Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 18,000 members worldwide, and founded and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today.

Founder and CEO of Scaling Up, a global executive education and coaching company with over 290 partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past four decades helping companies scaleup.

He’s the author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times,” for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword; wrote Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) which has been translated into 26 languages and has won eight major international book awards including the International Book Award for Best General Business book; and is the co-author of Scaling Up Compensation. His latest book is Start to Scale.

Verne serves on several boards including vice chair of The Riordan Clinic; co-founder and chair of Geoversity; and board member of the social venture Million Dollar Women. A private investor in many scaleups, Verne enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Alex Elezaj currently serves as the Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer of UWM Holdings Corporation and as a Class I member of our Board. Mr. Elezaj has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of UWM since April 2018.

Prior to joining UWM, Mr. Elezaj served as Chief Executive Officer of Class Appraisal, Inc., an appraisal management company, from April 2015 to April 2018. From December 2010 to March 2015, Mr. Elezaj served as Chief Operating Officer of Whitlam Group, a labeling and packaging solutions company, and as Vice President of Sales and Marketing from June 2008 to December 2010. Prior to joining Whitlam Group, Mr. Elezaj served as Group Manager at Takata Corporation, an automotive parts company.

Mr. Elezaj holds an MBA from Michigan State University and a BBA from Walsh College, and has been a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) since 2013.

Laura Lawson currently serves as the Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer of UWM Holdings Corporation and as a Class II member of our Board. Ms. Lawson has served as Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer of UWM since August 2014. From July 2011 until August 2014, Ms. Lawson served in various roles in the Marketing Department at UWM.

Prior to joining UWM, Ms. Lawson served as Staff Supervisor at Taubman Company, a real estate company, from May 2009 to July 2010.

Ms. Lawson holds a B.A. in advertising from Michigan State University.

Jason Bressler is UWM’s Chief Technology Officer. He has been with the company since 2016 and is responsible for leading a team of over almost 1200 IT professionals.

With more than two and a half decades of IT experience in the mortgage banking industry, Jason excels in application development and enterprise implementation and scaling. He is constantly developing intuitive technology platforms that help both UWM team members and applications, and independent mortgage brokers grow their businesses.

Under Jason’s leadership, UWM has developed the tools and platforms clients need to grow quickly, efficiently and with scale. Prior to joining UWM, Jason served on multiple mortgage and CIO advisory boards and held positions as Chief Technology Officer for The Federal Savings Bank and Chief Information Officer for Guaranteed Rate.

He was most recently named a 2021 HousingWire Tech Trendsetter, and was recognized as a HousingWire Vanguard recipient in 2018.

Jason earned his bachelor’s degree from Eastern Michigan University.