our dedicated crew
Meet Our Founder
Ben Brooks
Founder & CEO
Inspired by his successful business & executive coaching practice, Ben saw an opportunity to democratize executive coaching and founded PILOT. Previously, Ben held a number of leadership and management roles at Lockheed Martin, Oliver Wyman, and Marsh & McLennan Companies, where his last role was as SVP of HR, where he was named a “rising star” by HR Executive Magazine and later was featured on its cover for his innovative work in human capital. He started his career at Enterprise Rent-a-Car. In the community, Ben served on the board of directors for OutServe-SLDN, the organization that spearheaded the successful effort to end the Department of Defense's discriminatory Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, and he co-founded the LGBT employee resource group at his management consulting firm. He unexpectedly let go of his long-held aspirations to climb the corporate ladder and instead has chosen to fly his own plane.
Ben Brooks was named one of HR Tech’s top 100 HR Tech Influencers, check it out here.
Meet Our Crew
Amy Shade
Director of Product & Delivery
Leading a team of talented PILOT crew, Amy works to translate PILOT's vision into the creation of innovative and engaging technology to make coaching more inclusive and equitable for everyone. Having over fifteen years of project management and software development experience, Amy also studied and has a passion for how organizations navigate and implement change for the better. These two aspects find true synergy in her role at PILOT. When she’s not working on PILOT, Amy is the manager of one very chaotic but fun household as a mom to two very energetic kids and wife to a wonderful husband.
Rachel Crice
Head of Product & Delivery
Rachel is our engine for Product & Delivery, where she collaborates on creating impactful coaching products and works closely with members to energize and challenge them. She comes from a background of growing & assisting startups. Rachel is passionate about mental health initiatives and finding ways to disrupt the human experience to create meaningful change. She holds a Bachelor's in Business Administration with a concentration in Entrepreneurship. When she isn't working on PILOT, you can find her experimenting with skincare & makeup, behind a camera or spending time with her family and dog.
Beth Gatsik
Executive Assistant to the CEO
Beth is a seasoned Executive Assistant with a background in real estate & the financial services industry. As a veteran “Right Hand”, she loves to tackle new challenges and support her team. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications with a minor in Business Administration. Having explored living in numerous beautiful places, Beth always calls NY home. When she isn’t working, you can find her hiking the many scenic trails in the Hudson Valley, cheering for her son, both on and off the playing field, going to concerts, and spending time with friends and family.
Corey Ann Seldon
Director of Customer Success
Corey Ann Seldon is the Client Success Manager at PILOT and loves helping people grow their skills, find purpose in their work, and achieve greatness.
Corey Ann has spent the majority of her career supporting innovative teams in a variety of fields, from nonprofits to online education programs to video technology. She's obsessed with intentional leadership, dynamic facilitation, and creative problem-solving.
While Corey Ann brings her full self to her work, she fills up her cup by spending time with her family and celebrating staff members at nonprofits across the US through a project called Celebrate the Helpers.
Taylor Kabeary
Customer Success Manager
Taylor is a Customer Success Manager at PILOT where she ensures that each customer feels and sees the value of PILOT and is deeply supported throughout their entire experience.
Taylor started her career in Student Affairs working with new student programming and events, where she developed a passion for small-scale community building. She has held several roles with an operational skew in the events and hospitality fields, and loves anything that requires meticulous organization and creativity through processes.
Taylor is a historic preservationist in her off hours, spending time with her closest friend and fellow preservationist to tell stories about marginalized communities within the preservation field.
She spends her free time going for walking adventures in whatever city she is in, reading for long stretches at her local parks, and of course, visiting museums.
Beth McDonnell
Customer Success Manager
Beth McDonnell strategically collaborates with PILOT clients to not only meet, but exceed their goals, fostering transformative engagement and empowerment.
Beth is deeply passionate about strategic decision-making, collaborative leadership, dynamic problem-solving, and cultivating diverse business relationships. Her utmost job satisfaction stems from her unwavering personal commitment to ensuring client success and a remarkable experience.
