Mr. Michael Lee Stallard is a leading authority on leadership and teams as they relate to employee and customer engagement. He is the co-founder, president and CEO of E Pluribus Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in helping leaders create "Connection Cultures" to form strong bonds among the management, employees and customers of an organization. Connection Cultures increase employee and customer engagement as well as productivity, profitability, innovation, employee retention and customer loyalty. He is the primary author of the book Fired Up or Burned Out and a chapter in the book What Managers Say, What Employees Hear: Connecting With Your Front Line (So They'll Connect with Customers). The latter book, edited by Regina Maruca, the former senior editor of Harvard Business Review, includes contributions from several Harvard Business School professors and well-known author-consultants. His work has also been featured in the media including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Leader to Leader, Human Resource Executive, HR.com, CustomerServiceCrossings.com, Leadership Excellence, and Fox Business Now. He has spoken at conferences organized by Fortune magazine, The World Presidents' Organization, the American Bankers Association, The Corporate Executive Board's VIP Forum, the Innovation Council and the Investment Company Institute. He is a guest lecturer on employee and customer engagement at New York University's Stern School of Business. Prior to founding E Pluribus Partners, he was a managing director, chief marketing and strategy officer at the U.S. Trust business of Charles Schwab and principal, chief marketing officer at the global private wealth management business of Morgan Stanley. The programs identified and implemented by the team he assembled and led at Morgan Stanley contributed to doubling the business unit's revenues over a two year period. Mr. Stallard's educational background includes a bachelor's degree in marketing from Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, an MBA from University of Texas in Odessa, Texas, and a J.D. from DePaul University Law School in Chicago, Illinois. He was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1991.