Marni Helfand is the Chief HR Officer and General Counsel for The Planet Group. Marni oversees all legal and HR functions including providing training, advising on all areas of compliance, negotiating client agreements, managing litigation, and protecting the company's intellectual property. After leaving private practice with the law firm of Littler Mendelson, most of her career has been spent in the staffing and consulting industries. Prior to beginning her career, Marni received her Bachelor's Degree in Industrial and Labor Relations form Cornell University, and attained her JD Law Degree from Northwestern University's School of Law.
Tim Simmerly
Chief Executive Officer, The Planet Group
Tim Simmerly is the CEO of The Planet Group and drives the growth and innovation of our global consulting and staffing companies.
With more than twenty years of experience in talent and human capital services, Tim has been an integral part of The Planet Group since our inception in 2009, serving in multiple leadership roles and leading the launch of several of Planet's brands. He became CEO in September 2024 after serving as President for several years.
Tim's deep industry knowledge and visionary approach along with his leadership ability and operational excellence are key to his role in expanding The Planet Group into new market segments worldwide while ensuring our position at the forefront of human capital consulting and professional staffing.
Christine Belmonte
President, Planet Technology
Christine Belmonte has spent the past 15+ years partnering with some of the world’s most recognized brands on their data, technology, ecommerce and talent needs. As President of Planet Technology, Christine directs the company's strategy and operations as well as leads a team of 125+ staffing professionals in the creation of strategic hiring solutions and project management plans for clients across the globe. Since joining Planet Technology in 2022, Belmonte has been instrumental in the firm’s growth, including the expansion into new specialty areas and deepening relationships with strategic partners like Workday and Oracle.
Before joining Planet Technology, Christine served as Vice President of Client Development at Syndigo, a global SaaS platform in the eCommerce space. In this role, she successfully built and led a sales team, focusing on securing and expanding strategic relationships with top-tier CPG clients. Previously, she was the Managing Director at Gartner, where she oversaw the Healthcare Supply Chain practice within their Global Enterprise division. Her extensive experience also includes several key sales management positions at CareerBuilder, where she led high-performing sales teams and managed large enterprise accounts nationally.
Christine has a Bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University.
John Cipolla
President, Launch Consulting
As President of Launch Consulting, John Cipolla oversees a robust group of Studio practices; advisory, native app development / modernization, cloud build-migrate-run, data AI/ML & generative AI, and collaboration solutions; and partner ecosystem business groups.
John has over 30 years as an accomplished Fortune 500 / global systems integrator executive, focused on client outcomes and leading and motivating high-performance teams.
Prior to Launch, he served as CEO of Maven Wave (acquired by Atos) driving end-to-end consulting globally with a heavy focus on Data / AI / ML, cloud implementations, software engineering, managed services and licensing business. He then went on to form Atos' Eviden division where he built and led the Cloud Americas group and finally became the Global Chief Customer Officer.
His experience was forged through serving as Managing Director at Accenture (NYSE ACN) leading the journey to cloud, intelligent cloud & infrastructure teams along with go-to-market lead for two major strategic partnerships: Accenture Google Business Group and Accenture Microsoft Business Group. Previously he served in executive positions with Insight Enterprises (NASDAQ NSIT) and AT&T (NYSE T).
Elizabeth Spayne
Vice President, Marketing
As Vice President of Marketing, Elizabeth Spayne develops promotional and branding strategies that expand and further strengthen the position of The Planet Group and its multiple staffing firms, consulting companies, and consultants in the marketplace. She has extensive experience designing and implementing social media, public relations and communication programs in both the consumer and business-to-business sectors. Prior to joining The Planet Group, Elizabeth served as EVP of Marketing for WinterWyman, an award-winning staffing firm that was acquired by Planet in November 2019.
Previously, she served in senior marketing roles for a well-known career management firm and a publicly-traded senior housing developer and operator. Elizabeth holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Providence College.
