Dennis Paalman is currently serving as the Founder of Reward Works. His prior roles include Executive Senior Vice President Global Reward, at Solvay. Previously he was SVP Global Head of Reward at Signify (previously Philips Lighting), Royal Ahold and ING Bank. Senior Consultant in the Executive Compensation Practice at WTW in London and Amsterdam, various roles at IBM. Furthermore, Chairman of the GEO Board from 2019 to today. Chairman of the Jury for the GEO Awards from 2011 to 2019. GEO Board Member as well as a member of the GEO Executive Committee since 2010. Chairman of the Dutch Association for Compensation and Benefits Professionals since the start until today. Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering and business administration from the Technical University of Twente. Completed the Advance Management Program at Insead, the Royal Ahold Leadership program at Harvard/Oxford and several executive programs at the University of Michigan. Dennis is married to Liz, has four kids and lives in The Netherlands.

Leann Balbona is a Tax Managing Director of KPMG’s Global Reward Services practice where she is responsible for KPMG’s Global Equity Tracker deployment and services around global equity administration. She has more than 25 years of experience in international tax technology, tax planning and mobility strategy for the world’s leading companies. She has developed award-winning approaches for her clients to mobile employee tracking and income sourcing processes for equity compensation recognized by trade organizations, Global Equity Organization and Forum for Expatriate Management.

Leann is a Certified Public Accountant in New York and Texas. She has been published in the International Tax Review, Expatriate Advisor and Expatriate Administrator. Leann regularly presents at trade association conferences and teaches at KPMG’s national Partner Manager Training. She servers on the Global Equity Organization Board and is also Chair of the Chapter Development Committee where her focus is growing GEO membership/involvement from the local level. She has served on the board of the KPMG’s NYC Network of Women representing the Tax Service line from 2010 – 2015. Leann was recognized for her efforts with KPMG when inducted into the New York City YWCA Academy of Women Leaders in 2013.

Amanda Benincasa is an Associate Partner and the North America Practice Leader with Aon Equity Services, the equity valuation and accounting group for Aon that assists with all things related to equity compensation. With over a decade of experience in the equity field, her background consists of technical accounting for equity compensation and consulting on every part of the life cycle for an equity award. Her specialty has become complex transactions including spin-offs, IPOs, SPACs, Employee Stock Purchase Plans, design of tax-efficient equity awards from a corporate and employee standpoint, and SEC reporting for all of the above inclusive of Forms 3/4/5, 10-Q/K, and proxy statements. She is a frequent industry speaker and thought leader. Amanda is currently attending Harvard University pursuing a Master’s Degree, and already holds a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Arts in Accounting. She is pursuing the CPA designation and is based in Philadelphia.

Dr. Bill Castellano is Professor of Strategic HR Management at Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations. He is also the Executive Director for the Center for Employee Ownership and an Executive Committee member of Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. Bill also serves as a board member of the Global Equity Organization. Bill is the former Chair of the HR Department and Associate Dean of External Engagement and Executive and Professional Education and former Director of the Center for HR Strategy. His research, teaching, and consulting activities are focused on understanding the impact of employee ownership and equity compensation strategies on individual and organizational outcomes, the strategic management of human capital, employee engagement, and developing leaders for the challenges of the 21st century. Bill has over forty years of experience working in corporate Fortune 50, entrepreneurial and research environments. Before joining Rutgers University, he held senior HR management positions at Merrill Lynch and Manufactures Hanover Trust where he was involved with human resource strategies and practices that supported both individual business groups and the global enterprise. Bill is an accomplished researcher publishing his work in practitioner and academic journals and is a frequent speaker at national HR and business conferences.

Matt is currently the head of the Global Equity Management team at Lucid Group, Inc. who went public via SPAC in July 2021. In 2020, Matt was also honored to be selected to part of the exclusive Global Equity Fellows. Before joining Lucid in September 2020, he was the head of global share plans at trivago NV. Trivago is a German issuer, registered in the Netherlands and trade ADS on the NASDAQ in the USA. Matt moved from USA to Germany December 2018 to take up this role at trivago. He was tasked with building the team, improve controls, review feasibility of global share purchase plan and education to their talents. Prior to trivago, he worked for Solium from December 2014 to December 2018 as Senior Relationship Manager on the Large Market team. Matt handled most of Solium’s top US client relationships. He managed some of the most complex and challenging share plans for issuers who use the Shareworks platform.