Jeff Walburg
Strategic Account Executive
Jeff helps organizations connect their unique objectives and challenges to create unparalleled value with PILOT’s solutions. Combining authenticity and tenacity, Jeff uses his expertise in enterprise selling, go-to-market strategy, and organizational decision-making to consistently deliver value to PILOT clients and prospective customers.
In addition, his life is often filled by regular outdoor excursions with his two young boys, wine-tasting with friends, and as an amateur home DIYer with his wife.
Josh Young
Strategic Account Executive
Josh is a veteran Account Executive with a career in sales that spans 15+ years. Josh's diverse industry experience helps him provide companies with unique perspectives on solving business problems. He enjoys developing new relationships and is passionate about helping clients reach their desired end state.
He spends his non-working hours navigating life with his wife and three children, exercising, listening to podcasts, and wishing he could play more golf.
Layton Boyd
Sr Sales Business Development Manager
Layton is a Senior Sales Development Rep Business Development Manager with exceptional planning and implementation capabilities. Highly trained in Sales Marketing with an in-depth understanding of users, requirements gathering, and market trends. Adept at cultivating, managing, and leveraging client relationships.
Layton has worked with the Sales Marketing Team to build relationships with multiple clients and is certified in Hubspot Sales, Social Media Marketing, and Media Sales.
A musician by nature, Layton spends his weekends with his children and performs around the country.
Damian Wisniewski
Sales Advisor
Damian is the COO and Founder of Miter, an early stage meetings startup located in San Francisco.
Damian eliminates bad meetings by focusing on the most important aspect of any meeting: its outcome. His goal is to help teams drive towards meaningful results and better decision-making.
Mel Marquez
Product & Delivery Coordinator
Mel is a Product & Delivery Coordinator, supporting the operational needs related to delivering, designing and enhancing the PILOT experience. They have a background in administrative consulting with over 15 years of experience in Project Management, Operations, Marketing, Logistics and Tech.
They have always had a strong desire to work with social innovators looking for creative ways to share ideas and connect with others. They hold a fundamental belief that gaining a deep understanding of the needs, hopes, and aspirations of those they work with, and the lives they lead, yields incredible inspiration for new solutions.
In their free time, Mel enjoys riding their electric moped around the city of Chicago, hosting community-organization groups, creating music/art, and hanging out with their partner and new rescue pup.
Alyson Rinaldi
Product & Delivery Coordinator
Alyson is the Product & Delivery Coordinator for PILOT, where she ensures that access to PILOT's career development program is fast, easy and reliable for our members.
As a seasoned virtual assistant, Alyson has supported a variety of clients in different industries across the startup world. She is genuinely passionate about providing phenomenal customer service.
Alyson also has a passion for personal growth and development and believes that almost anything is possible if you're willing to commit and work towards it.
Having healed herself from a long term debilitating illness, healthy living, and maintaining a positive mindset are high priorities for Alyson. There's no place she'd rather be than by the ocean, or deep in the forest, enjoying nature with her family.
Admira Adovic
Chief Financial Officer
Admira is a dynamic financial professional with over 10 years of experience in accounting and financial analysis. Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, she developed an interest in understanding the why’s. She decided to pursue her degree in Business Economics at Oakland University, combined with Masters in Accounting at CUNY. In her free time, Admira loves to be outdoors exploring nature, capturing its beauty with her camera.
Galina Antonova
Staff Accountant
Galina is a skilled accounting professional with a degree in Accounting and Finance from Brooklyn College. Galina is passionate about organizing data and presenting it in a meaningful way. Outside of work, she enjoys outdoor activities such as biking and kayaking.
Audra Williams
Marketing & Communications Consultant
Audra is a writer and strategist with an intuition for finding common ground and building community. Most of all, she loves creating accessible content that helps people engage with complex issues. This has driven her work as a political speechwriter, a newspaper columnist, and the online public face of several campaigns and brands. She can talk to someone for five minutes and figure out what they know that could change the world, and who they have to tell to make that happen. (Give her another couple of minutes and she can usually find the name of that person in her contacts list.)
