Deanna Garen
Senior Vice President
Prudential Financial, Inc.

Deanna Garen is senior vice president of Strategic Planning & Development for Prudential Retirement, a unit of Prudential Financial. In this role, she is responsible for the development and implementation of Prudential Retirement's overall business strategy. Garen also oversees merger and acquisition activities, competitive intelligence, strategic communications, government affairs, and serves as the organization's business liaison for Corporate affairs.

Prior to joining Prudential, Garen was head of Communications & Education for CIGNA's full-service retirement business, which was acquired by Prudential in April 2004. She was responsible for the development and delivery of education services for retirement plan participants, including web-based solutions. She was also responsible for Studio C, CIGNA's award-winning, in-house design studio. In prior roles, Garen was responsible for creating informational, enrollment and education materials for retirement plan clients, and also managed the delivery of the organization's compliance advisory services.

Before joining CIGNA, Garen gained experience from the client perspective of benefits planning through various benefit program development and management roles with prominent organizations, including Packard Bell NEC.

Garen is a member of the Worldwide Employee Benefits Network and the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Human Capital magazine, and has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and a variety of other broadcast outlets as an expert source on retirement-planning issues. Garen has also been quoted in publications such as Plan Sponsor Magazine, Pensions & Investments, Defined Contribution News, and IOMA’s Managing Benefit Plans, and is a frequent speaker at retirement industry conferences. She earned a bachelor's of arts degree in organizational communications from California State University, Sacramento and holds a NASD Series 7 license.

Rick Cobb
Executive Vice President
Challenger, Gray & Christmas

Rick Cobb is executive vice president of global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. Founded in the 1960s, the firm has provided job search counseling to discharged professionals making the transition to reemployment.

Cobb has been with Challenger for 18 years. As executive vice president he oversees all relationship development and transition counseling for North America. He also serves on the senior management team responsible for developing and maintaining the firm’s worldwide business strategy. A dynamic speaker, Cobb is frequently asked to present to business organizations on issues related to employment and workforce development. He is one of the firm's media spokesperson, alongside CEO John A. Challenger.

Cobb has been active in the Society of Human Resources Professionals and the Chicago chapter of Junior Achievement, serving as a board member for two years. Cobb earned a bachelor's degree from Drake University, where he studied marketing and speech communications.

Gene D. Cohen, MD, PhD
Author, and Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities
George Washington University

Gene D. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D. is the first Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University (GW), where he also holds the positions of Professor of Health Care Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Within the GW Center, he has just launched a new public education program on aging targeting the young; the program is called SEA Change — an acronym for Societal Education about Aging for Change. Dr. Cohen served as the first Chief of the Center on Aging of the National Institute of Mental Health – the first federal center on mental health and aging established in any country.

Dr. Cohen's most recent book, The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain, was released by Basic Books in January 2006. His first book on creativity and aging written for the general public, The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, was published in 2000 by Harper Collins/Avon Books, and was the focus of a one-hour PBS program; the paperback version and Japanese translation were released in 2001. He is also the author of more than 150 publications in the field of aging, including several edited text books and his individually authored book The Brain in Human Aging.

Dr. Cohen has additionally been very active in the dissemination of knowledge about aging on national television and in other major media. He has been on Nightline interviewed by Barbara Walters, the MacNeil/Lehrer Show, CBS Nightly News, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, Good Morning America, the CBS Early Show, and in a series of public service messages with George Burns (the latter was awarded a public service gold medal media award).

Dr. Cohen is a graduate of Harvard College (with Honors) and the Georgetown University School of Medicine and has a doctorate in Gerontology from The Union Institute. He is the recipient of the Public Health Service (PHS) Distinguished Service Medal (the highest honor of the PHS).

James Weil
Consultant, Aging and Retirement

James B. Weil is currently on sabbatical while he reconstructs a 200 year old barn. He is recognized as one of the nation’s foremost authorities on issues of business and aging

From 2001 through May, 2005, Weil was Managing Director of Successful Aging at LifeCare, Inc., a privately owned work-life company. There he was responsible for developing new business practices designed to help organizations address and manage the needs of their aging workforces.