Prior to joining Solium, Matt worked at Morgan Stanley (formerly Smith Barney) for 14 years. At Morgan Stanley, he held various positions most recently as Vice President Senior Relationship Manager for top tier key clients. At Morgan Stanley he was trusted with the some of the most sensitive key relationships. Before his relationship management role, he was the International and Tax Product Manager coordinating the US and Non-US business platforms and providing best practices. Matt also had managed the Global Implementation Team. In that role, the team handled all new client implementations across all platforms for Stock Options, Restricted Stock and Stock Purchase. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Matt worked for Towers Perrin as a Benefit Consultant on US Defined Contribution, Defined Benefit and Health and Welfare plans while graduating from Columbia University.

Janet is a co-founder of the Global Equity Organisation, with Carine Schneider. She has been on the GEO board since the beginning, founded the GEO Awards and was one of the founders of the GEO Fellowship. Janet is also involved in other industry organisations including on the advisory board of the UK's Proshare, co-founder of the Share Schemes Advanced Studies Group and on the executive committee of the Share Plan Lawyers organisation. Janet is a non-executive director of Nurture Landscapes Group and Chair of 2 remuneration committees.

Janet has over 30 years' experience advising many of the world's leading companies including advising British Airways on its global plans in 1986, developing the first global Long Term Incentive Plan for BP in the early 1990s and has been involved in leading developments in the industry throughout her career. She was legal adviser to global banks' trade organisation AFME/GFMA on remuneration regulation issues from 2008 to 2020, and founded the UK's only professionally recognised industry qualification the ICSA certificate in employee share plans in 2003 which has been running since then with over 1000 people graduating that course.

Janet was one of the first women partners at global law firm Linklaters from 1991 and lead their global executive and employee share plans team for over 20 years. She co-founded specialist law firm Tapestry in 2011 and transferred the ownership of it to employees in 2020.

Janet, throughout her career, has been on the boards of a number of charities and non-profit organisations, mostly in the area of human rights and humanitarian issues, She is the Acting Co-Chair of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, one of Britain’s oldest charities that saves lives from drowning in the UK and globally, and Vice Chair of Roehampton University, one of the longest providers of higher education for women in the UK. Janet was the Vice Chair of UNWomen in the UK (the United Nation's agency which works towards gender equality globally) 2009-2015, and on the board of GAPS - Gender Action for Peace and Security (which works with the Foreign Office to involve women in the peace process in countries in conflict).

Janet was recognised in the Queen's 2017 New Year's Honours with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in recognition for her 'Services to equality, women's empowerment and employee share ownership'. The firm she founded has also been honoured and awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise this year.

June currently serves as the Head of EMEA Trust & Nominee Services at Shareworks by Morgan Stanley (formerly Solium), and she is part of the core team focused on expanding the organisation’s market presence in Europe. During her career with the company June has worked in a number of international jurisdictions, including Canada, the US, Australia, UK and now lives and works in Spain. These experiences have given her first-hand exposure to the needs of large, global clients and the specific challenges they face.

During her tenure at Shareworks by Morgan Stanley, June has been responsible for building the company’s operational infrastructure in North America, EMEA and Australia. In an early role as Executive Vice President, Business Integration, she oversaw strategic partner integration and also directed the customer service experience in each of the locations where she was based.

June’s entire career (now spanning thirty-five years) has been dedicated to the share plans business, and her experience with global and multinational plans is unmatched. As such, she is frequently requested to speak on global remuneration issues at industry events in both North America and Europe.

June holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in business management from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland.

Amélie is a Partner within the Tax & Legal practice at Deloitte Canada and leads our National Equity and Incentives service line. She has over 17 years of tax experience, specializing in the area of compensation design, implementation and operation of companies’ incentive arrangements, in addition to considering tax optimization strategies in a cross-border / global context. She is advising a number of Canadian headquartered public and private companies on all aspects of rewards and is serving a number of clients in the financial services industry. She is also involved in M&A transactions in the determination of the tax treatment and alternatives with respect to equity programs for executives and other members of management, and also plays a role in the structuring of Private Equity compensation structures for fund managers. In her leadership role, she also drives innovative strategies and global best practices to address clients’ needs. Amelie started her career in the Deloitte London (UK) office before joining the Canadian practice. In 2003, she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration at HEC Montréal and in 2005, a Master of Organization Studies at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. In 2010, she completed an intensive tax course at the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. She is a frequent speaker on equity related tax matters at webinars and conferences. She also served as a board member for a non-for-profit youth theatre production company for 5 years.

With more than 17 years of progressive experience in the equity plans industry, Sheila leads Computershare’s North American plans business to help clients harness the team’s expertise and simplify the administrative needs of managing an employee equity program. Prior to this role, Sheila led the US plans client relationship management team that delivered comprehensive solutions for plans recordkeeping, employee mobility tracking, year-end tax reporting, and plan participant communications.