Korey Rich
Social Media Consultant
Korey is a brand and marketing specialist with a knack for the world of digital. She has a passion to help individuals and companies understand how they’re uniquely making the world a better place, then helping the right audiences see that clearly, too! She especially loves using social media as a tool to connect the right brands with the right people. Her love for learning and desire to challenge herself enables her to keep up with the ever-changing social media trends and marketing tactics. When she’s not at work, you can find her in Richmond, Virginia enjoying nature with her husband and two toddlers, working in her vegetable garden, or experimenting with new healthy recipes.
Alistair Marshall
Coach
Alistair is certified in the Co-Active model of coaching, via the Coach Training Institute (CTI), and he combines these philosophies with over 15 years of executive experience. Alistair held senior leadership roles within the retail industry in both the USA and UK, most notably at Dior and Ted Baker, before taking the role of VP of Retail at Hugo Boss for the US territory. He has experience developing brands and teams in emerging markets, creating people strategies to support business growth and building a dynamic, progressive and successful company culture.
Lisa Lindsey
Coach
Lisa is an executive coach and human resources consultant with experience enhancing the performance of individuals, teams and organizations. She specializes in leadership and employee development, organizational change and development and culture building. Throughout her career, she has developed a unique ability to understand the circumstances underlying a situation. Coupled with a practical approach to leadership and an innate understanding of human behavior in the workplace, she works to help individuals gain clarity around situations, build their capabilities and make meaningful changes while managing demanding careers.
Ayana Coston Jordan
Coach
Ayana is a ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC), who was trained and certified by the Coactive Training Institute (CTI). Ayana is an HR professional with over 19 years of experience in diverse roles and industries within the corporate arena. She has held various HR executive, specialist, and generalist roles, specializing in talent development and leadership coaching. Ayana relies on the LUMA human centered design process in her facilitation as well as experience in Organizational Development. She completed her Bachelor’s in psychology at Temple University and her Master’s in OD at American University. Ayana ensures people feel included on the most sensitive and important topics, from politics to gender and race relations. Ayana lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, and enjoys warm weather, beach vacations, and cooking at home!
Yassir Islam
Coach
As a certified Co-Active coach, Yassir connects people and organizations to their innermost purpose so they can lead more powerfully and have more impact in the world. He brings branding and strategic communications experience to help clients create clarity in vision, shift mindsets, and translate insights into action. Yassir has three decades of experience in the non-profit sector, primarily with international organizations. He considers himself a citizen of the world. Yassir grew up in several African countries and has lived in India, the United Kingdom, the USA, and now Portugal. He enjoys meditation, the arts, being in nature, and of course, travel and exploration. And he loves a good poem!
Julian Yaeger
Coach
Julian has 10+ years of experience in coaching, teaching, training, organizational effectiveness and change, and leadership development. He believes that all people have unlimited potential and that leaders and managers have a unique platform from which they can help unleash that potential in others. On a mission to help democratize coaching, Julian is driven to make professional level leadership and executive coaching available to more people.
Tiffany Chan
Coach
Tiffany is an Executive Coach and Spiritual Counselor. She brings over 15 years of global experience working directly with CEOs, Heads of State, and Civil Society leaders.
Tiffany is a certified Co-Active Coach and an Energetic Healer. By working directly with the quantum field, Tiffany empowers leaders to create lasting, loving, positive change. Tiffany has lived and worked across four continents and has been recognized as a Global Leadership Fellow at the World Economic Forum.
Matt Corker
Coach
Matt is an impact-oriented executive with a track record of transforming business operations and people. He was the CEO of a people consultancy that helped organizations recruit, develop, and coach top talent, and he has also held various leadership roles in organizations facing different crises - from product quality concerns to navigating the impact of declining sales, to managing and retaining frontline workers during a global pandemic. Matt excels in uncharted environments that require simplicity, courage, and a fresh approach.
He holds an MBA from the Copenhagen Business School, is a dynamic Integral Coach, loves being outside with his son, and is a two-time lip sync battle champion.
