Mark Huber joined Birkman in September 2022 as the Chief Executive Officer. He is a visionary leader with a track record of leading organizations through acutely challenging circumstances. Mark utilizes his more than 35 years of experience to help companies drive results.
He was a Chairman for the Diabetes Supply Center of the Midlands (DSCM). As Chairman of the DSCM for 28 years, Mark provided strategic direction and recruited and mentored the management team, which doubled sales and quadrupled EBITDA in 18 months. The proceeds from DSCM to the 501(c)(3) parent represented a 22.5% compound annual return on invested capital over the 28-year term of the investment and was accomplished with no leverage.
Mark’s other astounding accomplishments include growing Smeal Fire Apparatus Co.’s sales volume by 71%, increasing pricing by 24%, and increasing its backlog by 100% during his three years as CEO. Mark also founded PayFlex Systems USA, Inc., a leading nationwide administration provider for employee benefit programs. Mark led the company as CEO from a startup to a $57 million revenue company employing 450 people and managing several billion dollars of employee benefit funds.
Mark currently serves on the Board of Directors of American National Bank and is Chairman of the Asset Quality Committee, and has served on the compliance, audit, and strategic planning committees. Recognizing his community responsibility, he has consistently served on not-for-profit boards, including Creighton University, Children’s Physicians, and as Chairman of the Diabetes Education Center of the Midlands.
Mark earned a BSBA in accounting from Creighton University and a Juris Doctorate cum laude. He completed the three-year OPM program at Harvard Business School in 2007, where he met Chairwoman Sharon Birkman, and the Private Equity and Venture Capital program in 2010. In recognition of his professional achievements, Mark was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Omahans in 1999 and an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the Central Midwest in 2008. PayFlex was a member of the Omaha 25 top fastest growing companies six times and was named to the Fortune 5000 list five times. He also co-authored the Tax Penalty Exposure Review used by KPMG nationwide.
Birkman President, Amy Shepley, is a third-generation Birkman family leader with twenty years of experience working with organizational behavior and perception. She is the granddaughter of Birkman founder and esteemed industrial-organizational psychologist Dr. Roger W. Birkman and daughter of Chairwoman Sharon Birkman.
In her current role, Amy leads a team working with a global network of consultants and corporate clients to enhance the usability of The Birkman Method to solve modern organizational challenges. For the last two years, Amy founded her consulting company, Percepte, utilizing Birkman as an independent consultant with Fortune 500 companies to drive achievement in team effectiveness, change management, leadership development, and culture.
She’s one of the most in-demand workshop facilitators for highly successful companies due to her deep understanding of the product and wide-ranging experience applying solutions within a broad set of industries. Amy cultivated her professional expertise on top of undergraduate study in psychology and an MBA from Tulane University.
Amy’s professional success story is one filled with exceptional grit and passion. Following undergraduate study at the University of Texas, she started her career as a bookkeeper for a Houston business in a grim, post-9/11 job market. Mismatched for her interests and strengths, Amy learned the importance of understanding individual personalities to create organizational success.
She soon began her journey at Birkman, filing paperwork and answering phones. As time passed, she developed a new professional relationship with her grandfather, in which the quiet Dr. Birkman opened up to discuss his latest ideas. Curious, engaged, and invigorated, their intergenerational dynamic sparked Amy’s ongoing passion for innovation in organizational success.
Looking back on her journey, Amy says she’s exceptionally proud of the career milestone directing the creation of our flagship product, the Birkman Signature Report, and our High-Performing Teams: Building the Foundation workshop.
John Pryor joined Birkman in September 2022 as Chief Operating Officer. John is responsible for leading sales, operations, technology, and other strategic initiatives in this role.
As an experienced technology and operations executive, John has spent most of his career growing, scaling, and integrating businesses in the healthcare industry. Most recently, John led a medical device business through a successful strategic acquisition process and helped develop a national distribution platform within the new parent company.
John adheres to Jocko Willink’s principle “Discipline Equals Freedom,” which focuses on building high-performing teams that prioritize and execute to deliver value for customers and stakeholders. John’s passion for organizational development and driving results by unlocking human potential attracted him to Birkman and the role.
A native Nebraskan, John attended Creighton University, where he earned his BSBA in Accounting. He and his wife Libby enjoy traveling, golfing, and cooking together.
Sharon Birkman began her role as Birkman International’s President and CEO in 2002, becoming Chairman & CEO in 2019. As the daughter of company founder and influential industrial-organizational psychologist, Dr. Roger W. Birkman, Sharon cultivated her deep expertise in human perception and organizational behavior through her lifelong interest in The Birkman Method. Before succeeding Dr. Birkman as CEO, Sharon served in several roles including Vice President of Corporate Relations, Training, and Career Coaching.
Sharon’s leadership has been instrumental in ushering into a new era of product development, technology, and training initiatives during a time of unprecedented growth. In this period, Sharon and the business have been recognized with a multitude of awards. These include EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2016, the Women President’s Organization’s Mary Lehman MacLachlan Award for Economic Empowerment in 2017, Houston’s Best and Brightest Places to Work For from 2014-2020 and 2022, National Best and Brightest Places to Work For (2014-2020), the Houston Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business Award in 2017 and 2018, and as a Houston Power 50 Woman Leader in 2018.
In addition to her responsibilities at Birkman, Sharon volunteers her services as a Board Member of Houston Public Media (NPR and PBS), Goodwill Industries of Houston, and as a lay-leader for Chapelwood United Methodist Church. She also served as a long-time Board member for ESCAPE Family Resource Center.
Sharon has an M.A. from the University of Texas and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s OPM (Owner/President Management) program. She co-authored the book “The Birkman Method: Your Personality at Work” (2013) and authored the book “Creatures of Contact” (2020) by ForbesBooks.
In her personal life, Sharon confesses to collecting “too many” books and loves to recharge with long walks, classical music, NPR and theater. She is the mother of three grown daughters and along with husband, Richard, treasures time with their grandchildren Morgan, Declan, Lyla, and Emerson.
