Leadership Team
William H. Macey, Ph.D. CEO
Karen M. Barbera, Ph.D. Sr. Vice President and Managing Principal
Nancy T. Tippins, Ph.D. Sr. Vice President and Managing Principal
S. Morton McPhail, Ph.D. Sr. Vice President and Managing Principal
Susan Grant Palombo, MBA Sr. Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing
Diane Daum, Ph.D. Vice President, Research & Analytics
Bruce Erenkrantz, Ph.D. Vice President and Managing Principal
Mathew W. Heck, M.A. Vice President of Technology
Kyle Lundby, Ph.D. Director, Asia Pacific Region
Jerry Halamaj, Senior Manager and Consultant
William H. Macey, Ph.D.
CEO
Dr. William H. Macey is CEO and the founder of Valtera. Since 1977, he has led the management and application of applied research in a wide variety of settings. He has developed performance appraisal and succession planning systems; developed and validated selection procedures for managerial, sales, skilled trades, and clerical personnel; and designed and implemented job analysis procedures for the investigation of jobs across a broad spectrum of occupational groups with special applications to training needs assessment, career-pathing, and talent selection.
Dr. Macey also has extensive experience in conducting individual executive assessments and in working with executives to understand assessment outcomes and to develop appropriate action plans.
Dr. Macey holds a Ph.D. in Psychology (Experimental) from Loyola University of Chicago. He has authored numerous technical reports and contributed to several journal articles and papers presented before professional groups. A past member of the editorial board of Personnel Psychology, he is a licensed Psychologist in the State of Illinois, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). Dr. Macey has a long-standing involvement with SIOP and has served as the Society's president (2001-2002).
Prior to founding Valtera, Dr. Macey served as Human Resources Planning Coordinator for Miller Brewing Company.
Karen M. Barbera, Ph.D.
Sr. Vice President and Managing Principal
Dr. Karen M. Barbera is responsible for overseeing the practice group focused on employee engagement surveys and organizational diagnostics. She consults with numerous Fortune 100 level companies on the design, execution, and use of employee surveys to drive organizational improvement efforts, including the delivery of C-suite presentations of results. She is also the principal author of Valtera’s feedback and action planning programs.
Dr. Barbera holds a Ph.D. degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Bowling Green State University. She has authored and co-authored journal articles and conference presentations related to the topic of assessment. She is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Prior to joining Valtera, Dr. Barbera worked in Testing and Assessment at IBM and as a consultant with the Institute for Psychological Research and Application at Bowling Green.
Nancy T. Tippins, Ph.D.
Sr. Vice President and Managing Principal
Dr. Nancy T. Tippins brings more than 20 years of experience to Valtera. She manages the firm's development and execution of strategies related to job analysis, competency development, employee selection, assessment, and leadership development. Dr. Tippins oversees the teams that develop legally and professionally compliant tools, administrative processes, and delivery platforms to meet client staffing, assessment, and succession planning requirements. Dr. Tippins also conducts executive assessments and provides expert support in litigation.
Dr. Tippins is active in professional affairs. She has a longstanding involvement with the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) where she served as President (2000-2001). She is a fellow of SIOP and the American Psychological Association (APA) and is involved in several private industry research groups. She has authored and co-authored numerous journal articles on assessment, and was formerly the Associate Editor for the Scientist-Practitioner Forum of Personnel Psychology and on the Editorial Board of Journal of Applied Psychology.
Dr. Tippins received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She holds a M.Ed. in Counseling and Psychological Services from Georgia State University.
Prior to joining Valtera, Dr. Tippins held the positions of Director of Leadership Development and Selection Methods at GTE in Irving, TX, Director of Human Resources Services at Bell Atlantic in Arlington, VA, and Research Psychologist at Exxon Company, USA in Houston, TX.
S. Morton McPhail, Ph.D.
Sr. Vice President and Managing Principal
Dr. S. Morton McPhail brings over 30 years of public and private sector consulting experience to Valtera. He is Senior Vice President and Managing Principal in charge of Valtera’s Houston regional office. Prior to joining Valtera, Dr. McPhail was Principal at Jeanneret and Associates, Inc., which merged with Valtera in 2006.
