Leadership Team
Christopher Rice (Chris.Rice@BlessingWhite.com)
President and CEO
Recognized in each of the last two years as a "Top 100" thought leader by Leadership Excellence, Chris's expertise is regularly featured in business and human capital media, including Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Management Update, Newsday, Training Magazine, Talent Management, and HR Magazine. His contributions include a chapter on the connection between organizational culture and employee engagement in the reference Building High-Performance People and Organizations.
Chris works with senior-level clients, providing executive coaching and consulting on culture, leadership, strategic planning, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction. Recent clients include Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Euro RSCG Life, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Founded in 1973, BlessingWhite became employee-owned in 2001 after Chris led a buy-out to purchase the firm from Wolters Kluwer N.V., the Dutch publishing company.
Before joining BlessingWhite, Chris held senior executive positions at Drake Beam Morin, The Gallup Organization, and AchieveGlobal. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
Chris is Chairman of our Board of Directors.
Tom Barry (Tom.Barry@BlessingWhite.com)
Managing Director, UK
Tom established BlessingWhite's UK office during his first tenure with us and grew the business from a small arm of a US company to a substantial division in its own right. He returned in 2005 as Managing Director to lead our current staff in developing and implementing solutions in Europe.
Clients at ABN AMRO, Amlin PLC and TNS value Tom's breadth of business and management experience and the early and practical results that this brings. He has worked in a leadership capacity with three coaching, leadership and career change businesses and most recently as Business Development Director with outsourcing specialists Williams Lea. Tom went to Oriel College, Oxford.
Chris Brunone (chris.brunone@BlessingWhite.com)
Senior Vice President, East Coast and Heartland Region
As management team member, Chris oversees all sales operations and consulting activity east of the Mississippi to the East Coast, from Maine to Minnesota, to Texas and Florida. Chris has a determined passion for helping leaders in sales, service and technical organizations accelerate performance at each step of a leaders' progression by developing and deploying higher and deeper levels of leadership communication skills to more purposefully inspire higher levels of commitment while attaining the results required by the business.
At the end of the day, leadership drives culture and financial and market success. His sales leadership, consulting and executive coaching experience help grow both BW's global leadership and engagement practices. Clients include Analog Devices, BearingPoint, Capital One, Euro RSCG, KPMG, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Prudential, SHRM, Toys R Us, TYCO, Weichert Relocation and many others. Before joining the management team at BlessingWhite in 2006, Chris served as Executive Director of Global Accounts at The Ken Blanchard Companies for nine outstanding years including holding a key role on The Office of The Future and Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Golle & Holmes Custom Education for twelve years where he was recognized for his creativity and commitment to client success. He holds a BS in Finance and an MBA in Marketing from Seton Hall University.
Fraser Marlow (Fraser.Marlow@blessingwhite.com)
Vice President, Marketing & Asia-Pacific
Fraser heads the company's worldwide Marketing capabilities and research function. He also oversees activities in Asia Pacific.
Fraser has held global marketing and product management roles for the last 16 years, working out of the UK, Sweden, Canada and the USA. Prior to joining BlessingWhite in 2007 Fraser was Head of E-commerce and Director of Web Marketing at GE Healthcare.
Fraser works with clients on employee engagement, effective internal communication strategies and optimizing managerial buy-in for large-scale implementations.
He holds a business degree from the University of Bradford School of Management in the UK.
Paula Murray (Paula.Murray@blessingwhite.com)
Senior Vice President, Northeast
Paula manages our team in the Northeast working with clients from New York to Boston including Western New York. Her experiences with our clients include major implementations for Pfizer, Coach, Citigroup, and Avon, to name a few. Paula was with BlessingWhite from 2001-2006 and has recently returned.
Before re-joining BlessingWhite, Paula was the Vice President of Sales for TransitCenter (TransitChek) in New York. Past positions included General Manager for Kaplan Test Prep in New Jersey, Eastern Region Vice President for AchieveGlobal, and Vice President of Sales for Porter Henry and Company.
Paula holds a BA from Albright College and graduate work in Public Administration at The George Washington University.
Alysa Polkes (alysa.polkes@blessingwhite.com)
Vice President, Account Management
Alysa oversees BlessingWhite's Western US operation. She works with organizations to develop inspiring leaders, engage employees at all levels, and create high performing cultures. Her clients span an array of industries from technology to entertainment, manufacturing to pharmaceutical/biotech, consumer product goods to utilities and oil. In addition to partnering closely with clients, Alysa facilitates programs and speaks regularly at industry conferences.
Previously, she was Chief of Staff and Director of the MBA Career Management Center at The Anderson School at UCLA. She has also been on the faculty of UCLA/Anderson School’s “Women’s Leadership Institute” – an Executive Education program. She held similar positions at the Wharton School/U of Penn.
Alysa spent four years in marketing at The Procter & Gamble Company. Earlier in her career, she worked for the United Nations in Vienna, Austria. She has launched and directed a Presidential Commission on Eastern Europe as well as founded and managed a private consulting and career counseling practice.
Alysa has a B.A., magna cum laude, from Brandeis University and a M.A. in International Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Harvard/Tufts Universities.
Matthew Varava (Matt.Varava@BlessingWhite.com)
Chief Operating Officer / Chief Financial Officer
Matt is responsible for BlessingWhite's corporate finance function and growing team of technologists for the past 11 years. He played a key role in our 2001 employee buyout and sits on our Board of Directors. Matt's commitment to client and shareholder value enables us to respond quickly to client requests with cost-effective, cutting-edge solutions.
Matt also lends his consulting expertise, by heading up our Employee Engagement practice. He has been actively involved in client implementations involving Employee Engagement measurement and Balanced Scorecard initiatives.
He has worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers and was the Controller/CFO at Hough Petroleum Corporation. He holds undergraduate degrees from University of Pennsylvania and Rowan University, and an MBA Finance from Philadelphia University.