Martin L. Vaughan
Martin L. Vaughn III (Mell) served as Chairman and CEO of Hilb, Rogal and Hamilton Company (HRH), the world’s eighth largest insurance intermediary, from 2003 until the acquisition of HRH by Willis in 2008, which he negotiated. The acquisition was considered one of the biggest deals in decades valued at $2.1 billion. Vaughan previously served as chief operating officer of HRH and president. Vaughan joined HRH in 1999, when the company acquired American Phoenix Corporation, of which he was president and chief executive officer. He led the integration of the two companies and later spearheaded the company’s Best Practices initiative. Before joining American Phoenix in 1990, he was president of the retail division of Poe & Associates, an insurance agency into which he had merged his own agency in 1976. He is a graduate of Jacksonville University.
Rick Morgan
Morgan is listed as one of the “100 Most Powerful People in the Insurance Industry.” He is a Senior Associate at Aartrijk, a Washington, D.C. area branding firm, and served as he interim CEO of ASCnet (Applied Systems Client Network). He is chairman of the IIABA ACT Web 2.0 Workgoup and a Director-at-Large for Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of NY. From 2003 to 2007, Morgan was Senior Vice President of Marketing for Applied Systems, a leading agency management system vendor. Previously, Morgan was Vice President of Marketing for Delphi Information Systems (Nasdaq: ebix), also a leading agency management systems vendor. Morgan was co-founder of HIGH-TECC, an industry-wide educational event. He was the founding editor of The Automated Agency Report, and his articles have appeared in Independent Agent publications. Morgan launched Insurance Reference Systems, which created Silver Plume, the insurance reference material CD-ROM. This product revolutionized the way insurance reference material was distributed and benefited both agents and insurance companies. Morgan was co-owner of an independent agency, Holtgrewe-Morgan & Associates.
Edie Weiner
Weiner is president of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., a leading futurist consulting group. Formed in 1977, WEB has served over 300 clients (corporate, academic, government) in identifying opportunities in the areas of marketing, product development, strategic planning, investments, human resources, public affairs and advertising. Clients have ranged from the U.S. Congress to many of the Fortune 500. She is acknowledged as one of the most influential practitioners of social, technological, political and economic intelligence-gathering. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications, including The Harvard Business Review, The Futurist, and The Wall Street Journal. She has co-authored four books with her partner Arnold Brown: Supermanaging (McGraw-Hill 1984), Office Biology (MasterMedia 1993), Insider’s Guide to the Future (Bottom Line, 1997), and FutureThink (Prentice Hall, 2006). She serves on numerous Boards and Advisory Boards, including the US Comptroller General’s Advisory Board, the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, Independent Agents & Brokers of New York, The Women’s Leadership Exchange, Boardroom Inc., and The SciFi Channel.
Sheldon Czapnik
Czapnik has been a writer, editor, and a top executive in the publishing field for over 30 years. Czapnik currently works with publishers and other executives to write and develop books for publication. At Time Inc., the largest magazine publisher in the United States, Czapnik was Director of Editorial Services from 1996 to 2001. In that role he was responsible for managing and monetizing all of Time Inc.’s text and picture assets. He transformed antiquated, paper-driven, reactive cost centers into one vigorous, entrepreneurial, high-tech revenue-producing division. Czapnik conceived and editorially directed Time Inc.’s custom publishing business, with over $60 million a year in revenue; developed award-winning digital system for making Time Inc.’s image archive available on-line; created an award-winning “virtual” Research Center, cutting costs by several million dollars a year and also generating millions in revenue; opened photo lab and other retail outlets; and conceived and produced photo books, including the best-selling LIFE: Our Century in Pictures, which sold 700,000 copies and generated over $20 million in sales. From 1988 to 1995, Czapnik was Time Inc.’s Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief/Director of Editorial Operations. From 1984 to 1988, Czapnik was Assistant Managing Editor, Administration at Sports Illustrated and Assistant Editor at Newsweek magazine.