Prior to joining LifeCare, Weil was Vice-President of MetLife, where he held senior positions in marketing and sales, strategic planning, and national accounts. In 1984, he established MetLife's Long-Term Care Insurance business, and managed its growth from inception through 1996. In 1996, Weil established the MetLife Mature Market Group, a corporate division responsible for orchestrating all issues related to marketing to the fifty-plus population. Upon his retirement from MetLife in 1999, the company had established its position as the nation’s largest group long-term care insurance provider and one of the most frequently quoted business organizations on issues of aging.

In early 2000, Weil co-founded and was named President of Vital Aging, a caregiver information and resource company, formed as a strategic partnership with the National Council on the Aging.

Weil is a Registered Financial Gerontologist. He is Immediate Past Chair the Board of Directors of the National Alliance for Caregiving. He serves on the Leadership Council of the Business Forum on Aging, and the Advisory Council of the Institute for the Future's-Boomers, the Next 20 Years. In the recent past, Weil has served on the Boards of Directors of Elderhostel and the American Society on Aging. He was co-founder and first chair of the Business Forum on Aging. He has also served on the Long-Term Care Advisory Boards of the States of Florida, Texas, and New York, and the Employee Benefits Research Institute. He has been an advisor to three aging-related Robert Wood Johnson Committees: Lifecare at home, Adult Day Care, and Supportive Services for Older Persons.

Weil has been a one-to-one volunteer for the Mid-Fairfield (Connecticut) Hospice, and also served as the organization's Board Chair. His work as a balanced and passionate advocate for successful aging earned him the Humanitarian Award from the National Silver Haired Congress, and the Leadership Award from the American Society on Aging.

Vicki Thomas
President
Thomas & Partners

Vicki Thomas is president of Thomas & Partners Co., Inc. one of the nation’s first promotional firms created to serve companies and non-profit organizations targeting midlife consumers and beyond. The 18 year-old promotional agency develops marketing and branding strategies, conducts market research, provides unique promotional avenues, plans, designs and implements programs for consumer product companies, banks, credit unions, brokerage firms, insurance firms and healthcare companies that have identified the midlife consumer as a target market.

Thomas works with healthcare companies, assisted living communities, insurance firms, money center banks and brokerage firms to increase product awareness, usage and deposit dollars from the growing baby boomer market and the 50+-market segment. Programs include: market research, the development of targeted promotional campaigns for the midlife customer, value-added benefits services, off site program participation in such events as senior expos, the Senior Olympic games and senior centers, the development of pre-retirement seminars, training programs for front line personnel to improve cross sell ratios, sensitivity training to aid in understanding older customers and the creation of educational programs that make female investors feel more comfortable dealing with financial advisors.

Thomas co-wrote the book “Banking on the Mature Market,” for the Bank Marketing Association. She is currently co-writing Banking on Boomers (see www.bankingonboomers.com) She develops boomer strategy and promotional campaigns for many bank proprietary programs to attract new money to customer deposits. Thomas developed the strategy and training program for 341 branch offices to attract new money from deposit dollars for Compass Bank, a large regional sun-belt bank.

Thomas is a recognized thought leader on marketing and aging issues helping the MetLife Mature Market Institute flesh out ways to become more dominant in the business community.

As one of the nation’s top leading nationally recognized authorities on the growing mature market, Thomas is a highly sought after speaker and seminar leader on topics relating to our aging society.

Thomas financed, produced, packaged and marketed the Dancin’ Grannies exercise video and promoted the unknown group to national critical acclaim. Thomas also co-produced the PBS award winning Golden Spirit, a special on Senior Olympic athletes and the PBS show Facing Retirement in Ohio.

Thomas is on the board of the Southwestern Connecticut Area Agency on Aging and is a member of the American Society on Aging and the National Council on Aging.