Sheila earned her Certified Equity Professional (CEP) designation in 2006 and is an active speaker on topics ranging from equity plan design, plan administration, employee participant communications, and global legislation such as China SAFE, data privacy, mobility tracking, and taxation. Sheila has previously served on the executive board for the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP). She was also recognized for her support in the awareness and growth initiatives for the Southern California chapter of the Global Equity Organization (GEO) and now sits on the GEO Board of Directors. Sheila earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and an MBA degree from Pepperdine University.

Kelley Garrett is Senior Manager, Employee Investment Services at Amazon.com based in Seattle. Kelley leads a team responsible for stock plan compliance along with the equity component of global expansion and mergers and acquisitions. She also oversees employee experience and communications strategy for Amazon’s equity program. Amazon.com operates a broad-based restricted stock unit program for over 480,000 employees in 53 countries. Kelley has over 20 years of experience working with employee equity programs for U.S. multi-national companies.

Prior to joining Amazon in 2013, she spent 13 years in equity compensation roles at Microsoft. Kelley received her B.A. in History from the University of Washington and M.B.A. with an emphasis in Human Resource Management from Seattle University. She earned her Certified Equity Professional (CEP) designation in 2001. Kelley has served on the GEO Board of Directors since 2016. Previously, she held Board positions with the Certified Equity Professional Advisory Board, the NASPP Seattle Chapter, and The Junior League of Seattle.

Don-Tobias Jol is a partner at Baker McKenzie’s Amsterdam practice, and he leads the firm’s Dutch Compensation & Benefits advisory group. He has practiced in the area of global equity and executive compensation for over 19 years, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Global Equity Organization. Don-Tobias has authored several articles on global compensation issues for Management Scope, CFO Magazine, Banking Review and the Bulletin for International Fiscal Documentation, among others. He is also a frequent speaker on a variety of global equity topics. Don-Tobias holds degrees in tax and civil law from the universities of Leiden and Amsterdam respectively. He is fluent in Dutch, English, French, German and Spanish.

Adie transformed her career from an auditor in public accounting to an in-house mobility compensation and tax specialist at Citi 22 years ago, where she started her involvement in employee share ownership. With her current role, she is responsible for Citi’ share plan strategic and operation management including specific plan designs for Asia countries with local regulatory requirements. She sits in Citi’s global steering committees for equity compensation and global process owner projects for cross-border employees, mobility and equity compensation. Adie has initiated the Citi Asia’s frequent business travelers and secondments travel tracking and management and control project 18 years ago; leading Citi as the subject market leader in the industry. Adie has also built a business strategic function with the business sectors for mobility talent planning and management. In addition, she has also been a key player of the HR engagements in Citi’s various M&A projects in the region.

She enjoys the role in offering her the opportunity and challenges in utilizing her knowledge in collaborating with global and the other regions for delivering the efficiency and best practices in the organization. Adie formed the Financial Service Industry Equity Compensation and Tax Round Table Forum in Hong Kong to share the industry best practice. She also is an active speaker in local and overseas conferences and seminars covering employee share ownership, mobility talent management and compensation, and tax.

Adie is a current GEO Board of Directors member. Her involvement with GEO began in 2005 and has been actively engaged in GEO as conference speaker, issuer council member, chapter coordinator and GEO award judge. She is a 2016 GEO Star Award recipient and is one of the founding members of The Greater China Chapter (former Hong Kong Chapter), which was award for “New Chapter of the Year” in 2017 GEO Conference.

Lindsay Minnis is a partner at Baker McKenzie in New York. Lindsay heads the New York Office's Global Equity Services practice, which assists multinational companies of all sizes with the design, implementation and administration of their equity compensation plans. Lindsay focuses her practice on international compensation and benefit programs for global companies. She advises companies on program design, implementation and compliance matters, including tax considerations, securities filing and disclosure requirements, exchange control rules, labor law exposure, data privacy concerns and other legal issues involved with offering incentive programs in different jurisdictions. She also counsels clients on the effects of mergers, reorganizations, spin-offs or other complex corporate transactions in relation to their benefit and incentive arrangements. Lindsay is a frequent speaker and commentator on global equity topics, in venues including the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, the Global Equity Organization, and the New York Compensation Association.

Marc Muntermann joined Siemens Energy March 2020. Marc Muntermann holds a graduate degree in vocational studies and economic education from the University of Cologne where he specialized in the fields of Vocational Education and Corporate Development and Organization and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) where he specialized in Accounting.

