About Us
Management Team
Stead Burwell
Chief Executive Officer
Since 2006, Mr. Burwell has been working with Alliance Health to help its founder, Geoff Swindle, build and strategically grow its business. Mr. Burwell has worked with startups in several different capacities as an operating executive, founder, venture board member and angel investor. Previously, Mr. Burwell was the catalyst behind Pinger, a Kleiner Perkins funded startup in the consumer voice space. Before that, as Interim CEO for Venafi, an early stage startup company, Mr. Burwell built the early management team and oversaw the closing of initial customers including several Fortune 100 customers. Previously, Mr. Burwell was a technology investor at UV Partners, an early stage venture capital firm based in Salt Lake City that also invested in the healthcare sector. Mr. Burwell was also an equity research analyst at Lehman Brothers covering the Internet sector in the late 90s.
A recognized thought leader in consumer online health, Mr. Burwell has been an invited speaker at the Health 2.0 Conference, the Symposium for Connected Health at Harvard Medical School, and the National Summit on Personalized Healthcare. For the past 4 years, he has served on the State of Utah’s Air Quality Board helping to manage and monitor the State’s air quality programs and policies. Mr. Burwell is a graduate of the University of Virginia where he later received his MBA.
Geoff Swindle
Founder and President
Mr. Swindle, founder and president of Alliance Health, is responsible for the company’s overall operations, providing strategic guidance, and developing key partnerships. Mr. Swindle is an entrepreneur who successfully founded, built and managed Alliance Health since its formation in 2006. In 2006, he repositioned the company’s focus from developing broad Internet capabilities to lead generation for the healthcare industry, taking advantage of the growing population of Internet consumers searching for healthcare needs. A pioneer and expert in online marketing, Mr. Swindle has eight years of experience with interactive marketing startups, beginning his career at CitySearch.com. His well-versed background in interactive marketing and lead generation has helped Alliance Health position itself as a leader in online customer acquisition for the healthcare industry.
Mr. Swindle holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Utah.
Jay Shaffer
VP, Consumer Experience & Corporate Marketing
Jay Shaffer is VP, Consumer Experience and Corporate Marketing, and oversees a team of four marketing, communication and design professionals. He has responsibility for overall consumer experience across the network of communities, corporate marketing and public relations efforts for the company.
Shaffer joined Alliance Health Networks to guide the process of turning informed individuals into engaged, enthusiastic community participants and supporters. His expertise will assist Alliance Health Networks as it builds various online social health networks focused on living with specific medical challenges.
Previously, Jay was VP of Worldwide Sales & Marketing for Power Reviews, VP Marketing for Directly Home and VP of Customer Experience for Wine.com. He also served at Ofoto, Inc. (now Kodak Easy Share Gallery) as their Director of Customer Acquisition. He is widely recognized as an e-commerce marketing expert, an influential leader and "chief customer advocate" among industry peers because of his commitment to customer centricity.
Josh DeFord
VP, Product Management
Josh DeFord is Vice President of Product Management, where he is responsible for guiding the development of Alliance Health’s suite of consumer sites including our many health-focused social networks as well as corporate online properties. Josh also spearheads the future development strategy for website enhancements and next generation functionalities.
Prior to joining Alliance Health, Mr. DeFord cofounded DailyStrength.org, serving as Chief Product Officer for the pioneering health social network and effectively building it into the largest in the category. Mr. DeFord also was Product Manager of Yahoo! Photos, the largest photo sharing site on the web, as well as Briefcase and Gallery, serving over 14M users per month and generating over $5 millions in annual revenue with substantial profit contribution for the web portal giant.
Mr. DeFord’s extensive consumer web product management experience is complimented by his experience visioning, producing and marketing the successful Epiphany Recorder iPhone application.
Troy Oldroyd
VP, Technology
With over 10 years of experience, Troy Oldroyd enabled media revenue growth from $6M to over $60M as the chief technology architect for Datamark. As the Director of Interactive Technology, Mr. Oldroyd developed and managed the company’s principal lead generation software and hardware.
Prior to Datamark, Mr. Oldroyd was the Director of Interactive for Blain Olsen White Gurr Advertising, where he led the development of Internet marketing technologies for such companies as 3M, 3Com, Novell, Telcordia and Micron. Mr. Oldroyd’s influence on the creation of the agency’s business system assisted BOWG in being named one of the fastest growing companies by Inc. magazine.
Matthew Jackson
VP, Finance and Analytics
Mr. Jackson is responsible for the financial and marketing analytics at Alliance Health.
Prior to Alliance Health, Mr. Jackson was the Director of Marketing at The Generations Network where he oversaw the marketing analytics and CRM initiatives. During his tenure, the company experienced a 15% revenue growth and a 20% increase in its subscription renewal rate. Mr. Jackson also led the Family History business unit’s Finance team where he oversaw the implementation of reporting processes and sales transparency.
Prior to The Generations Network, Mr. Jackson was the General Manager of a respiratory oxygen and medication provider where he oversaw a 17% revenue increase. Mr. Jackson started his career as an investment banking analyst at JP Morgan.
Mr. Jackson is a graduate of the University of Colorado and holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Chris Walsh
VP, Interactive Marketing
Chris Walsh serves as the VP of Interactive Marketing where he is responsible for all consumer lead generation activities at Alliance Health Networks, both on and offline. He and his team are responsible for consumer acquisition programs through search engine marketing, third party advertising relationships, affiliate marketing, and other ROI focused marketing activities.
Prior to joining Alliance Health, Mr. Walsh was the Director of Marketing for Penn State World Campus, a leading provider of online education for working adults. During his time at Penn State, he and his team developed and executed their consumer marketing strategy and all related acquisition activities, growing annual student enrollments from 2,000 to over 30,000. In addition to his education and health lead generation experience, Chris has worked with a number of major consumer internet brands, guiding them to more effectively reach and acquire customers through e-mail marketing, search advertising, and other advertising methods.
Mr. Walsh holds a BA in Marketing Communications from Brigham Young University.
Teague McKnight
VP, Interactive Operations
J. Teague McKnight is the VP of Marketing Operations at Alliance Health where he oversees marketing program operations and is directly responsible for building out and implementing our proprietary marketing platform and data analytics systems; specifically advertising, lead generation, data warehouse and analytics systems.
Prior to coming to Alliance Health Teague served as Senior Brand Manager at Ancestry.com, the leading online family community and genealogy portal, for three years where he developed, managed and maintained a portfolio of websites. Before that, McKnight was a consultant at Deloitte & Touche specializing in SAP financial and operational systems. Earlier in his career, Teague was an Associate Analyst at National Economic Research Associates (a Division of Marsh McLennan) in New York City where he developed sophisticated financial models for highly technical clients like Cendant and Microsoft.
Teague holds an MBA from The Anderson School at UCLA, a Certificate from the London School of Economics and graduated with honors in Economics from Bates College.
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