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Creative Group, Inc. Partners with Virtual Incentives to Enhance Global Payout Solutions

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SCHAUMBURG, Ill., Dec. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Creative Group, Inc., a full-service meeting, incentive, and recognition company, announced today a strategic collaboration with Virtual Incentives, a leading provider of global digital reward solutions. This partnership aims to bring innovative incentive solutions to the global stage, enhancing the way clients manage and distribute rewards across the diverse markets Creative Group supports.

“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Virtual Incentives to provide our clients with more flexible and seamless global payout options,” said Jamie Schwartz, Sr. Director of Performance Solutions Strategy for Creative Group. “This partnership strengthens our ability to support clients’ needs for customizable, reloadable gift card rewards or incentives, particularly as businesses continue to expand globally. Physical or virtual gift cards are easy and safe, and can be used in many ways such as rewards, spending money for event attendees, gratuities, and holiday gifting.”

The partnership will leverage Virtual Incentives’ digital rewards platform, offering instant, secure, and personalized payouts across multiple currencies and markets. By combining Creative Group’s expertise in incentive and recognition programs with Virtual Incentives’ advanced technology and global content network, this collaboration will deliver enhanced solutions to boost participant engagement, motivation, and loyalty, while streamlining payment logistics for events. Whether it’s for reward or travel, gift cards play an important role in participants having a positive experience.

“Our platform is designed to simplify global reward with industry-leading variety, and through this partnership, we will be able to deliver greater value to Creative Group’s clients, helping them drive performance and achieve business objectives more effectively,” said Nathaniel Shelley-Reade, Chief Revenues Officer at Virtual Incentives.

Both companies are committed to delivering innovative solutions that drive performance through recognition and incentives. This collaboration will benefit clients by providing a streamlined, digital-first approach to reward management, further enhancing Creative Group’s already robust offering.

About Virtual Incentives Virtual Incentives is transforming the landscape of global payouts with unmatched speed, flexibility, and innovation. Serving millions of consumers worldwide, Virtual Incentives offers digital reward solutions for a variety of applications, including employee incentives, research study payouts, and loyalty program cash-outs. With extensive coverage across 145 countries via Visa and Mastercard, eGiftCard availability in 67 countries, and support for 59 currencies, Virtual Incentives connects users to over 4,500 global brands. The platform provides fast, seamless, and efficient payment solutions, tailored to meet the needs of businesses and consumers on a global scale. For more information, visit www.virtualincentives.com.

About Creative Group
Creative Group, a Direct Travel company, is a full-service meeting, events, incentive, and recognition agency specializing in end-to-end meeting and event management, engagement programs, and sales and channel incentives. An industry leader, Creative Group has been honored with an Event Marketer Award, multiple SITE Crystal Awards, and the CMI 25 Award, which recognizes the top 25 most influential meeting and incentive management companies in the U.S.

Creative Group was founded in 1970 and serves clients in technology, financial services, life sciences, insurance, manufacturing, retail, automotive, hospitality, and more. Employing over 200 people, the company is headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, and maintains offices near San Francisco, California; Appleton, Wisconsin; and Toronto, Canada. For more information about Creative Group, visit www.creativegroupinc.com

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SOURCE Creative Group, Inc.

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Heidrick & Struggles Strengthens Board with Appointment of AI and Talent Leaders Aseem Datar and Leanne Wood

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New Appointments Bring Strategic Expertise to Support Firm’s Next Chapter of Growth

CHICAGO, June 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Heidrick & Struggles today announced the appointments of Aseem Datar, Corporate Vice President, AI Platform and Quantum at Microsoft, and Leanne Wood, former Chief Human Resources Officer at Vodafone, to the firm’s Board of Managers, the company’s governing body. The appointments follow the recent designation of Tom Monahan, who continues to serve as Chief Executive Officer of Heidrick & Struggles, as Vice Chairman of the Board, alongside the appointment of Tom Murray, President of Heidrick & Struggles, to the Board. Together, these appointments further strengthen the Board’s expertise across technology, leadership, talent, and organizational transformation as the firm enters its next phase of growth as a private company.

Datar and Wood bring significant expertise across technology innovation, leadership, organizational transformation, and global business strategy as Heidrick & Struggles continues advancing its long-term growth strategy and leadership advisory capabilities worldwide.

“We are delighted to welcome Aseem and Leanne to our Board of Managers,” said Tom Monahan, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Heidrick & Struggles. “Our Board’s expertise reflects some of the most consequential forces shaping the future of leadership and business today. Aseem’s experience at the forefront of AI innovation and enterprise technology, combined with Leanne’s distinguished leadership across talent, culture, and organizational transformation, will provide invaluable perspectives as we continue investing in innovation and helping clients navigate increasingly complex leadership challenges around the world.”