Peggy Sousa
Coach
Peggy is a corporate leader with a broad and deep range of Fortune 100 business knowledge and skills. Peggy utilizes her extensive real-world experience and proven coaching skills in driving leaders through change and successfully bringing them to the next level of professional excellence while creating value and bottom-line growth for the organization.
After numerous successful corporate roles, Peggy decided to focus her next career stage on the development and professional growth of others - for her, one the most personally rewarding aspects of leadership.
Peggy is a Columbia University Certified Executive Coach and an ICF Certified Coach with certification in the Hogan Leadership Assessments. She received her B.A. from New York University. Peggy served on the board of ACCION East (now Ascendus), a non-profit microfinance organization for small business entrepreneurs.
Heather Symone
Coach
Heather is an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC), with training in the Co-Active Model through the Coaches Training Institute. She also has studied Relationship Systems Coaching with CRR Global and enjoys helping clients strengthen their social and emotional gifts in all their relationships.
Her coaching style is warm, celebratory, and curious. Heather has also been an ESL educator for over 9 years, serving adult language learners from over 65 countries. She learns just as much from her international students as they learn from her.
Heather is originally from Louisiana (Laissez les bon temps roller!) and loves enjoying a decadent dessert (usually before dinner). She has 3 of the most amazing nephews on the planet and savors the time when she gets to interact with them.
Tanaya Acharekar
Coach
A strong believer of this quote by Henry Ford, “Anybody who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young “. Tanaya has been in the field of Human Development and Education for the last 13+ years. She has crafted and delivered hundreds of sessions online and offline, created online courses, written and published research papers. Tanaya now is a career coach helping professionals resolve career dilemmas to feel more satisfied and happier about their choices. Tanaya has to her credit various coaching certifications like ICF PCC, Emotional Intelligence, Hypnosis, Group Coaching, and NLP and also credentials in Training and Development and Facilitation.
She is a passionate cook and an artsy individual. In her leisure time, you will find her cooking, reading, creating a DIY or heading out for a walk.
Laura Rae Meverden
Producer
Laura is a seasoned Leadership Development Specialist with over 25 years of coaching, teaching, and training experience. Most recently, Laura was the Regional Training Manager for the YMCA of the USA where she supported the training needs of 25 states. Laura has her Doctorate in Organizational Leadership and Educational Technology. One of her specialties is working with clients and helping them manage their ADHD and distracted brains. Laura lives in Neenah Wisconsin with her husband, two boys, and Umbrella Cockatoo. Laura loves to read, swim, watch musical theatre and hang out by the lake.
Quchee Collins
Producer
Quchee is the highest-ranking uniformed officer at a mid-sized law enforcement agency in the City of New York. Over the course of his 16-year career in law enforcement, Quchee has attained extensive experience in employee recruitment, staff training, professional development and policy development. Quchee has taught and trained at a regional police academy in Northern Virginia, and has been responsible for the development of a Criminal Justice Academy in the City of New York, dedicated to training smaller New York City law enforcement agencies. Quchee continues to use career and life experiences to serve his community.
Laura Mastrorocco
Producer & Webinar Coordinator
Laura strives to live each day to it’s fullest and to help others do the same. She acknowledges and values each individual’s uniqueness. Laura works to ensure that everyone feels comfortable and confident in any virtual platform so that they can maximize their learning. She brings a sense of calm into the learning environment that she leverages from her yoga training.
Laura lives outside of Pittsburgh, PA with her husband where she enjoys hiking, mountain biking, and gourmet cooking. Traveling with her grown children is also a favorite activity.
Julien St-Hilaire
Producer
Julien has contributed to the success of several thousands of Virtual Trainings & Events in the past 11 years. Having evolved in the Live Events production industry, he carries extensive technical and planning skills that translate perfectly to the virtual events world. Based out of Montreal, Canada, Julien has also previously lived and worked in South America for several years, where he had the opportunity to further develop his languages and intercultural skills. He cherishes working in a global setting where he can continuously learn and share experiences that help him grow, both professionally and personally.
