Management
Performark is led by proven industry veterans in outsourced sales and marketing services.
Joe Lethert – Chief Executive Officer
Joe Lethert founded Performark over 20 years ago and is Performark’s principal owner and CEO. Joe has long been considered a visionary in the area of lead management solutions, helping to pioneer the concept of closed loop marketing and lead management. Joe’s career began in advertising, after which he joined Business Incentives, then a $250,000 company featuring continuity awards in grocery stores. Joe saw opportunities far beyond the retail environment and helped BI expand into a prominent B2B enterprise. When he left BI in 1984 as Vice President of Sales and Marketing, it was a $70 million marketing services company, specializing in designing full service incentive programs for Fortune 500 companies.
Joe balances his business life with his passion for service in the community. Joe serves on multiple boards of community service focused organizations in addition to several “for profit” company boards including:
- Casa de Esperanza – an advisory board for an organization that helps battered women.
- SVP of Minnesota – he is one of the founders of this organization, a venture capital company that helps non-profit organizations deal with needy children.
- Opportunity Partners – on the advisory board of this group that finds meaningful work for disabled adults.
Mary Dedrick – Chief Operating Officer
As COO. Mary Dedrick is responsible for all aspects of operations and strategy development. Her keen ability to marry process and technology has been instrumental in driving Performark’s highly successful outsourcing solutions that integrate people, process and discipline resulting in sales and marketing alignment based on buyer-centric lead management processes.
With more than twenty-five years of experience, Mary is a visionary leader with a deep business process background. She understands the technical implications of complex relationships and has a proven track record of architecting and deploying innovative, results-oriented, practical solutions to a range of business and systems related challenges.
Prior to Performark, Mary was Senior Vice President of Web Enablement for Innuity, Inc., with responsibility for customer-facing elements of the business, operations, business delivery, inside sales and customer service. During her tenure with Innuity, Mary conceived and orchestrated the design and delivery of a patent-pending production process for automated web site creation which contributed to the company’s 400%+ growth in three years.
Mary has held various technology-related positions in diverse organizations and industries including Computer Power Group, Health Central (now Allina Health Systems), Baxter Travenol, Northrup King and Control Data.
Brian Steel – Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Brian Steel is responsible for driving Performark’s overall sales of lead life-cycle management solutions encompassing database services, inquiry management, lead generation, lead nurturing and program performance measurement. Leveraging his experience from his days as a pioneer in the area core business process outsourcing sales and marketing, Brian is focused on sales growth through new client acquisition, generating new business from existing customers, and leading the company into new target markets.
With more than 14 years experience in sales, Brian’s career reflects leadership in best practice sales & marketing strategies to deliver significant YoY revenue growth. Prior to Performark, Brian was Director of Zomax’ software publishing business unit, which he took from negative growth to 16% YoY top-line growth. Prior to Zomax, Brian was VP of Sales for Agiliti, Inc., an early pioneer in the SaaS marketplace, where he was directly responsible for securing Agiliti’s (3) largest clients before his promotion to VP of Sales. Brian’s early career started with world class selling organizations, Kodak and Xerox, where he consistently overachieved annual sales targets in individual contributor and managerial roles.
Vicki Ziegler – Director of Operations
Vicki Ziegler is the Director of Operations for Performark. She joined the company in 1993 and has over 15 years experience in processes and procedures, process improvement and employee relations. Her responsibilities include managing the productivity, quality and delivery of services to our clients from Data Administration, our Call Center and the Distribution Center.
Vicki graduated from the University of Minnesota with a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resource Management.
Jana Raber – Director of Client Services
Jana Raber joined Performark over 8 years ago in our Client Services department, and has over 11 years in client relationship management. She is responsible for leading a team of talented Program Managers who are focused on exceeding client program business goals and objectives. Ultimately responsible for client satisfaction, retention and growth; she is dedicated to exceptional delivery resulting in long term client partnerships, many currently in their fifth year or more of business with Performark.
Jana graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management and Environmental Studies.