Patrick J. Cleary

Cleary is chief growth officer of Vensure Employer Solutions and serves on its board of directors. He is the former president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, the national trade association for the professional employer organization industry. PEOs provide payroll, benefits, and human resource services to small and midsize businesses nationwide. Cleary has had a wide-ranging career spanning more than 25 years in government, policy, public affairs, and communications. His areas of expertise include human resources, health care, economics, and trade. A former chairman of the National Mediation Board and deputy assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Labor, Cleary also spent 10 years at the National Association of Manufacturers, the nation’s largest industrial trade association. At NAM, he was responsible at various times for the organization’s workplace policy lobbying efforts, board of directors, small and medium-size manufacturers, association relations, sales, and public affairs divisions. Ultimately, he presided over NAM’s internal and external communications, launching the blog “ShopFloor.org” and growing it to one million readers in two years. Cleary has lectured on negotiation and dispute resolution at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is the author of The Negotiation Handbook. Cleary attended the Senior Managers in Government program at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Executive Development Program at Wharton. He is a member of the D.C. bar association and serves on the corporate advisory board of So Others Might Eat.

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