Dr. McPhail’s experience includes job analysis, selection, validation, job evaluation, auditing human resource systems, developing performance management systems, reductions in force, and individual assessment, coaching, and management development. His experience has encompassed jobs ranging from public safety and law enforcement to craft and operative jobs and includes office and clerical, technical, professional, and managerial positions. He has created systems for clients ranging from selection and promotion to compensation to performance management. He has designed assessment and development programs for managers as well as competency models that cut across the entire organizational hierarchy. As part of his practice, Dr. McPhail has served as expert counsel and provided expert testimony in numerous matters of litigation, including those involving equal employment opportunity, selection, promotion, allegations of sexual harassment, and termination issues.
Dr. McPhail holds a doctorate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Colorado State University, which as recognized his accomplishments by with the Jacob E. Hautaluoma Distinguished Alumni Award. Having published in professional journals and presented on numerous topics at professional meetings, Dr. McPhail recently edited a volume in SIOP’s Professional Practice Series titled Alternative Validation Strategies: Leveraging Existing and Developing New Validation Evidence. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and currently serves as its Secretary/Financial Officer. He serves as adjunct faculty for both the University of Houston and Rice University and is on the Editorial Board of the journal Personnel Psychology. He is a member of the American Psychological Association and serves on its Continuing Education Committee. He is a licensed psychologist in the state of Texas and currently serves on a committee of the Texas Psychology Board regarding development and validation of the State’s Jurisprudence and Ethics Examination for licensure.
Susan Grant Palombo, MBA
Sr. Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing
Susan Grant Palombo is the Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing at Valtera. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing all sales and marketing activities at Valtera. With over 25 years of experience successfully implementing business development strategies in complex environments, Ms. Palombo has extensive knowledge of the human capital field.
Prior to joining Valtera, Ms. Palombo was the Senior Vice President, Client Services for Right Management Inc., a subsidiary of Manpower, Inc. In this role, she was responsible for large account management, sales, and strategic marketing of career and talent management consulting within the Minnesota/Dakotas market. She also previously held the title of Vice President, Consulting Services Group for Gantz Wiley Research Consulting, where she had responsibility for top line revenue, branding, products and markets, consulting team and services in two offices, and relationship management.
Ms. Palombo has extensive experience in the areas of assessment, employee engagement, and leadership development, as well as strategic marketing and advertising. Ms. Palombo holds an MBA from the University of Minnesota and graduated with honors from the University of Texas. She has taught at the university level as an adjunct faculty member and has served on numerous professional and charitable boards.
Diane L. Daum, Ph.D.
Vice President, Research & Analytics
Diane Daum is Vice President, Research & Analytics at Valtera Corporation. She is responsible for evaluating, implementing, and enhancing research and statistical methodologies used in the firm’s research; and contributing to client projects with heavy analytics or research components.
Throughout her career, Dr. Daum’s work has focused on applying measurement and statistical techniques to assess and track organizational performance in key areas related to HR, identify organizational risks, understand program usage and impact, and inform organizational policy. Though much of her emphasis has been on employee engagement, Dr. Daum has applied her measurement expertise across a range of topics including diversity, recruiting, mentoring, merger integration, aging workforce, individual performance, turnover, customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Prior to rejoining Valtera in 2011, Dr. Daum led the Advanced Analytics function within Wells Fargo’s HR Metrics and Insights group, where she led analytics projects related to the Wells Fargo/Wachovia merger as well as other issues impacting the workforce, and contributed to the strategy for disseminating HR metrics information to line managers. Dr. Daum previously held the role of Business Strategist on the HR Workforce Analytics team at Wachovia and Service Research Manager at TIAA-CREF. In her previous role at Personnel Research Associates, Inc. (now Valtera), Dr. Daum was responsible for research support across the full range of PRA’s services, as well as managing projects primarily in the areas of employee opinion surveys.
Dr. Daum holds a Ph.D. degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Bowling Green State University. She is a member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the American Psychological Association. She has co-authored a number of conference presentations related to the topic of organizational surveys.
Bruce Erenkrantz, Ph.D.
Vice President and Managing Principal
Dr. Bruce Erenkrantz is Vice President and Managing Principal at Valtera. He directs the company’s West coast operations from a regional office in Santa Ana, California.
With more than 25 years of corporate experience, Dr. Erenkrantz brings a seasoned business perspective to Valtera. Prior to joining Valtera, he was Vice President of the Worldwide Associate Assessment and Development function at Ingram Micro, Inc. Earlier, he worked for 7-Eleven Inc. (formerly The Southland Corporation) and NCR Corporation. In addition, Dr. Erenkrantz has been an active member of the Mayflower Group, a global consortium of large, premier companies that use survey research as part of their business processes. He held several Board-level positions in the group, including Chairman.
