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Leadership

Steve Marcus, Founder and Senior Advisor

As a specialist in the dynamics of affinity and co-branded credit cards for consumer loyalty programs, Steve has been at the forefront of this marketplace since its inception, playing leadership roles in the sales and marketing efforts of over a dozen major international issuing banks from 1984 to the present.

Steve has participated in the critical steps involved in the creation of partnership programs with a myriad of industry participants: airlines, lodging, retail, media, insurance, investment management, entertainment, sports and several hundred premier non-profit organizations in the United States and Canada.

In 1991 Marcus founded Affinity Partners which became the exclusive sales partner for First USA Bank. During this relationship, FUSA grew from the 14th largest issue of Visa Credit Cards to the #1 issuer.

During his career Steve has represented a number of financial service companies including: MBNA, NationsBank, Signet Bank, Bank of Montreal, First USA, Juniper Bank among others.

John Fees, Founder and Senior Advisor

As an experienced strategic marketing executive and entrepreneur, John has spent his career contributing to organizations seeking to build innovative approaches to engage and acquire customers for national brands.

From 1999-2006, Fees also served as the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Y2M: Youth Media and Marketing Networks. Y2M owned and operated College Publisher, the nation's largest online network of college newspapers serving more than 600 colleges and universities, over 2 million subscribers and 120 national advertisers. Fees led the successful media business thru its sale of Y2M to Viacom's MTV Networks. During his career, John worked with a wide variety of clients including Ford Motor Company, Sony, Samsung, AT&T, GEICO, Education Lending Group, Chase, Monster, Goldman Sachs, and AOL among others.

During the same period, Fees also co-founded Members Connect which became a consumer finance marketing company that focused on marketing education credit products (student loans, graduate and post-graduate consolidation loans and student loans for parents of university students). The company emerged as the largest affinity / partnership marketing company in the North American education finance market. The company was acquired in March of 2006 by JPMorgan Chase (JPM). Fees is credited for pioneering the successful use of innovative business strategies including affinity and online marketing of student loans.

Fees also served as the Senior Vice President, First USA Partners (Affinity Partners International) where he was responsible for creating affinity credit card partnerships in the collegiate and affinity market. He also served as Membership Marketing Vice President at Student Advantage, the nations' largest student membership organization and also served three years as the Vice President / Chief Operating Officer of the Arizona State University Alumni Association.

Fees is a graduate of Arizona State University, where he received a bachelors of science degree in History and also a graduate of Harvard Business School where he completed a Masters in Business Administration.

Deborah Storey – Director of Partnership Programming

Deborah started her career in 1986 as a Business Analyst for ISC Systems Corporation, a supplier of turnkey hardware and software systems to the retail banking industry. In 1989 she hired by Trans National Financial Services to bring traditional affinity programs to new markets.

In 1992 she assumed the role of Senior Vice President of Contract Administration at Affinity Partners where she managed a team of 7 in-house attorneys responsible for the execution of affinity agreements on behalf of First USA Bank/BankOne. During her tenure, Deborah oversaw the negotiation and execution of more than 1,500 affinity agreements and her breadth of knowledge in the structuring of affinity deals is unsurpassed.

Deb graduated cum laude with a BA in Liberal Arts from the University of Massachusetts.