stock plan system conversions.

Vastly experienced in equity plan systems and broker equity administration services, Yael also works closely with NYSE, TASE (Tel Aviv stock exchange), custodian banks and brokers worldwide and frequently speaks at equity compensation-related events.

Karen has over 40 years of dynamic experience and leadership in the equity compensation industry. In her most recent role, Karen is responsible for the global equity administration and compliance for Wave Life Sciences as well as the multi-state U.S. payroll.

Prior to this role, she held management roles in client relations and education for 3 of the largest equity administration software providers. Karen began her career with Wang Laboratories where she was responsible for equity compensation in over 50 countries. She subsequently oversaw the equity administration for Genzyme, including the administration of employee equity plans for its numerous tracking stocks.

Karen is a member of GEO (Global Equity Organization), NASPP (National Association of Stock Plan Professionals) and is a Certified Equity Professional (CEP).She was recently honored as a Fellow of Global Equity at the 2019 GEO International Conference.

Pat has been part of the share plan community for over 20 years.Originally as a share plan consultant at Mercer, and then in 2002 she joined Orange as part of the in-house share plan team.

Pat then moved to Rio Tinto in 2009, and in January 2015 moved into freelance and consultancy work. Since then, Pat has provided support to several global companies on their share plans, and related projects. This includes Pearson, Vodafone, AstraZeneca, BT, Nokia, J Sainsbury's and Rio Tinto.

Pat is an active member and supporter of GEO, and speaks at their conferences and other conferences and } seminars on a regular basis.