Within Siemens Energy AG, Marc is leading the Global Compensation and Benefits team as well as the Executive HR team. In this position he is responsible for the design and governance of the Managing Board & Executive remuneration as well as all other personal matters. As global C&B Head, Marc is responsible for the entire compensation and benefits strategy and execution with a strong focus on digitization.

Before joining Siemens Energy, Marc had various roles within Siemens AG. Beforehand he was practice leader in Willis Towers Watson’s Talent & Rewards line of business where he was responsible for Global Data Services and conducted consulting activities with regards to non-executives, executives, executive board, and supervisory board remuneration.

Hannah Needle is a Legal Director and on the Board of Directors at Tapestry Compliance, an award-winning UK law firm specialising in global equity incentives. She advises many leading global companies (many of whom are listed) on the implementation and operation of all forms of global executive and employee equity and incentive plans, including the design and establishment of new plans, global compliance, managing grants and maturities under existing plans and on technical tax and legal matters. She also has significant experience with tax-qualified and non-tax-qualified arrangements and the use of employee trusts. Hannah also advises on the impact of corporate transactions that may affect a company’s global incentive arrangements.

Hannah leads on Tapestry’s legal services, and is therefore instrumental in the delivery, development and quality of the firm’s legal advice, both in the UK and globally. Always focussed on helping clients to achieve their goals, Hannah was recently instrumental in obtaining a ground-breaking clearance for a new plan to ensure her client could align the interests of employees with those of its shareholders, whilst also delivering significant tax efficiencies. Hannah is heavily involved in GEO, having served on the Board of Directors for the first time over the last year. She is also honoured to hold fellowship status and so is recognised as an industry leading professional. She is also on the Providers’ Alliance Council. She is the Co-Chair of the Share Plan Lawyers’ Governance and Regulatory Committee in the UK and leads a number of the Committee’s working groups, notably with local regulators on changes to UK equity legislation post Brexit.

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. He has been instrumental in designing the company’s short and long-term incentive plans, including securing shareholder approval of five equity plans. Other accomplishments include building a global team to centralize support of Total Rewards, automating many compensation and payroll processes, driving a global benefit philosophy, and integrating many acquisitions into Gallagher from a rewards and equity perspective.

Tom joined Gallagher from Tellabs, a telecommunications infrastructure manufacturer. As Director of Global Compensation and Benefits, he was responsible for all broad-based and executive programs. Prior to Tellabs, he had twenty years of extensive background in the telecommunications industry in sales compensation, direct sales, sales management, and sales operations. Tom has served on the GEO Board of Directors since 2017, and serves as Secretary of the Executive Committee, Chair of the Issuer Advisory Council, and as Lead Judge for the GEO Awards. 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, Ayco, NASPP, CEPI, Equilar, World at Work, and the Conference Board. Tom has also been involved with Junior Achievement for nearly 40 years, and has served on the Junior Achievement DuPage County Board of Directors for nearly 20 years.

Joseph has been a member of the BDO family since 2010, with previous Big Four and regional experience. He has extensive knowledge in International Assignment Services, Global Mobility, and Global Equity taxation. Joseph and has worked with BDO clients to resolve matters in both tax related compliance and consulting areas of practice, including compensation and tax policy design, training, and implementation as well as establishing himself as an arbitrator between taxpayers and tax authorities. Joseph has introduced various international policies and tax technology solutions to a multitude of clients while holding consultations with human resources, tax, payroll, and finance personnel, as well as other company stakeholders and employees. Joseph’s expertise stems from working with clients in multiple industries, including finance, automotive, manufacturing, human resources, technology, and oil and gas.

Mitan joined Fidelity in 2018 and is the European Regional Lead for its Stock Plan Services business based in London. Mitan explores business opportunities in key global markets, while supporting Fidelity’s equity compensation platform and business growth ambitions.

Mitan has extensive experience in both broad-based and executive compensation plans on an international level. He began working in the international equity compensation industry in 2000. Prior to joining Fidelity, Mitan held senior roles at Equatex (formerly part of Swiss bank UBS), Computershare, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup.

Mitan was elected as a board member of the Global Equity Organization (GEO) in July 2016, and has served as the co-chair of the GEO Provider Council. Mitan received a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Brunel University in London, and has held the ICSA certificate in Employee Share Plans since 2003.

