Meet Our Team

Frank Wander

Founder and CEO

Frank Wander is a former Fortune 250 turnaround CIO, author, speaker, and founder of PeopleProductive®, a company dedicated to helping businesses outperform because of their people. By improving human performance, clients unlock stronger business results.

Prior to PeopleProductive®, Frank was a Chief Information Officer at three different companies, most recently at Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, as well as the President of GroupIntelligence.com during the .com era.

Early on, he developed a knack for transforming organizations and spent many years turning around failing divisions across corporations. He discovered failure had a consistent root cause: cultures where the leaders knew everything about products, processes, and technology, but nothing about the human factors that drive workforce productivity and innovation.

This awareness led him to write a book for Wiley Publishing, titled Transforming IT Culture: How to Use Social Intelligence, Human Factors and Collaboration to Create an IT Department that Outperforms. This book is the missing operator’s manual for the human infrastructure.

Frank was deeply moved by this knowledge gap and founded PeopleProductive® so companies could outperform without burning people out.

As a biology major who was always intensely interested in the human side of business, Wander witnessed how powerful human understanding was when methodically applied to improve business outcomes.

Today, Wander is helping companies become top performers by leveraging the power of people, not technology.

Steve Plante

Head of Customer Experience

Steve is responsible for our client’s experience using our capabilities from initial deployment through on-going effective use. He is passionate about unleashing the productive power of people in the workplace, individually and collectively.

He is a visionary executive dedicated to helping organizations flourish by mastering the human side of business. He is a servant leader who delivers value through a profound understanding of strategic execution and value creation via high performance culture.

A seasoned executive helping Fortune 100 firms and United States Federal Government agencies successfully navigate business transformation programs for four decades. He possesses a rare blend of business acumen, program life-cycle management, business capability enablement, stakeholder engagement, and organization adoption experience.

Steve was formerly director of professional development for the Business Relationship Management Institute, an organization dedicated to maximizing the benefits of the business relationship management discipline around the globe. He has been a significant contributor to the institute’s body of knowledge (BRMBOK) and certifications: Business Relationship Management Professional (BRMP) and Certified Business Relationship Manager (CBRM), and continues to be a recognized thought leader and mentor in the global Business Relationship Management (BRM) Community.

He lives in Reston, VA just west of Washington DC and when he breaks free of his passion helping organizations flourish by mastering the human side of their business, he enjoys landscaping, gardening and time with family just unwinding!

Dan Diachenko

Head of Global Business Relations

A firm believer that great people invest in good companies and great companies invest back in great people, Dan is driven by facilitating organizations to create a culture where everybody wins.

Dan is responsible for leading PeopleProductive's Global Business Relations. He has spent the past decade bringing people who aspire to do great things, together.

His international experience, from budding start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, has enabled him to positively influence organizations to benefit from hot new technology solutions, while transforming workplace cultures.

Taking part in the Social Software Start-up movement, Dan was one of the original Argentina-based, founding team members of Avature in 2004, a recruiting tech start-up led by the co-founder of HotJobs.com. His early adoption of online social networking and creative business-relationship building, ignited his strong organizational ties and guided international teams to optimize their product delivery and profits.

Further expanding his IT Solutions experience, he dove deeper into Software Development, a transition that led him back to the US to launch Operations in the Northeast for two reputable LATAM software engineering companies. Dan’s niche for connecting people has endless reach. His professional community of outstanding individuals, encompasses amazing organizations such as SIM Boston, MassTLC, Mobile Tea meetup, Microsoft communities, and many more IT arenas.

Dan received his BA in International Business at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida and his bilingual MBA at La Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Fabiano Covas

Head of Technical Team

Fabiano is responsible for People Productive’s expansion in Latin America. He has been working with Frank Wander since the inception of the company. Fabiano is a Certified Professional Coach and has always been genuinely interested in the human side of business throughout his career.