Dr. Erenkrantz has extensive experience in the areas of leadership assessment and development, succession planning, employee engagement, training, employee surveys, multi-rater feedback processes, change management, organization design, and team effectiveness. With this broad perspective, he develops strategic talent management solutions that integrate seamlessly within the larger corporate HR function.
Dr. Erenkrantz holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Bowling Green State University and is a licensed psychologist in the state of Texas. He is a member of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, American Psychological Association, Society of Psychologists in Management, Association for Psychological Science, and International Association for Applied Psychology.
Mathew W. Heck, M.A.
Vice President of Technology
With Valtera for over 10 years, Mathew W. Heck steers the technical vision of the company. He is responsible for developing and introducing new software to support integrated client solutions. His accomplishments include overseeing the development of Valtera's Sage Technology Suite, as well as innovating custom solutions to support portals, data and comment processing, reporting and interactive results display. He has directed the development of Valtera's web-based survey administration and report generation system and IVR survey platform.
Mr. Heck's extensive experience in managing national and global survey projects lends itself to the development of technology that meets clients' needs, including attractive and easy-to-read report formats. He developed Valtera's on-line employee survey report generator and other in-house processing tools that enhance Valtera's efficiency.
Mr. Heck holds a Master of Arts degree in Industrial Psychology from the University of Tulsa.
Prior to joining Valtera, Mr. Heck held the position of Consultant with Manteq International where he was responsible for the management and coordination of a global employee satisfaction survey process.
Kyle Lundby, Ph.D.
Director, Asia Pacific Region
Dr. Kyle Lundby is Director, Asia Pacific Region at Valtera. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing the company’s growth in this part of the world while also consulting with existing clients in the US and abroad.
With more than 15 years of consulting experience, Dr. Lundby brings a seasoned business perspective to Valtera. Prior to joining Valtera, he was Director and Executive Global Survey Consultant at Kenexa. While based in Hong Kong, he consulted with global clients and engaged in business development throughout Asia. While in Asia, Dr. Lundby developed a profound interest and appreciation for both benefits and challenges of global Human Capital Management, culminating in his 2010 publication of Going Global: Practical Applications and Recommendations for HR and OD Professionals in the Global Workplace (Jossey-Bass, 2010). Edited by Dr. Lundby, this volume brings together HR and OD practitioners and academicians to discuss different aspects of human capital management (selection, training, development, etc.) and other topics (the changing nature of HR in the global workplace, cross-cultural issues, etc.) that are relevant to most HR or OD leaders today.
Dr. Lundby has extensive experience in the areas of employee surveys and linkage research, multi-rater feedback processes, change management, and leadership assessment and development. With this broad perspective as well as first-hand global experience, he is able to advise around strategic talent management solutions that cross not only functions but regions and cultures of the world.
Dr. Lundby holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from The University of Tennessee and a Master’s from San Diego State University. He is a member of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, and has a long history of publications and presentations that are both academic and practitioner-oriented.
Jerry Halamaj
Senior Manager and Consultant
Jerry Halamaj, Senior Manager and Consultant, works directly with Valtera clients to enhance the effectiveness and return on investment of their talent management programs. Mr. Halamaj brings to Valtera his 30 years of experience in human resources and organization development at some of the best recognized Fortune 500 companies, including having served as Director of Global Employee Surveys at Citigroup. In that role, he oversaw the global employee survey process for over 340,000 employees in more than 100 countries, as well as oversaw Citigroup’s global manager feedback survey and multiple special focus pulse surveys. Most recently, Mr. Halamaj served as Senior Consultant and Director of Client Services and Strategy at the Foresight Group.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Halamaj served as Corporate Manager, Global Employee Research and HR Metrics for John Deere; Director of Surveys at Personnel Research Associates; Director at Bank Administration Institute; and Senior Consultant, Control Data. He is past Chairman of The Mayflower Group and a co-founder of the Attrition Retention Consortium, as well as a frequent speaker at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), Chicago Industrial/Organizational Psychologists (CIOP), The Conference Board, and other HR Industry conferences.
Mr. Halamaj received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Illinois and completed his coursework toward the Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology at the University of Minnesota.
Our Approach
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Clarity starts with precise, straightforward data – the evidence - not hunch, hope or anecdote. Learn More > -
It is one thing to have strategic goals but quite another thing to know what needs to be done to achieve those goals. Learn More > -
Does organizational science have an impact on your bottom line? Yes. Learn More > -
Sometimes the data you get from a survey report doesn’t tell the whole picture. Learn More >
