The Hon. Alexander Acosta

President Donald J. Trump nominated Alexander Acosta to be the 27th United States Secretary of Labor. He was sworn in on April 28, 2017.

Secretary Acosta is the son of Cuban refugees, a native of Miami, and first-generation college graduate. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University.

Following law school, he worked as a law clerk for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He then worked at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis and went on to teach at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.

Secretary Acosta has served in three presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed positions. In 2002, he was appointed to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board, where he participated in or authored more than 125 opinions. In 2003, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and from 2005 to 2009 he served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

Most recently, Secretary Acosta served as the dean of the FIU College of Law.

Secretary Acosta has twice been named one of the nation’s 50 most influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business magazine. He was also named to the list of 100 most influential individuals in business ethics in 2008. In 2013, the South Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce presented him with the Chairman’s Higher Education Award in recognition of his “outstanding achievements, leadership and determination throughout a lifetime of caring and giving back to the community.”

Haya Ajjan, Ph.D.

Dr. Haya Ajjan teaches data analytics and information systems courses in Elon’s undergraduate business and MBA programs. Dr. Ajjan has started the Center for Organizational Analytics at Elon University and was instrumental in developing the curriculum for M.S. in Management concentration in Organizational Analytics. She earned her MBA and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s Belk College of Business. Her research focuses on better understanding the impact of technology use on individuals, groups, and organizations. Dr. Ajjan’s research articles have appeared in national and international journals, such as Behaviour & Information Technology, British Journal of Educational Technology, the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, Journal of Enterprise Information Management. Additionally, she has presented at numerous national and international conferences, such as International Conference on Information Systems, Academy of Management, Academy of Marketing Science, and the American Conference on Information Systems.

Jeff Babener

Jeffrey Babener, of Portland, Ore., is the principal attorney in the law firm of Babener & Associates. For more than 30 years he has advised leading U.S. and foreign companies in the direct selling industry, including many members of the Direct Selling Association. He has lectured and published extensively on direct selling. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California Law School.

Al Bala

CEO and President, Alfredo (Al) Bala joined Mannatech in October 2007 as Senior Vice President, Global Sales before being named Executive Vice President, Sales in June 2011. He was then named President in 2014 to even better support Mannatech’s independent sales Associates. Al also serves as a board member for the Mission 5 MillionSM (M5M) Foundation, which works in conjunction with Mannatech to link five million consumers of Real Food Technology® supplementation with five million children in need.

Before joining Mannatech, Al served as Chief Operating Officer of Britt Worldwide, LLC from 1992 to 2006. Prior to that, he served as manufacturing plant manager for Bose Corporation from 1983 to 1992. In addition to more than 20 years of domestic and international experience in network marketing, Al’s proven record includes growing a major direct sales organization to $750 million, reaching more than one million people in 60 countries.

Jared Blum

Mr. Jared O. Blum, Esq. serves as DSA’s Code of Ethics Administrator. Previously, he served as a member of FTC General Counsel’s office and Vice President and Legal Counsel of DSA.

Mr. Blum has over 30 years of not-for-profit management expertise. He has served both large and small associations in a variety of environments throughout his non-profit management career.

Mr. Blum has been consulted by national media, government, industry and academia regarding environmental issues and he works closely with the Federal Trade Commission on environmental claims. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and the Energy and Environment Study Institute. He served as the President of the State Governmental Affairs Council, the Small Business Legislative Council and the Council of Manufacturing Associations, National Association of Manufacturers.

Mr. Blum holds a law degree from the National Law Center at George Washington University and an undergraduate degree from Boston University.

Nancy Bogart

Nancy Bogart as Founder and Chief Executive Officer, is responsible for the vision as well as steering the company on a day to day basis.  Founded in 2000 Nancy Bogart has brought Jordan Essentials through a name change, rebrand, and remodel of virtually every area of her company.

Nancy spends her time as a key strategist and has made significant strides to keep Jordan Essentials young, fresh and relevant.  Time split between the field, home office and her family of 6 make Nancy a key multi tasker and ability to set priorities a key characteristic for her success.  Nancy has been awarded many local and nation awards such as top 12 fastest growing company in the State of Missouri as well as a local Top 20 Woman in Business award winner.   Nancy also has a desire to empower women on their journey through her project Joy for the Journey and Family Give Projects.

Lindsay Bomar

Lindsay Bomar serves as the Senior Manager of Corporate Communications at AdvoCare International.  Bringing almost a decade of experience to the role, Lindsay manages external communications, crisis communications, public relations and public affairs work for the company. She also works with the executive team on board communications and is a member of the AdvoCare Foundation team working on strategy, brand and messaging. Prior to her work at AdvoCare, Lindsay spent eight years in Washington, DC working in political communications and advocacy with several consulting firms and national political campaigns. Lindsay also spent two and a half years with Bloomberg Government where she led editorial content for policy-focused events, research promotion for analysts and media relations and logistics. Lindsay received her bachelor’s in communication and public affairs from Southern Methodist University and a master’s in public management from Johns Hopkins University. Lindsay resides with her husband in Dallas, TX.

Keith Bower

My name is Keith Bower. I am Scentsy’s IT Director responsible for Governance Risk and Compliance.

I have more than 20 years of experience in IT in various technical and leadership roles. I’ve been at Scentsy for 4 years and love it. I have experience improving IT organizations through effective and efficient management of people, process and technology. My Scentsy IT team is focused on asset management, improving IT processes, standards adoptions, managing risk and assuring compliance with regulations.

Robert Cavitt

Robert has been developing and delivering enterprise software solutions for the direct selling industry since 1986. As President of Jenkon since 1999, he oversees the development and support for multi-national e-commerce platforms, global genealogy and compensation management systems and responsive-design sales and reporting solutions for the field. Robert’s expertise includes web service and API platforms (SOA) for integrating industry-specific solutions with horizontal or mainstream ERP systems. His experience also includes the budgeting, strategy, personnel management and Agile methodologies for implementing large-scale, software development projects across large, distributed organizations.

Bernadette Chala

Bernadette Chala joined the Arbonne team in 2012, supporting our Legal and Compliance teams, first as our Corporate Counsel and now as our Senior Vice President, General Counsel . Bernadette’s responsibilities include overseeing Arbonne’s day-to-day legal affairs and direct sales compliance, managing Arbonne’s intellectual property estate, overseeing marketing compliance, and supporting Arbonne’s Regulatory team and global product distribution and expansion.

Before joining Arbonne, Bernadette served as the General Counsel of American Sporting Goods/AVIA, a leading manufacturer and supplier of footwear and apparel, where she oversaw that company’s entire legal affairs and compliance efforts. She earned her Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law and is an active member of the State Bar of California. Bernadette loves working at a company where she happily uses its products every day and would like to remind you that you are only as old as your skincare regimen.