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Jim Leleszi is the Head of Strategic Retiree Solutions for National Accounts. In this role, he is responsible for developing and supporting end-to-end retiree solutions for the company’s largest corporate and government customers. This includes developing and executing on growth strategies to expand Aetna’s market position in the National Accounts employer group market for Medicare Advantage products and the Medicare Part D prescription drug offerings.

Mr. Leleszi joined Aetna in 2004 as the Head of Sales Administration for its Middle Market Accounts segment. During his time at Aetna, he has also served as the Head of Strategy and Business Planning for the National Accounts Corporate Sector. Prior to joining Aetna, Jim held a number of positions at CIGNA Healthcare within their product development, underwriting and National Accounts departments and was also a graduate of CIGNA’s MBA rotational leadership development program.. In addition, he spent time with Sierra Health Services, Inc. located in Las Vegas, NV.

Mr. Leleszi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social and Behavioral Sciences with a concentration in Public Health from The Johns Hopkins University and a Masters of Health Administration degree from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University.

John Swen is responsible for providing leadership and overall direction for US Science Policy & Public Affairs for Pfizer Global Research & Development. He co-chairs Pfizer's Research, Science Policy, and Regulatory team and also represents the R&D organization on the U.S. and Global Policy Coordinating Committees.

Prior to joining Pfizer in 2001, John held a series of senior posts in the biotechnology industry, as chief operating officer for Modex Therapeutiques (Lausanne, Switzerland), in the computer industry, and in government, where he served for three years in Governor Lincoln Almond's cabinet as director of economic development. John received his BA in English from Columbia University, and his MS in Management of Information and Technology and Strategy from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he was a Seley Scholar.

David Wolfe
Executive Vice President
The Center for Ageless Marketing

David B. Wolfe is an internationally recognized consumer behavior expert. He has fielded assignments abroad in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Wolfe, who originated developmental relationship marketing (DRM), is principal author of Ageless Marketing: Reaching the Hearts and Minds of the New Customer Majority (2003).

Wolfe is a leading thought leader in marketing and acknowledged by many as the foremost expert in second half markets – markets consisting of people 40 and older who today outnumber adults aged 18-39 by 134 million to 86 million. Wolfe also is the author of Serving the Ageless Market (McGraw-Hill, 1990), released in Japanese in 1993.

Wolfe’s position as a provocative and cutting-edge contributor to marketing is widely indicated by frequent references in major print and broadcast media, and by his standing in the academic world where frequently give lectures to business school classes. His DRM approach to marketing has been featured in George Mason University’s Executive MBA Program.

To delve more deeply into Mr. Wolfe’s mind-opening vision of markets, consumers and the future connect with him at http://agelessmarketing.typepad.com and discover a running stream of consciousness covering some of the biggest issues in economics and market growth faced by businesses today. His latest book, Ageless Marketing (Dearborn 2004) can also be sampled at www.agelessmarketing.com.

The Wharton School Press will publish his next book, Firms of Endearment, co-authored with Raj Sisodia and Jag Sheth in January 2007. This book describes a new, paradigm-shifting business model referred to as the stakeholder relationship management (SRM) business model. The SRM model departs from traditional shareholder-biased business models by aligning the interests of all stakeholders in an operational schema in which no stakeholder continuously holds first rank position in a company’s attentions. Companies profiled in the book as exemplars of SRM include Whole Foods, Costco, Harley-Davidson, Patagonia, Starbucks and Southwest Airlines.

Susan W. Ahrens
Senior Vice President, Human Resources
The Hartford Steam Boiler and Insurance Company

Susan Ahrens is senior vice president, responsible for human resources at The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company.
Ms. Ahrens joined Hartford Steam Boiler in 1993 as senior manager of human resources, responsible for employee relations. In 1994, she was promoted to assistant vice president, in May 1999, she was named vice president, and in April 2005 became senior vice president.

Prior to joining HSB, she held various human resource positions at May Department Stores Company for over eight years.

Ms. Ahrens earned her bachelor of arts degree in political science from Brown University. She also holds a senior professional human resources (SPHR) certification.

Ms. Ahrens serves as first vice president of the Connecticut Valley Girls Scouts Council, a position she has held since 1999.