Datar is Corporate Vice President, AI Platform and Quantum at Microsoft, where he leads the company’s strategy and execution across advanced AI and next-generation computing. Over more than two decades at Microsoft, he has scaled some of its most significant businesses, holding senior leadership roles in business and product strategy, operations, and cloud and AI platform growth — including as Chief Operating Officer for Microsoft Azure. He also brings experience working with emerging technology and venture-backed companies through his time at Madrona Venture Group.

Wood is an accomplished global business and board leader with extensive experience across talent strategy, organizational transformation, and corporate governance. Most recently, she served as Chief Human Resources Officer at Vodafone, where she led global people and organizational transformation initiatives across more than 100,000 employees and operations spanning Europe and Africa. Her experience also includes global senior leadership roles at Burberry and Diageo, where she helped guide complex business transformation, leadership succession, and culture initiatives. She also brings prior board experience, having served as Chair of Vodafone Shared Operations Limited and as a Non-Executive Director at Compass Group and Vodacom Africa.

“As Heidrick & Struggles continues building on its strong market position following the recent transition to private ownership, attracting world-class leaders to our Board remains a critical priority,” said Carmine Di Sibio, Chairman of the Board of Heidrick & Struggles. “Aseem and Leanne each bring highly relevant experience across technology innovation, talent leadership, and organizational transformation that will help guide the firm as it continues investing in innovation and delivering exceptional value for clients globally.”

Following the company’s take-private transaction led by Advent International, Corvex Private Equity, and a global network of strategic investors in late 2025, Heidrick’s Board of Managers reflects a combination of firm leadership and investor representation alongside independent business leaders. The Board is chaired by Carmine Di Sibio, Operating Partner at Advent International and Former Global Chair and CEO of EY. Tom Monahan, Chief Executive Officer of Heidrick & Struggles, was recently appointed Vice Chairman of the Board, and Tom Murray, President of Heidrick & Struggles, was recently appointed to the Board. Additional Board members include Joe Costa, Managing Partner of Corvex Private Equity; John DiCola, Managing Director at Advent; Mark Dirzulaitis, Director at Advent; and Chris Satti, President of Salem Capital Management. Chris Egan, Managing Partner at Advent, and Paul Yun, Managing Director at Mousse Partners, serve as Board observers.

About Heidrick & Struggles 
Heidrick & Struggles is the world’s foremost advisor on executive leadership, driving superior client performance through premier human capital leadership advisory services. For more than 70 years, we have delivered value for our clients by leveraging unrivaled expertise to help organizations discover and enable outstanding leaders and teams. Learn more at www.heidrick.com.

Media Contact
Bianca Wilson
Global Director, Public Relations
Heidrick & Struggles 
bwilson@heidrick.com 

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Chainguard Named a Leader in Inaugural Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Software Supply Chain Security

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Chainguard positioned furthest right for Completeness of Vision among all vendors evaluated

KIRKLAND, Wash., June 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chainguard, the trusted source for open source, today announced it has been named a Leader in the inaugural Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Software Supply Chain Security. Chainguard is positioned furthest right for Completeness of Vision among all vendors evaluated. Chainguard has made secure-by-default the standard for software supply chain security, delivering open source that’s secure and ready for production.

As AI-assisted development accelerates and attackers exploit new vulnerabilities in a matter of minutes, organizations can no longer rely on scanning artifacts after the fact. Prevention is the only solution. Chainguard’s platform has grown to cover more than 2,500 container projects and millions of language library versions, as well as virtual machines, CI/CD workflows, agent skills, and OS packages. Chainguard Factory, which has processed more than 1 billion unique build manifests to date, is the agentic engine that enables the company to scale to tens of thousands of packages, remediate CVEs within hours rather than days, and deliver security at industry-leading velocity.

“The software supply chain threat landscape is changing faster than traditional security tools were designed to handle. AI is only widening that gap, giving attackers new ways to find and exploit vulnerabilities before most teams even know they exist. We believe the Gartner recognition of Software Supply Chain Security as a category is a critical step in helping organizations understand the threat they’re up against, and what it takes to stay ahead of it,” said Patrick Donahue, Senior Vice President of Product, Chainguard. “Chainguard builds your supply chain from the ground up, with trusted source, hardened artifacts, secured pipelines, and clean provenance by default. Prevention is the only viable strategy for this new AI era, and Chainguard was built for this moment.”

Securing the software supply chain from source to production

The software supply chain has become the most consequential attack surface in modern infrastructure. Malware campaigns have targeted language libraries, CI/CD pipelines, and AI coding tools, while AI models are accelerating the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities faster than traditional remediation workflows can respond. Chainguard addresses this across every layer of the stack.