Jon Whiley
Chief Technology Officer
Jon Whiley is the CTO of The Planet Group of companies and is responsible for leading the firm's innovative technology strategy, including network infrastructure, system integrations, process improvements, new technology implementations, and IT support.
Jon has over 20 years of progressive tech and operations experience delivering transformative solutions that drive immediate business impact and continuous improvements across enterprises. During his career, he has designed competitive tools and adopted technology to optimize workflows and strengthen service delivery across multisite operations.
Prior to joining The Planet Group, Jon was Executive Vice President and CTO of Majestic Steel USA. A veteran of the US Marine Corps and graduate of Ohio University, he serves as a Governing Body Member of Evanta’s Midwest CIO group and is also involved with the Northeast Ohio chapter of SIM.
Philip Monti
Chief Financial Officer
Philip Monti is the CFO of The Planet Group and is responsible for driving the firm’s profitability as well as providing financial discipline and capital direction. With over two decades of senior financial leadership and a deep understanding of the global consulting and staffing industries, Phil excels at overseeing complex financial systems that serve enterprise-level organizations with thousands of employees.
He is a valued business partner with a strong record of balancing the interests of executive leadership and the board while also being a financial voice for the organization; navigating debt and equity capital transactions; and negotiating, closing and communicating M&A transactions in private equity and public company environments.
Prior to joining The Planet Group, Phil was Chief Financial Officer of DISYS where he helped guide the firm as a global staffing leader. Previously, he served in a variety of similar executive-level corporate finance roles with Signature Consultants and Acosta Sales & Marketing. A certified public accountant, Phil received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his Master’s in Accounting from the University of North Florida.
Jeff Bonci
President, Planet Professional
As president, Jeff Bonci oversees the strategy and operations of Planet Professional, a staffing and recruitment firm specializing in Accounting & Finance, Human Resources and Administrative. In addition to helping Planet Professional expand its national footprint, Jeff leads a team of nearly 100 staffing professionals. He has 15+ years of relationship building, solution selling and business strategy, all within the staffing industry.
Prior to joining the firm, Jeff was the Senior Managing Director of Collabera, a digital-first engineering technology talent leader, where he helped increase billing by 500% and developed a multi-region sales team. Jeff has also held senior management, sales and recruiter positions with Insight Global, a full-service staffing agency.
Jeff holds a Bachelor's degree from Stonehill College in Easton, MA and volunteers with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Abigail Allen
Executive Vice President, Planet Technology
Executive Vice President of Planet Interactive, Abigail Allen, has more than 20 years of Sales and Operations experience, including more than a decade in the staffing industry. Before joining Planet Interactive, she was the VP of Enterprise Accounts at a leading staffing agency that specialized in recruiting digital marketing, advertising and creative positions. Prior, she held operations and account service roles with iProspect, a global advertising and digital media agency.
Abigail has a Bachelor's degree from Texas Christian University.
Russ Whitman
Chief Strategy Officer
A champion of the now and next, Chief Strategy Officer Russ Whitman leads the go-to-market strategy for Planet and its global consulting and staffing divisions. He has over 25 years of experience in digital product development, business and marketing and has successfully grown several AI, SaaS and cloud-based technology companies from startups to multi-million-dollar entities.
Before joining The Planet Group, he led strategy for Launch Consulting, an AI-first digital transformation firm that Planet acquired in June of 2022. Previously, he held various senior positions with technology leaders and global consulting companies. His passion for people and technology along with his ability to accelerate business aligned to industry trends have played a pivotal role in his success.
Jim Pagliero
President, Planet Forward
Jim Pagliero has 20+ years of experience in the staffing industry. As company President, he oversees Planet Forward's strategy and operations, and leads a team of nearly 50 staffing professionals. Prior to joining the firm, he was the Regional Vice President of a leading provider of digital transformation services including technical and engineering staffing.
A graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he has also held general manager and executive sales roles at other well-known staffing and consulting companies.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