Jacqueline Ferras
Producer
Jacqueline has over 25 years of training experience with 20 in the virtual training industry. She is involved in creating a successful and secure environment for facilitators and participants in the synchronous classroom as a trainer, producer, event coordinator and designer.
As an eLearning professional, she actively Produces and Facilitates online sessions using all virtual training technologies. She is an experienced Producer with a demonstrated history of working in the professional training & coaching industry.
Helen Fong
Producer
Helen has 20+ years of experience in managing and delivering virtual learning experiences using various online collaboration tools such as Zoom and Webex. Her understanding of virtual synchronous tools, ability to read the virtual room, and manage the technical aspects of the sessions enable presenters to focus on delivering the content. She enjoys interacting and communicating with people from around the world.
Azure Rooths
Producer
Azure has been described as a thoughtful leader and teammate who finds joy when lives are transformed. She models servant leadership, cultural competence, compassionate coaching, and technical skill. Over 20 years of coaching personal and professional development in various governmental, nonprofit, and community learning settings, she achieved proven success passionately leading people and managing projects. Over the past 5 years, she and her husband found immense joy leading a group home, teaching self-parenting and resilience to 35 adjudicated youth of whom they are enormously proud. Azure enjoys spending time with family and laughing with friends. Her favorite pastimes include walking, hot yoga, and watching movies from the ’80s and ’90s. Azure’s goal is to motivate individuals to create the M.V.P.-focused life – a life of mission, vision, and purpose.
Grace Cook
Host
Grace has over 20 years of experience in marketing, partnerships and sales, specifically in the HR space.
She ran DisruptHR NYC for three years, where she met many interesting folks in HR and heard their stories and challenges. During the pandemic she produced and hosted a virtual daily gathering, bringing professionals together for inspiration on Zoom.
Grace is passionate about building communities virtually.
Dana Regan
Host
Dana is a professional certified Somatic Life Coach (PCC) and founder of the Somatic Soul Coach™ school. She brings over 15 years of experience working with entrepreneurs to teachers to C-suite executives. Dana partners with individuals and organizations to develop internal resources that unleash potential. By identifying core values, strengths, and motivators, clients develop a toolkit of strategies to accomplish their goals and pursue their vision.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Body/Mind Psychotherapy from Naropa University. She spends her time between New York’s Hudson Valley and Costa Rica where you can find her hiking scenic trails, skiing, surfing, experimenting in the kitchen and spending time with family.
Janeesha Jones
Host
Janeesha isan expert in supporting individuals and organizations in developing their emotional intelligence and promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in both personal and professional settings. She holds an ALA certification as a professional listener, and her expertise as a DEIA trainer and emotional intelligence coach is backed by years of experience.
Her focus on creating brave and inclusive spaces fosters an environment of open and honest communication, authentic relationship-building, and a sense of belonging. Janeesha is dedicated to creating a positive impact on the world and equipping individuals with the emotional intelligence skills needed to thrive in all areas of life.
Bola Akinola
Producer
Bola truly values the perspectives and growth experiences of all people - with a special affinity for helping develop the leadership traits in every one of them. While Bola is genuinely excited about a diversity of learning and engagement methods, she is particularly motivated by leadership development, coaching, mentoring relationships and helping people find the value they bring to and can get from their daily work lives. Skilled in project management and curriculum design, she has a particular passion for group facilitation. Bola has certifications in 360 leadership development, principles and practices in Organizational Development and her SHRM -CP. She holds a Bachelors in English Literature with a minor in Political Science.
Bola is a lover of all holidays and is EXCITED to be a part of this learning journey.
Kat Walsh
Consultant
Kat is the VP of Learning & Development for City Year, an education non-profit serving schools across the country. She has taught elementary school and trained new teachers in San Francisco & Oakland. Kat was the Alumni Board President of University of Denver’s Leadership Program and led the creation of a scholarship fund to support students in service-learning programs. Kat focuses on servant leadership and has spent her career empowering others. She is passionate about increasing efficiency and holds an MBA from the University of Denver. Her love of learning has served her well as she’s learned to become a mom to her energetic son Benji!
