DEPARTMENT LEADERS
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Meet the team: We work together to cultivate a culture that fosters innovation, teamwork, results, and a commitment to living our own teachings every day.
SUSAN SCOTT
Fierce Founder
Susan founded Fierce in 2001 after 13 years leading CEO think tanks and more than 10,000 hours of conversations with senior executives. Over the past two decades, she has shared her expertise with clients through her keynote presentations, TedX Talks, and award-winning books, Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time, and Fierce Leadership: An Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Business Today. She holds a Bachelor of Art degree in English from Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
Susan is a popular and sought-after Fortune 100 public speaker, and renowned leadership development architect. Known for her bold yet practical approach to executive coaching and leadership development, Susan has been challenging people to say the things that are hard to say for over two decades.
ED BELTRAN
Chief Executive Officer
Edward Jason Beltran is a contributor to Forbes and Fast Company and is the architect of what some media have referred to as one of the most important employee wellbeing initiatives in recent years – the disruptive app Pulse by Fierce, due to be released in fall of 2022.
At Fierce Inc., Beltran has taken the reins as CEO to lead the company in becoming one of the most innovative firms in the communication and leadership training space. Rolling out 3D training, metaverse initiatives, and multiple apps designed to take the company with its 20-year foundation built from the iconic book, Fierce Conversations (which sold nearly 1 million copies) by its founder Susan Scott, into the future of corporate training.
According to Beltran, the days of the singular approach to leadership/communication training focused on in-person training are gone forever. Leaders and their teams now need a suite of dynamic tools that help them better meet their daily challenges. This philosophy led to the creation of the Pulse By Fierce app, a tool to help reduce the $300 billion lost annually due to employee stress by helping companies and their employees learn what events are creating stressors through data collection from a wearable device. Allowing employees to increase their self-awareness and helping leaders to identify and mitigate anything contributing to toxic culture, Pulse is the “What next…” in stress detection. Pulse by Fierce is being heralded as the “Fitbit of Business Performance.”
Prior to joining Fierce, Ed was Head of Finance with large multinational organizations, such as Agilent Technologies, Avnet Inc., PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Arthur Andersen, as well an advisor to start-ups and early-stage companies.
Since joining Fierce in 2017, first as CFO and later as CEO, Beltran has leveraged his love for technology, finance, and communication, as well as his education that includes an MBA from University of Michigan and certificates in programs from Wharton and Harvard, to develop an integrated approach for Fierce that has had clients and the rest of the industry noticing. Fierce Inc. has worked with over 60% of the Fortune 500 companies, won multiple awards, put together a series of strategic partnerships, and has been featured in the likes of CNBC, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, and HR.com where he also serves on their advisory board.
Beltran is an avid road bike cyclist logging 120+ miles a week year-round as his primary source for sustained mental, physical and spiritual balance. That balance is evident in his work ethic and his resting heart rate which sits in the top 1% of all executives. Beltran considers this to be a driving factor in helping him stay focused on his presence and passion for leveraging technology to bring effective communication tools and training into the workplace to create thriving organizational cultures. Ed lives in Arizona with his wife and two children.
GABE DE LA ROSA
Chief Behavioral Science officer
Gabe brings more than 14 years of industrial and organizational psychology experience to the Fierce Team. He earned his Ph.D in Industrial/Organizational psychology from Bowling Green State University in 2008, and has published work in journals such as the Journal of Addictive Behaviors (an international peer-reviewed journal), and edited books such as The Handbook of Employee Engagement, which is considered an invaluable resource for organizational psychologists.
Prior to joining Fierce, Gabe spent over 7 years at The Naval Center for Combat and Operational Stress Control, where he was responsible for understanding and enhancing organizational factors impacting performance among sailors and marines.
Gabe loves the outdoors and enjoys surfing, biking, and snowboarding, and especially hiking with his wife.Read More
View his authored whitepaper on the impact of stress in the workplace
COREY MCKIZZIE
Chief Sales officer
Corey McKizzie joined Fierce, Inc. as Chief Sales Officer in May of 2022. For over 25 years, her career has specialized in sales performance improvement, and evolving talent development through coaching and leading dynamic sales teams. Corey comes to Fierce with a robust background in transformational coaching and consulting in various industries such as aerospace and defense, financial services, health and wellness, learning and development, oil and gas, and airline transportation.