Prior to the PeopleProductive mission, Fabiano was a passionate leader with 18 years of experience in Information Technology. He has an extensive career in software engineering and project management and has successfully led the development and implementation of systems for the telecom, financial, transportation, logistics, media and arts, entertainment and recreation industries.

He has provided consulting services for the Federal Bank Reserve New York, Mckinsey & Company, Wells Fargo, GAO (Government Accountability Office), NBC, The Travelers, Sprint, Navy Federal Credit Union, Quicken Loans, Georgia State University, USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), Countrywide and others.

He holds an MS degree in Computer Science from Pace University and a Masters of Science in Technology Management from Columbia University.

He is also a former Taekwondo world-class elite athlete and served as a sparring partner for the Brazilian Taekwondo National Team. He lives between Brooklyn-NY and Sao Paulo, Brazil. He loves percussion and playing the guitar.

Fred Wander

Head of Quality Assurance

Prior to joining PeopleProductive, Fred worked for 38 years in the IT industry, with the majority of those years in the Global Services division at IBM.

He has worked in all phases of software development, with the last 20 years in a Project Manager role, successfully leading the development and implementation of a wide range of applications including Financial systems,

Manufacturing floor control and automation systems, supply chain management systems, and most recently mobile applications supporting Sales Force automation.

While leading projects, he had a clear focus on the human factors involved in running a winning team, and saw first hand the positive impact on productivity and team synergy of such things as showing respect and compassion for team members, having open communication from the leadership community, and building trust amongst team members and leadership.

Fred is PMI and IBM project manager certified.

Marcelo Burgos

Head of Marketing & Branding

Marcelo is a seasoned entrepreneur with a passion for Branding, Design, Marketing, and Digital Launching Strategies. He brings a wealth of expertise to his role as the Head of Marketing and Branding for PeopleProductive.

With a background in Digital Art and Design from Long Island University (Post Campus - NY) and a Master's in Media Design (Branding) from Full Sail University - Miami - FL, Marcelo has a strong foundation in game and web design.

In addition to his American education, Marcelo holds an MBA in Management, Entrepreneurship, and Marketing from PUCRS in Brazil and is currently pursuing a second MBA in Neuroscience, Consumer and Marketing, also from PUCRS. His certifications in Neuromarketing, Mentoring, and Time Management further solidify his mastery in the field.

Since returning to Brazil in 2013, Marcelo has successfully run his own digital agency, participating in numerous design, web, online education, and marketing projects. His expertise has made him a sought-after consultant in the industry.

Outside of work, Marcelo is a former Taekwondo professional athlete, having represented his state in the Nationals and his country in international competitions. He loves to spend time with his family, friends, and dog Max when not working.

Benjamin Thomas

Head of Enterprise Risk Management

Ben is responsible for four areas of Risk Management: Information Security, Operational Risk, Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery and Compliance. In this vital function, Ben is committed to identifying and addressing potential external risks that may threaten our operations.

The customer experience is the most important driver of sustainable success for PeopleProductive. Therefore, as a human capital productivity solution provider to companies of all sizes, it is of paramount importance that we not only provide powerful and highly usable solutions, but that we protect the reliability, confidentiality and integrity of our software and data.

Ben has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry in areas ranging from Network Administration, Network Design, Application Security and Development to Quality Assurance. He received achievements and Master certifications in Software testing from Villanova University and is a Certified Scrum Master. Ben's accomplishments in the field led him to be invited to lecture on the advancements of application performance, automation and testing the true end user experience.

Before joining PeopleProductive, Ben was Head of Specialty Testing for Guardian Life where he provided powerful and highly usable solutions to test and guarantee the quality, reliability, and integrity of the company's application software and data.

Ben is a seasoned professional who is passionate about identifying and managing enterprise risk and optimizing the end user experience. He believes that enterprise security and risk management is an ongoing, evolving practice and is at the forefront of state of the art innovations in Cyber Security.

In his spare time Ben enjoys photography, composing music and spending time with his family. He is a published songwriter, composer and recording studio owner.