Maria Robins is a seasoned professional in the equity compensation and executive services business lines. Maria has work in the financial services industry over 30+ years and has served in roles such as sales, marketing, relationship management and currently is Head of Events Management and Operations for the new and growing Morgan Stanley at Work division. Morgan Stanley at Work consists of the Retirement Services, Financial Wellness and the Equity Management business which includes both E Trade Corporate Services and Shareworks. Maria currently services on the GEO Board as well as the New York City Geo chapter leadership team, and is a member of the Rutgers Center for Employee Ownership Board, as well as the NY/NJ NASPP chapter. Maria holds Series 7, 66, 63 and 24 licenses.

Charissa is a Director in PwC’s Executive Reward practice since June 2022, assisting a wide range of companies in the field of executive compensation and long-term incentive plans. She has experience on (re)structuring, implementation, stakeholder communication, as well as national wage tax and expatriate taxes. Before PwC, Charissa gained 10 years of experience in this field at Deloitte. Charissa holds a Master Degree in Tax Law (University of Tilburg) and completed a Post-master International and European tax law (Erasmus University Rotterdam) as well as a Compensation & Benefits Management programme (Vlerick Business School in Brussels). She is the author of multiple publications on equity compensation and teaches on management participation and compensation & benefits.

Jennifer Thomas is currently Head of Equity at Stripe. There she is responsible for all things equity, including growing the team from 2 to 8 equity professionals! Before joining Stripe in November 2021, Jennifer was Director of Stock Services at Oracle. Prior to that, she held various roles on the Alphabet / Google Global Equity Management team, including nearly three years based in London! Jennifer spent the earlier part of her career in financial services, having worked in many different roles at both Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab. Jennifer has an Executive MBA from California State University, Northridge, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. She serves in various capacities at several non-profits as well.

Julie Vander Veen is the Head of Corporate Relationship Management for the Workplace Wealth Services business at UBS. She is responsible for the strategic direction and development of the corporate client experience for organizations around the globe. With extensive knowledge of the equity compensation space and a passion for high quality solutions, Julie is able to translate the complexities of the industry into clear and practical sense for clients. As a result, her group has been consistently recognized as leader in delivering value and service to global participants.

Julie's more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry coupled with her constant involvement in the equity space give her a broad perspective and unique insights when providing guidance and designing solutions for her clients.

Prior to joining UBS, Julie had a variety of executive leadership positions, including Head of the Stock Plan Services business at BNY Mellon and Senior Vice President at Citi. Julie is a constant presenter and contributor to numerous panels at conferences focused on the equity compensation industry.

Julie received her Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State University. She currently sits on the Global Equity Organization Board of Directors and is a long-time member of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP). She holds FINRA Series 7, 24, and 66 securities licenses.

Jessica Vinsand is the Director, Total Rewards for Chainalysis, a privately held Fintech. In this role, she is responsible for all aspects of compensation and benefits from stock options to home office stipends. Prior to this role, Jessica has led the Rewards function at Trustly, Inc., and held various global roles in Total Rewards at SAP within the Equity Design and Total Rewards Innovation Lab teams. Before SAP, Jessica worked for Global Shares and Certent. Jessica has been a member of the Global Equity Organization Board of Directors for multiple years, focusing on the development of educational opportunities like Basics Bootcamp.

Carine Schneider, FGE is an experienced and well-connected leader in private market and global compensation industry with deep experience working in consulting, technology & financial services. She is the President of AST Private Company Solutions, Inc, which provides a SaaS software called Astrella to support cap table and share plan tracking ownership tracking to companies worldwide. She was recently selected as one of the 20 Most Inspirational Women Leaders by Women Leaders Magazine. She was named one of 17 “Women to Watch” in 2017 by Brown Brothers Harriman Center on Women and Wealth and one of the 100 Influential Women in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. In 2019, she received the Proshare Award for Services to Employee Share Ownership.

Carine was formerly the President, NASDAQ Private Market Equity Solutions, serving privately held companies. She was responsible for worldwide sales, marketing and operations. She has held various leadership positions including CEO of Certent, founder/CEO of Global Shares, Partner at PwC, Director of Strategic Planning with Smith Barney and was the Leader of the Global Stock Plan Services at Towers Watson. In 1992, Carine was the founding Executive Director of the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals (NASPP). Carine started her career as Manager of Shareholder Relations at Oracle Corporation where she assisted in the IPO and managed all aspects of the company's various stock plans. Carine served on the Board of Directors of both EASi and Global Shares.

In 1999, Ms. Schneider founded GEO. She currently serves as the Chair Emeritus.

Ms. Schneider was born in The Netherlands and speaks Dutch and English. She received her degree in Psychology & Sociology from the University of California. She is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world, including President Obama’s 2016 Global Entrepreneurial Summit, and has authored various articles and chapters in industry publications. She published her first book, "The Democratization of the Private Market" in November, 2021.