Management Team

Bill Haack

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Bill is a founder of Zywave and has served as Chairman and CEO since the company's inception in 1995. Bill also served as Chairman and CEO of Frank F. Haack & Associates, where during his 30-year tenure the firm grew to be the largest independent insurance brokerage in Wisconsin. Today, Bill is instrumental in ensuring Zywave's mission to provide best-in-class software solutions to its clients.

In addition to his extensive insurance brokerage industry experience, Bill supports a variety of local, state and national organizations. Bill also served as a board member for Assurex Global and Intersure.

Acknowledging his leadership capabilities, Bill was named a regional finalist for the 2004 and 2009 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Bill is a graduate of Southern Methodist University.

Jim Emling

President and Chief Operating Officer

As President and COO of Zywave, Jim is responsible for the overall strategic direction and vision of Zywave's product family, as well as how the company positions itself in the marketplace.

Jim was one of Zywave's original employees, overseeing every product release in the company's history. He also created the company's core operational structures and workflows, including training and customer support. Prior to Zywave, Jim was CIO of Frank F. Haack & Associates.

Jim graduated summa cum laude with honors from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with degrees in computer science and accounting. He holds a master's of business administration degree in strategic marketing from Marquette University, where he also graduated summa cum laude with academic distinction.

Dave O'Brien

Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

Dave is Executive Vice President and CMO, directing sales operations of the company.

Dave's career in sales began in the 1980s with MetLife as a large group representative working with national brokerage operations on groups with 1,000 or more employees. In 1992, he joined Frank F. Haack and Associates, where he helped the firm create new technology tools for use with its clients that also changed the sales process. In 1997, Dave spearheaded a new business model for the firm, bringing in outside brokers to help fund the growing technology: that initiative evolved into a stand-alone company, Zywave. Today, he continues to lead Zywave's sales and marketing efforts to help clients succeed in today's marketplace.

Dave graduated from the University of Iowa with a major in marketing and a minor in communications.

Joe Gibson

Chief Financial Officer

Joe joined Zywave as CFO in May 2010 and is responsible for directing the finance and accounting operations, including treasury operations, strategic business planning and corporate development activities.

Joe brings with him over 20 years of progressive experience including financial planning and analysis, SEC reporting and acquisition integration. Prior to Zywave, Joe was Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller at Fiserv, Inc. and had previously served as Group Chief Financial Officer for Fiserv's Insurance Group. Earlier in his career, Joe was an Audit Manager with Deloitte & Touche LLP serving large, multi-national clients.

Joe earned a bachelor of business administration degree with a double major in accounting and finance from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee and is a certified public accountant. He was also featured in Treasury & Risk Management magazine's "40 under 40" article in November 2006.

Kimberly Capelle

Executive Vice President

Kimberly is Executive Vice President, responsible for overseeing Zywave's Creative Services, Customer Support, IT, Product Development, Professional Services, Project Management and Quality Assurance functions within the company.

Kimberly joined Zywave in 2007 with a background in software development and project management. In her tenure with Zywave, she has held various roles in the product development and professional services divisions where she was instrumental in guiding development projects, improving overall development processes and implementing company-wide organizational changes.

Kimberly graduated magna cum laude with an MIS degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and is an accredited PMI Project Management Professional.

Dr. Linda Strachan

Senior Vice President, Product Management - Financial Solutions Division

Linda is Senior Vice President of Product Management, directing product marketing and strategy for Zywave's financial planning and needs analysis software solutions.

Prior to joining Zywave's management team as Vice President of Product Management via acquisition of EISI in November 2011, Linda held a variety of product marketing and senior leadership positions during her 17-year tenure there. Overseeing the direction of the firm's financial planning and needs analysis tools from inception, the solutions today continue to be the technology choice of financial professionals.

Linda received a Ph.D. in computer science specializing in artificial intelligence from the University of Manitoba and is a Certified Financial Planner®.

Matt Field

Senior Vice President, Product Development - Financial Solutions Division

Matt is responsible for leading the development functions of the company's financial services software platform used by financial planners, advisors and enterprises. Matt joined Zywave in 2011 as Director of Product Development, assembling from the ground up a development team focused on financial planning software.

Prior to joining Zywave, Matt was an Enterprise Architect at Stark Investments, where he coached multiple teams of software developers, mastered a wide range of technologies and made significant contributions to the company's software solutions.

Kelly Wiza

Vice President, Product Management - Insurance Solutions Division

In her role as Vice President of Product Management, Kelly is responsible for managing product strategy and sales support for Zywave's software insurance solutions, including Sales Engineering and Enterprise Marketing support.

Managing a variety of progressive responsibilities at Zywave since 2000, Kelly's achievements include pioneering the firm's Implementation Consultant program for BrokerageBuilder^TM, an agency management software tool, eventually growing and leading the Implementation team. Kelly was named Product Director in 2008, and today continues to lead strategy and product management initiatives for the firm's SaaS insurance solutions.

Kelly holds a bachelor's degree in communication and media with a minor in psychology from St. Norbert College, and a master of business administration with a concentration in health care management from Cardinal Stritch University.

Adam Karl

Vice President, Product Development - Insurance Solutions Division

Adam joined Zywave in September 2010 as Lead Software Architect, and was promoted to Vice President of Product Development in 2012. In his current role, Adam is responsible for the product development functions for Zywave's insurance services software division.

His areas of expertise include managing the full lifecycle of product development, including the integration of elegant architecture to ensure Zywave products meet market needs as well as driving product delivery efficiencies.

Adam holds a bachelor of science degree in computer science theory and analysis from Western Michigan University.

Angela Pecoraro

Vice President, Global Support

As Vice President of Global Support, Angela directs the performance of Zywave's Customer Support, Software Consulting, Data Services, Technical Writing and Instructional Design teams.

Since joining Zywave in 2002, Angela has served in a number of roles, from frontline technical support and product training to business consulting and enterprise account management.

A lifelong resident of Milwaukee, Wis., Angela earned a bachelor's degree in entrepreneurship from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and is currently pursuing a master of business administration from Alverno College.

Cheryl Walecka

Vice President, Product Management – Financial Services Division

As Vice President of Product Management, Cheryl directs product strategy for Zywave’s financial services software solutions, which encompass the full spectrum of financial planning, client and marketing communications.

Cheryl joined Zywave as a product developer in 2003 and has juggled a variety of responsibilities in her ten years at Zywave, including implementation, data and integration management and product management of Zywave’s flagship insurance services product, Broker Briefcase®. Cheryl’s product management expertise was put to work in the financial services arm of Zywave in April of 2012.

Cheryl graduated cum laude at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh with a bachelor’s degree in management information systems. She continued her education in the executive education track at UW-Madison where she received her product management certification and is also pragmatic marketing certified.