Chainguard’s catalog of trusted open source is continuously rebuilt from verified source code in an isolated environment through the Chainguard Factory. Chainguard Libraries are malware-resistant, Chainguard Containers ship with zero known CVEs, and Chainguard Actions and Agent Skills leverage hardening rulesets to continuously assess the security posture of critical AI and CI/CD open source artifacts. All artifacts come with cryptographic signatures, signed SBOMs, and SLSA L3-aligned provenance, so engineers have confidence in what they are running in production, and security teams have the compliance evidence to match.

By delivering container images with near-zero known CVEs, Chainguard eliminates vulnerability noise before it ever reaches customer pipelines, so security teams spend less time triaging alerts and more time mitigating risks that actually matter. Chainguard’s preventive foundation helps organizations meet regulatory mandates such as FedRAMP, the NIS2 Directive, and the EU CRA without relying on reactive security management.

To learn more about Chainguard’s recognition as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Software Supply Chain Security report and read a complimentary copy, visit https://get.chainguard.dev/gartnermq2026.

Gartner Disclaimer
Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are a trademark of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.

About Chainguard
Chainguard is the trust layer for open source software. Its solutions provide engineers and AI agents with the hardened, trusted, and production-ready artifacts they rely on, so organizations can build fast while staying compliant and protecting against AI supply chain attacks. Customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake. Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital. For more information, visit: https://www.chainguard.dev/

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SOURCE Chainguard

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In HelloNation, Wealth Advisor Matt Cuplin Explains How Taxes Affect Retirement Income

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The article examines how taxes can affect retirement income from multiple sources long after employment ends.

MADISON, Wis., June 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — How can taxes affect the retirement income you’ve worked years to build?

HelloNation has published an article that provides the answer by explaining how different income sources may be taxed during retirement and why those tax consequences deserve careful attention.

The article features insights from Matt Cuplin of Midwest Financial Group and explains why taxation is often an overlooked part of retirement planning. While many people spend decades building savings and investments, the article notes that understanding how retirement income is taxed can be just as important as accumulating assets.

The HelloNation article explains that one of the most common sources of retirement income comes from retirement accounts. Traditional retirement accounts often provide tax advantages during working years, but retirement account withdrawals may be subject to ordinary income taxes after retirement. According to the article, many retirees are surprised by how retirement account withdrawals can influence their overall taxable income and spending power.

Another important source of retirement income discussed in the article is Social Security benefits. While some retirees assume Social Security benefits are always tax-free, the article explains that a portion of Social Security benefits may be taxable depending on income levels and individual circumstances. Because Social Security benefits often work alongside other income sources, understanding their role within a broader tax strategy is essential.

The article also highlights the importance of investment income. Retirement income may include interest, dividends, capital gains, and earnings generated from taxable accounts. Unlike retirement account withdrawals, investment income may be taxed under different rules. Understanding how investment income affects taxable income can help retirees gain a more complete view of their financial situation.

According to the article, the challenge for many retirees is that multiple income sources often work together. A retiree may receive Social Security benefits, take distributions from retirement accounts, and generate investment income simultaneously. Each source can affect taxable income differently, making tax planning an important component of effective retirement planning.

The article emphasizes that tax planning does not end when employment income stops. In many cases, retirement introduces new tax considerations that did not exist during working years. Required distributions, evolving financial goals, and changing income streams can all influence retirement income and future tax obligations.

Another key point discussed in the article is the importance of evaluating long-term outcomes. Retirement often lasts for decades, and decisions made early can affect future retirement income and tax consequences. Incorporating tax planning into retirement planning allows individuals to better understand how current decisions may influence future financial flexibility.

The article also notes that many retirees focus primarily on how much income they expect to receive rather than how much may remain after taxes. A retirement income strategy that appears sufficient before taxes can look very different once taxable income and tax liabilities are considered. Evaluating these factors together can provide a more realistic understanding of available spending power.

According to the article, every retiree’s situation is unique. Account balances, filing status, retirement accounts, investment holdings, and income sources can all affect taxable income differently. Understanding how each component contributes to retirement income helps support more informed decision-making.

The article concludes that careful attention to retirement income, retirement account withdrawals, Social Security benefits, and investment income can help retirees avoid unexpected tax surprises. By making tax planning a consistent part of retirement planning, individuals can gain greater clarity about taxable income and build a stronger foundation for long-term financial confidence.

The Hidden Tax Risks of Retirement Income features insights from Matt Cuplin, Wealth Advisor of Madison, WI, in HelloNation.

About HelloNation

HelloNation is America’s Good News Network, a premier media platform built on the idea that good news travels faster when real people tell real stories. Through its community-focused publications and innovative “edvertising” approach, HelloNation delivers content that informs, inspires, and spotlights the leaders making a meaningful impact in their communities.

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SOURCE HelloNation

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