Ty Walrod
Advisor
Ty is the Program Director for On Deck Scale, a distinguished fellowship helping accelerate founders from seed stage to IPO, and Managing Member of Denali Summit Partners, which supports visionary, early-stage entrepreneurs as they work to tackle their greatest challenges and transform industries. He previously co-founded Bright Funds, a B2B SaaS platform for corporate philanthropy, and OutServe, a national nonprofit that played a material role in bringing an end to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Kut Akdogan
Strategist
Kut is a Managing Partner of Gaussian, a technology holding company that both builds and advises nimble B2B companies with astronomical visions. His team built the Visor and Sapium suites of research and strategy tools, and has advised companies on product, tech, transformation, org, operations and finance, across domains like medtech, AI, worktech, robotics, SaaS, industrials, and hard goods. Kut previously founded and ran the award-winning medical device company Hero Health, was a consultant at Bain for Fortune 500 healthcare and consumer tech companies, and wrote computer simulations of low earth orbit satellites.
Preston Smith
Marketing Consultant
Preston is a seasoned marketer with an intuition for revenue-focused marketing. With over 15 years of marketing experience working for fast pace organizations, he's been part of significant growth across multiple SAAS organizations. Preston thrives at creating predicable lead generation that produces fast pace and scalable growth.
In his spare time, Preston enjoys cooking, hiking, outdoors, throwing huge neighborhood parties, and spending time with his wife and 5 kids on their farm in Idaho.
Darren Perucci
Digital Marketing Advisor
Darren is a Marketing professional with more than 10 years of experience in digital marketing, growth marketing and communications. He loves working with clients to improve their overall marketing offering and get their messages to as many people as possible. He is an entrepreneur at heart and has many side hustles that keep him busy. When he’s not working, he loves to spend time outdoors—or really anywhere—with his wife and three children. Darren graduated with his MBA from Brigham Young University.
Joshua Spiegel
Legal Counsel
Joshua J. Spiegel, Esq., is an attorney and co-founder of Horzepa Spiegel & Associates, P.C., a boutique law firm specializing in business services for entrepreneurs, start-ups and early stage companies. Joshua has extensive experience in areas including, corporate transactional matters, employment matters, and the protection and monetization of intellectual property. Working with PILOT for years, he has been instrumental in helping to close deals and continue the success of the company.
Paul Julius
Technical Advisor
Paul also best known as PJ spent over 20 years working with Fortune 500 companies. He helped them adopt Agile engineering principles to gain competitive advantage. PJ cofounded the Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and DevOps movements. He persevered as part of a very small group early adopters. Those movements transformed the way that Enterprise software delivery occurs today. PJ also serves as CTO at Intent Media in New York and London. He also strives to help small tech companies by providing insights into how to scale.
Eliza Connor
Consultant
Eliza is a certified leadership coach and transformational facilitator with over 10 years of experience working with individuals, teams and organizations to activate the conditions for optimal success. With over eight years as a Learning & Leadership partner at lululemon and as a consultant for a wide variety of start-up organizations, Eliza integrates organizational purpose & values with behavior-based results. With her degree in Drama from NYU followed by over a decade of continued education and certification in coaching, mindfulness and adult learning, Eliza brings engagement, humor and the celebration of the diverse human condition to every aspect of her work.
Jeff Adams
Sales Advisor
Jeff is an accomplished CRO, with over 20 years of sales and marketing leadership experience, primarily in SaaS (Software as a Service). Jeff is responsible for all revenue generation, specifically creating integration and alignment between revenue functions, including sales, marketing, customer success, and business development.
Jeff is a master motivator and has a proven track record of empowering team members as individuals to help them excel personally and professionally. His experience in leadership, operations, marketing, international market expansion, sales, and team building are invaluable.
PILOT was part of 100 startups that applied to compete at the HR Tech Conference's Pitchfest, the industry's largest global event. And we won, the top prize! Learn more here and see why one of the judges thinks our hybrid approach is compelling.