Jeff Gundersen, CEO of Executive Connections LLC, is committed to helping senior executives achieve both professional and personal success through building strong leadership teams and strong personal brands.

Jeff founded Executive Connections to provide a new type of Executive Search, Coaching and Consulting firm, integrating these services in a “unique value proposition" called Blended Solutions, to deliver exceptional performance in talent acquisition and development. The goal of Executive Connections is to connect corporations to top talent, along with offering senior executives a full range of organizational development, executive search, executive coaching, and business strategy consulting services.

In launching Executive Connections, Jeff builds upon his prior 15 year experience as a global executive search and business strategy consulting executive. Jeff's successful practices in both the Financial Services and Marketing Services sectors include clients such as; AARP, AIG, Citibank, Citizens Financial, H&R Block, HSBC, Gerber Life, Meredith Corporation, New York Life, Prudential plc, WellPoint and Western Union. Jeff is also a past Chairman of the Financial Services Council of the Direct Marketing Association ("DMA").

Jeff also has extensive experience in advertising, branding, and direct/digital marketing services and has placed CEOs, Presidents and CFOs for numerous marketing services businesses owned by Interpublic Group, Havas, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP. Prior to entering the search consulting business, Jeff served as EVP, North America for Y&R/Wunderman, a global marketing communications agency.

Jeff’s consulting career began in the New York office of Deloitte Consulting. His consulting and coaching background includes significant experience in business strategy, marketing strategy, organizational planning and leadership development. Jeff is a certified management consultant (CMC) with more than two decades of management consulting and coaching experience.

Most recently, Jeff has led several speaking engagements and written various articles, extending his knowledge and experience to various audiences in the management and marketing arenas. Some topics have included Transition Management, Personal Branding for Maximum Leverage, Boomers in Career Transition, and Personal Branding: Creating a Long-Term Vision.

Jeff is co-founder of Future Possibilities, Inc., a non-profit children’s coaching organization, which provides one-to-one and after school personal life skills coaching programs to elementary school children in New York City, Canada, Ohio, and Australia.

Jeff earned his undergraduate degree at Lafayette College before continuing on to Rutgers University, where he earned an MBA degree.

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In her role as Chief Coaching Officer of Executive Connections, Lorraine White has positively affected the career success of hundreds of leaders placed into new positions through EC’s executive search services, as well as those who engage EC for executive coaching.

Using a bold leadership style best described as “be the change you want to see," Lorraine leads EC executive search teams and EC coaches to empower c-level executive clients so that they enhance their personal brands and produce outstanding results for their organizations, with an emphasis on “blending" work and life, and aligning corporate and personal values.

Lorraine also created EC’s Leadership Transition Program, unique to the executive search and coaching industries. Through this program, each executive placed by EC into a new leadership position receives six months of executive coaching and transition support, which benefits both the placed executive and the hiring organization. Recognizing that the first 180 days in a new position is a highly critical period, Lorraine created the program to ensure that the new leader is able to create early wins and rapidly produce significant results, while building a strong support structure.

Having built a number of high-achieving businesses, as well as coaching other leaders to reach and surpass similar goals, Lorraine’s specialty is working with successful men and women who are proven leaders, up-and-coming leaders, and people and companies in transition. She created EC’s "Rising Young Star" Program and works with young men and women who have completed college to support good best practices and prepare them to enter the world of business successfully.

One of Lorraine’s guiding values is that it is important to have a strong social commitment. In 1994, she founded Future Possibilities, Inc., and led its innovative one-on-one and after-school KidCoach™programs that pair children with professionally trained volunteer coaches (busy executives) from companies such as American Express and Estee Lauder. Lorraine’s work has inspired educational leaders in other regions of the U.S., Canada, and Australia to do the same. To date, the Future Possibilities programs have served more than 4,000 children and trained more than 3,000 volunteer coaches worldwide.

Well known for her professional as well as philanthropic work, Lorraine continues to be recognized as an energetic force in the global coaching community, as a role model and as a pioneer in bringing the profession itself to the next level. She is a Master Certified Coach, a graduate of Coach University, has served as a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) Board of Directors. She was recently appointed trustee to The Wellness Community of Sarasota, Florida.

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Leslie Quiñones joined Executive Connections in Fall 2005 to manage our newly launched EC database. As such, she ensures timely and consistent data integrity for search consultants, and provides updated targeted lists for EC marketing communications and other announcements to the client base.