Margie E. Koenig

Head People Strategist

Margie is our head people strategist who is an Advisor and expert in all matters related to people, training and development and customer success.

Margie has deep and broad experience as gained form 25+ years of Human Resource (HR) experience including working in executive leadership and HR outsourcing/consulting roles.

Her sweet spot is working with growing companies who need to develop their internal people operations, improve processes and drive high levels of engagement.

Directly related experience with this includes working as the head of HR at AberdeenGroup as well as DealerRater along with work at Liberty Mutual, One Door, Second Wind and Telamon Insurance and Financial Network.

Margie has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in mass communications and earned a master’s degree in Education from Columbia/Teachers College where she learned to be an educator in any area of business and gained knowledge in organizational development.

As far back as grad school, Margie was a visionary and work futurist who saw the trend in work/life balance emerging and wrote her master’s thesis on how companies can improve culture and gain competitive advantage through work/life balance.

Margie is a lifelong learner who regularly participates in HR and business networking events and workshops and has completed her Certified Compensation Designation from World at Work.

Margie is also a mother of three, a Reiki practitioner and jewelry artisan.

Michael Wilson

Head of Solutions Partner Services

Michael Wilson is a former Director of MSCI and has been involved in industries of finance, accounting, banking and manufacturing over the last 20 years. His experience ranges from manufacturing, production engineering, quality control, technology sales, to customer service and support, and also spans the cultural differences of international workforces.

Prior to joining PeopleProductive Michael worked for various firms such as BDO, Vishay, Bank of Brazil, NCR and National Semiconductor.

Michael spent a number of years developing a deep understanding of what truly drives team performance in organizations. His experience has been drawn from working with teams in Australia, South East Asia, UK, Germany and the US, across several industries. He has created award winning teams for exemplary service and at one company quadrupled the retention rate in his organization.

His innovations in team management and near zero turnover were cited by Infoweek magazine in an article called “20 Great Ideas To Steal”. He has also coached hundreds of individuals to seek professionalism and meaning in their work and life.

Since 2015 he has been working with Frank Wander who is leading a new wave of Human Capital Management with a singular mission to help companies create unbeatable human infrastructure. Michael holds a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering and a Transnational EMBA in Finance and Strategy.

Jack Killion

Head of Community Networking

Jack Killion has been developing diverse businesses over the past 4o years as:

  • Founder of 8 of his own companies in diverse industries including B to B and B to C publishing, industrial equipment manufacturing, real estate development, coaching and hedge fund investing.
  • Advisor to owners of and investors in start-up and emerging companies in many sectors
  • Strategic advisor to “C” level leaders of Fortune 500 type organizations such as AMEX, CBS, City of New York, Port of Philadelphia and the Burlington Great Northern Railroad while working with McKinsey & Company
  • Managing Director of Elliott Automation, a UK based, listed tech company.

Jack has raised funding for his own and client companies and bought, sold and merged companies.

His business development experiences include growing markets for his various organizations in Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and throughout Latin America. He also worked full time in the research lab for a middle market industrial manufacturing company in France.

Jack has served on the Board of Directors and Board of Advisors with various U.S. and international public and privately owned companies and with prominent charitable organizations including Medical Missions for Children, American Heart Association, Park Avenue Club and the Garden State Woman Education Foundation.

Jack’s educational background includes:

  • A Mechanical Engineering degree from Yale
  • A MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Business
  • Additional courses at the Harvard “B” School
  • Teaching as an adjunct professor in three New Jersey business schools at Rutgers, Montclair State and Fairleigh Dickinson Universities
  • Recruiting students for MIT
  • Being selected as the 1st Entrepreneur in Residence at Fairleigh Dickinson University

Jack has written extensively on business issues for publications such as The New York Law Journal, New York Enterprise Report and for web based publications for Citibank and others.

His book: Network all the time, everywhere with everybody focuses on developing networking and relationship development skills as a way to accelerate careers and drive profitable business growth.