According to Corey, creativity, adaptability, and resilience are the keys to success. Through the lens of this philosophy, she ardently seeks to share these principals in her personal and professional Fierce community. Her commitment and passion to see her team and her clients succeed is her unrelenting mission. “We must grow and evolve every day to excel through our past to our future. The past is over, the future starts now.”
Corey is excited to join the leadership team at Fierce to further evolve how the world successfully communicates and elevates one another, one conversation at a time.
When not at work, Corey can be found at her Alma Mater, University of North Texas, serving on the Letter Winner’s Board or coaching select elite high school basketball teams in various tournaments around North Texas. Her favorite quote and life moto: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Corey holds an undergraduate degree from the University of North Texas, and a MBA for LeTourneau University.
JAIME NAVARRO
Executive Vice President of Marketing & Revenue Operations
Jaime brings more than 10 years of expertise as a Sales and Marketing professional and has been a leader at Fierce for the past 5 years. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Cornish College of the Arts.
Prior to joining Fierce, Jaime has worked at Amazon, start-ups, and has spent a collective 8+ years with Fierce, recently moving into the VP of Sales role in late 2019. Prior to the VP of Sales role, she was the VP of Global and Channel.
She is a mother of two feisty and fierce girls and is married to her college sweetheart. Her passions are writing, reading, baking and exercise.
JOE PARENT
Vice President of Learning Design and Delivery
As our Vice President of Learning Development & Delivery, it would be fair to say that Joe embodies what it means to be Fierce. He and his team of highly skilled professionals are responsible for ensuring that our Fierce Conversation models and all content are fully accessible and meaningful for our clients.
Joe has invested his 30+ year professional career in organizational and individual development aimed at advancing strategic initiatives and key business goals. His diverse leadership background in operations, organizational effectiveness, learning systems & design, and talent acquisition has provided him with keen insight into key aspects of businesses – large and small – including retail, health care, and finance.
One constant in Joe’s experience is achieving objectives by developing great talent. He has been a colleague, coach, and trusted confidante to co-workers from the front lines to the board room. Joe serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the school district in his community.
Born and raised in Maine where he takes full advantage of the terrain to run, hike, and kayak, he spent 3 years living in exile pursuing his undergraduate degree in Arizona before graduating from the University of Southern Maine. He and his wife live in Poland Spring, Maine.
GEETHANJALI PREMKRISHNAN
Vice President of Technology and Infrastructure
Geeta Premkrishnan brings in over 15 years of experience to Fierce, in technology and data analytics with progressively increasing leadership responsibility from Technology Professional through Vice President.
Geeta has been instrumental in taking up the vision of the CEO and building Pulse By Fierce, the disruptive app – from ideation to reality. Geeta has a proven track record of collaborating with the CEO in setting and driving the operational vision and strategy, ensuring the plan meets actionable goals for performance, growth, and innovation. She has a passion to and provides direct leadership in developing, implementing, and executing continuous performance that ensures delivery of high quality, efficient, and successful products giving Fierce ‘a strong digital presence’.
With her love and passion towards technology and entrepreneurship, Geeta has also gained skills and experience in envisioning and developing product strategy, and driving projects from start to finish. She thrives off of the energy and enthusiasm of a collaborative team and loves to solve problems.
Prior to joining Fierce, Geeta was with AT&T for close to 15 years handling multiple technology projects. Geeta holds an MBA degree from Robert Kennedy University, Switzerland in Information Systems and Entrepreneurship. She lives in Arizona with her husband and 2 sons.
CHRISTINA VAN STAVERN
Financial Controller
Christina brings over 10 years of finance and operations experience. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting with honors from Colorado Technical University. She has been part of the Fierce tribe since 2014.
Christina has always had a passion for gaming, having grown up playing Nintendo, PlayStation, and later World of Warcraft. Outside of work, Christina enjoys ballroom dancing, playing softball, and is passionate about health & fitness.