Leslie brings to Executive Connections, LLC, more than 30 years of administrative assistant experience in varied industries, including training and development, higher education, manufacturing, architecture, construction design, pharmaceutical and telecommunications.

Companies she has worked with include: The University of Montana (MT); First Technology Safety Systems (MI); Gilmour Academy (OH); The TAF Group (VA); WorldTravel Partners, supporting Eli Lilly and Company (IN); and AT&T, Public Relations Speechwriting Division (NJ).

Leslie is an expert in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and is fast becoming one in PCRecruiter, EC’s applicant tracking database.

Tony Hooper is an executive coach and consultant with over 20 years of management and leadership experience. He specializes in helping business leaders to focus their strategies and develop the leadership necessary to excel in areas that truly matter to them. As an Executive Connections coach, he supports executives to make successful leadership transitions, helping them to quickly establish themselves by building strong relationships, accelerating their learning, and securing early wins. Tony also advises on business and marketing strategy for organizations of all sizes.

Tony’s experience as founding partner of Leadership Strategy Group Inc., brings organizational and leadership development expertise with teams and individual leaders, with a particular emphasis on leadership dynamics, team effectiveness, internal diagnostics and employee engagement.

Tony began his career as a management consultant in the strategy practice at Booz-Allen & Hamilton, working in diverse industries such as automotive, steel, telecommunications and broadcasting. In his ten years at American Express Company, Tony ran various marketing groups within the consumer businesses, developing his skills in business planning, marketing management, staff performance management and leadership. Tony also served as Executive Director of Future Possibilities, Inc., non-profit organization coaching children in under-served communities.

Tony holds a B.A. from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has served as a director on the boards of Future Possibilities, Inc., Plan Central, Inc. and TSI Soccer, Inc. Tony also volunteers with the Wharton Club of New York and the Outreach Committee of Park Avenue United Methodist Church in New York.

As an Executive Connections coach, Peter helps drive executives to achieve successful transitions to new positions by working with them to quickly secure early wins by building effective relationships and focusing on defining their personal brand mission and values, to align these to their professional leadership.

Peter also brings his experience as founding partner of the Leadership Strategy Group, to work on organizational and leadership development with teams and individual leaders, which places particular emphasis on leadership dynamics, team effectiveness, internal diagnostics and employee engagement.

Peter draws on years of marketing, managerial and coaching experience in major organizations, including American Express and Kraft General Foods. At American Express, Peter served as vice president of U.S. advertising, where he led the development of brand positioning and communications for the charge and credit cards, financial services, traveler’s cheques, and interactive businesses. Peter also held marketing leadership positions in American Express’ Small Business Services group. At Kraft General Foods, Peter served as a brand manager in the Maxwell House Coffee division, leading the Sanka and Maxwell House Decaffeinated Coffee businesses.

Peter earned his MBA in marketing and finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his BA in International Relations from Brown University. He serves on the board of directors of the Advertising Club of New York and the board of governors of the Brown University Alumni Association. He lives in New York City.

In addition to her responsibilities at Executive Connections LLC, Erika Fikes Humphrey is also well known as the founder and president of Visualizing Your Dreams Inc.; a company committed to improving the academic performance and social responsibility of today‘s students. The organization was created as a result of Erika’s desire to motivate young people to commit to a path of academic excellence and self-awareness. She translated this into the development of “Visualizing Your Dreams-The Personal Development Process," a goal oriented and self-efficacy program for students in grades 5th-12th and enrolled in college. The program has been delivered to over 5,000 students in the New York and New Jersey areas.

Erika has several years of experience in curriculum design and development as well as placing emphasis on conducting specialized interactive personal development training in public elementary and secondary schools. Her focus goes beyond self-efficacy for students to also provide professional development for administrators, teachers and parents. She published two curriculum manuals, The Personal Development Process—Creating a Personal Road Map, for students and teachers. She has also written and published several articles on setting personal and professional objectives in a youth magazine entitled, “Youth Excited about Success (YES)."

Erika is the After School Director for Future Possibilities, Inc. (dedicated to teaching life-skills to youths ages 7-12), where she first began working with Jeff Gundersen and Lorraine White, of Executive Connections. She is also a Certified Entrepreneurship Teacher Instructor for the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship and sits on the Board of Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School.