David Aragona

Head of Content Development and Management

Dave Aragona was most recently a Vice President at TriZetto, a healthcare insurance software company with more than 100 million lives on their claims processing and group administration systems. At TriZetto, Dave was responsible for development, maintenance, support and training for their mainframe legacy systems.

With a career spanning 32 years Dave worked at ADP, Beneficial Finance, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield and also as a consultant at a Bell Labs data center.

Dave oversaw large scale projects that brought new products to market and significant new functionality to existing products. Projects spanned several months to years, had challenging deadlines and required the coordination of a large team, with many at remote locations.

Dave and his team established a project development methodology and standards that clearly defined roles, processes, deliverables and developed metrics that allowed them execute large-scale projects. He established a track record of delivering projects on schedule and of high quality while maintaining a strong team of business analysts, programmers, quality assurance analysts, customer support specialists and documentation developers.

Dave has a great deal of experience in the human side of business and always strove to put people first, believing that if you treated people well, they would achieve a high performance ethic. The products he oversaw received the high customer satisfaction ratings for the company and his team members reported high levels of employee satisfaction under Dave's management.

With this depth of experience Dave has been coordinating the development of a significant wealth of content to bring knowledge of this critical mission to life and to help organizations flourish through the learning and empowerment of its leaders.

Christina Nay

Advisor Total Life Fitness

Christina joins PeopleProductive’s as a Total Life Fitness Advisor, with over 10 years’ from the Big Four giant; Deloitte. She is an expert and proven leader in driving high performing teams, operational excellence, process efficiency, change management, strategies, forward thinking innovation and budget optimization.

Known as a change agent, she has an unwavering commitment to teamwork, employee empowerment and operational excellence, and excels in revamping low performing areas directly impeding productivity and client service delivery.

Over the last decade, Christina gained a reputation for her ability to take on and tackle large-scale, highly complex projects and initiatives, and deliver immediate impact and dramatic operational transformation. She is known for her ability to drive a new level of accountability and engagement across diverse stakeholders and global teams. As a result, Christina has consistently been successful in transforming employees to become high performers.

Christina received her BSBA in Business Administration/Marketing from Suffolk University and received Harvard Business Certificates in Management, Leadership and Finance.

During her down-time, when Christina is not creating cultures where everyone wins!. . . She loves being active outdoors with her German Shepherd, an avid CrossFitter - competing in local competitions, coaching varsity high school softball, and spending time with family and friends.

John J. Gillen

Work Strategist & Advisor

John Gillen is an Advisor and is our subject matter expert when it comes to issues related to the future of work and the future of the Human Resources profession. He serves as our Work Strategist.

John is an experienced HR professional, a Human Capital management consultant and a work futurist.

Prior to helping PeopleProductive, John has worked as a Human Capital management consulting for various HR and Change Management consulting firms on issues related to HR transformation. At Deloitte Consulting, John worked in their Human Capital Management (HCM) where he focused on Future of Work concepts and projects related to Contingent Workforce Management.

John has deep and broad corporate HR experience as a Senior Director of Workforce Initiative for Standard & Poor’s, a Director of Employee Services for AT&T Capital and Manager of Management Development for Young & Rubicam.

He holds Senior Professional in Human Resources SPHR) and Society for Human Resource Management – Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) certifications. John is a frequent presenter to corporations, HR professional organizations and community-based non-profits where focuses on topics related to culture as well as to the future of work so as to help workers and organization adapt to the new world of work.

We have an incredible development team spread across the US and Brazil. Like the rest of our team, they are highly seasoned, capable, multi-lingual and really cohesive.

They believe in our mission and vision and are very, very busy building our industry leading, on-demand solution. Each one of them is here to make a difference and to create a world where everybody wins.

They love working on the future, especially when it matters so much. As a tightly bonded team, they have asked not to be listed for now so they can work in peace.

Talent is the only enduring source of competitive advantage. They know that; we know that; others know it too.

The moment they ask, their pictures and bios will all appear.

© 2019 - 2023 PeopleProductive, Inc.