APPO GROUP, INC.
AVENTURA, FLORIDA

The Appo Group founders have been providing innovative technology solutions for clients for over 15 years. Having worked with many of the country’s largest financial service, insurance, and healthcare firms we have extensive knowledge and background in building and implementing leading-edge systems for data-driven communications. In the 1990s, we were the management team at Benefacts where we produced personalized employee benefit and retirement communications for millions of employees. In 2000, we started the Argus Group and replaced “pick and pack” fulfillment methods with custom systems to generate on-demand communications. The Appo Group is now introducing the next big leap forward in technology and capability — a system that allows you to create your own data-driven communications without custom software development. Steve is the former President of Benefacts, one of the nation’s oldest and largest providers of personalized communications. Benefacts provides personalized statements about employee benefits to millions of employees and participants in defined contribution and defined benefit plans. Under Steve’s leadership the company provided data-driven communications to the employees of dozens of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies, including General Electric, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, UPS, The Vanguard Group, TransAmerica, and the Federal Reserve Bank. In 1998, Steve left Benefacts and founded Argus Group, a leader in on-demand communications for the retirement plan industry. Steve guided the company through its development of a new leading-edge process to convert “pick and pack” fulfillment to laser-printed, on-demand communications. Argus Group grew quickly and its clients included many of the largest mutual fund, insurance, and investment companies in the US. Argus was sold to ADP in 2002 and Steve left in 2004 to pursue other ventures. Argus Group is now a division of Broadridge, a publicly traded company. Cindy works closely with clients to provide guidance and support for data-driven communications and marketing strategy.  She helps clients produce multi-touch campaigns for web and print communications and consults on content and design for creating effective participant, plan sponsor, and advisor communications. With her extensive knowledge of retirement plan systems and communications, Cindy brings a broad range of experience to the Appo Group. Cindy was a co-founder of Argus Group (now Broadridge) where she managed the firm’s consulting and creative teams. Cindy helped her clients think through their communications strategy and develop materials to effectively leverage plan and participant data. Over the years she has worked with many of the country’s largest financial, insurance and healthcare firms including American Funds, ING, Johns Hopkins, Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, USF&G and Fidelity Investments. She has helped her clients develop sophisticated, data-driven communications from Enrollment Kits and Fee Disclosures to multi-touch campaigns. Cindy was also a Vice President of Creative and Production services at Aon-Benefacts. In that role she worked with many Fortune 500 companies to design and produce their personalized benefits statements. Cindy has extensive knowledge of how to leverage data for communications. She consulted for over 10 years, helping clients set up content management systems to effectively communicate to employees, advisors, investors and plan participants. As a Vice President at Benefacts, Tom led the technology team in the migration of the firm’s mainframe-based process to a distributed PC environment. He implemented new technical approaches to merging data and variable content in documents. Tom has managed the handling of highly personalized data for several of the largest employers in the country including Great West Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank. Tom is also a co-founder of Appo Group and brings his experience in managing operations focused on the creation and production of data-driven communications. Chuck is the head of technology for Appo Group. He is the lead architect of the Appo System, which includes the Appo Toolset for Adobe InDesign, the Appo Portal, and other applications. Chuck is an expert in designing and developing workflow automation in the publishing and communications field. He is an expert in Adobe InDesign as well as the Adobe Creative Suite. Prior to joining Appo Group, Chuck, provided consulting on all aspects of publishing technology. He specialized in custom workflow automation and systems design for publishers, agencies, in-house graphics departments, government, and Fortune 500 companies. He also did work for Adobe, Apple, and Xerox at the strategic level (whitepapers or other analysis) and tactical level (writing and/or presenting training materials). .  More than two decades ago, Chuck created a concept he called “PostScript preflight” to denote the pre-output analysis process that first became necessary with PostScript workflows, and continues to this day for most publishing workflows. Preflight became standard throughout the industry, and today serves as the basis for a number of commercial products as well as a host of articles, and books.  Chuck is a well-known speaker and has written for many publications. Joan brings extensive experience as an Art Director and Graphic Designer to her role as VP of Design Services at Appo Group. She provides graphic design services and manages customer training and support on the Appo Toolset. Joan has over 15 years of experience in designing customized, data-driven communications and award-winning brochures. Joan has been creating, drawing, painting and designing since she could maneuver a crayon...and later a mouse. Visual compositions and color combinations just come naturally. She began designing for the retirement industry at Benefacts, a division of Aon Consulting. There she had the opportunity to create personalized benefit communications for Fortune 500 clients such as Vanguard, Fannie Mae, Raytheon, and The Coca-Cola Company. Her award-winning Total Compensation logo for Coca-Cola was printed along with an award-winning identity package she developed for a local non-profit in