It was a bright, sunny day in San Francisco — the kind of morning that made the city’s glass towers look optimistic by default.
Inside one of them, Maya, CFO of a 180-person SaaS company, opened an email titled: “PEO Renewal Terms – 2025.”
It looked routine.
Then she saw the numbers:
She frowned, then said to no one:
“When did simplification get so complicated?”
The PEO had once been her sanity — payroll handled, compliance covered, benefits bundled. Now it was quietly bleeding margin.
Maya had spent her career scanning financials for red flags — but she’d never audited HR.
Until now.
That 15% admin fee increase hid inside polite phrasing:
“Adjusted to reflect current market conditions and enhanced platform functionality.”
She stared longer than she needed to. The realization wasn’t anger — it was clarity. And clarity stung.
Her spreadsheet told the story: a 14.7% total increase. No added headcount. No new value. Just quiet administrative inflation.
“PEO admin fees are the quietest profit engine in HR,” says Rodney Steele, CEO of Dinsmore Steele. “They grow faster than inflation because they’re built on opacity.”
Across the industry, fees have risen 9% in two years, according to NAPEO data. Most CFOs never notice until “platform enhancement” becomes a recurring charge.
She found she was paying $187 per employee when peers paid $150. And worse: the fee was charged on gross payroll — meaning she paid for every dollar employees saved in 401(k) contributions.
“When your PEO bills against gross payroll,” Steele says, “you’re paying extra for your employees’ discipline. It’s legal. It’s absurd.”
By the time she totaled “minor adjustments,” the overage equaled $40,000 — two engineers.
She emailed her PEO:
“Send an itemized breakdown of all admin charges — last 12 months. Itemized, not summarized.”
The silence was answer enough.
“Transparency isn’t negotiable,” Steele says. “If your PEO can’t show you what you’re paying for, they’re not a partner. They’re a vendor who learned PowerPoint.”
The admin fees were bad enough. The benefits, she’d soon learn, were worse.
The renewal packet arrived cheerful and corporate:
“2025 Benefits — Great Options for Growing Teams!”
Her screen lit up with bad news:
“Streamlined coverage,” the summary said. “That’s one way to describe good luck finding your doctor,” Maya muttered.
According to CFO.com, national averages hover at 6–9%. Her increase wasn’t inflation — it was markup.
“When your renewal beats the national average by triple digits,” Steele says, “you’re not experiencing inflation. You’re experiencing indifference.”
She discovered the “large-group” plan had fractured into smaller subgroups — less leverage, more volatility.
Then came the employee fallout:
“Why is my deductible double?”
“So… we raised $40 million but cut coverage?”
Disbelief always hurts more than anger.
Maya benchmarked the numbers:
PEO rate: $1,200 PEPM.
Market equivalent: $970.
23.7% higher.
“The benchmark isn’t last year’s bill,” Steele says. “It’s what you’d pay elsewhere for the same value.”
Even worse, the renewal date sat on January 1, misaligned with her fiscal calendar.
“January renewals are the PEO’s daylight savings,” Steele quips. “No one asked for it. Everyone adjusts anyway.”
She sent quiet RFPs to two competitors. One quoted 18% less. No platform fees. No surprise surcharges.
It wasn’t disloyalty. It was discipline.
“Benchmarking doesn’t mean leaving,” Steele says. “It means reminding them you can.”
The admin fees were math. The benefits were politics.
Next came compliance — faith.
By November, her office had become an archive of binders, invoices, and patience.
Then came the subject line: “Urgent — Wage & Hour Reclassification Request.”
A three-month-old regulation. A one-day deadline.
The PEO’s oversight meant penalties — small, but symbolic.
“Compliance is the part of PEO marketing that ages fastest,” Steele says. “They can manage filings. They can’t manage accountability.”
A full audit revealed overpaid state taxes, missed OSHA follow-ups, and a contract clause that read:
Client remains responsible for all obligations not expressly assumed by the PEO.
She underlined “not expressly assumed.”
Everything important fell below that line.
“Co-employment doesn’t mean shared responsibility,” Steele explains. “It means shared liability.”
Across the $300 billion PEO industry, this is the quiet epidemic: paperwork outsourced, accountability retained.
Maya wrote a note in the margin:
We’re paying a bodyguard who keeps handing me the knife.
The line made her laugh — then sigh.
“Compliance isn’t protection,” she realized. “It’s plausible deniability — packaged as peace of mind.”
When she finally called the PEO, she didn’t ask for help. She asked for limits.
“Let’s start with what you’re not responsible for,” she said.
The rep hesitated.
“That’s… a broad question.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“Neither does trust,” Steele says. “At least not without a new signature.”
Compliance, she realized, was faith. And faith, unlike margin, doesn’t renew automatically.
By January, the problems had faces.
Payroll errors. Vanished benefit elections. Employees waiting days for replies from people they’d never met.
Her emails went to “Jamie — Client Experience Specialist.”
The hold music: an acoustic cover of Here Comes the Sun.
“Service models decay,” Steele says. “New clients get the A-team. Renewed clients get the queue.”
Even the dedicated team had disappeared into the cloud.
A friend texted her:
“Our ‘dedicated team’ is now a chatbot named Alex. Progress.”
When the PEO billed $350 to fix its own payroll error, Maya didn’t even get angry. She just took notes.
“They don’t charge for mistakes,” Steele says. “They charge for corrections.”
Her service metrics told the story:
Response time: 3.1 days.
Resolution: 78%.
Escalation success: 60%.
She benchmarked it against industry bests: 24 hours, 95%, 90%.
Her PEO wasn’t underperforming. It was under-caring.
“Systems fail quietly,” Steele says. “People fail publicly.”
The breaking point came via Slack:
“I just want to make sure my benefits cover my next appointment.”
The message wasn’t defiant. It was human.
That night, she typed:
Subject: PEO Renewal Discussion — Next Steps.
We need to evaluate alternatives.
She hated writing it.
The PEO had been her shortcut — her shield. But clarity has no nostalgia. It only moves forward.
“Leadership lives between the numbers,” Steele says. “In the calls returned, the promises kept, the silences that mean something.”
The wrong culture always costs more — especially when it’s built into the code.
The PEO called it “the platform.”
Maya called it “the illusion.”
It was beautiful: graphs, gradients, SSO. It promised control and delivered detachment.
“Technology doesn’t make service better,” Steele says. “It just makes dysfunction faster.”
Each module looked connected — until she tried to cross data. Payroll and benefits refused to speak. Reports didn’t match invoices.
“Ecosystems?” Steele said once. “They’re digital suburbs. Pretty. Disconnected.”
Her dashboard declared 99.9% uptime and 98% satisfaction. She didn’t believe either. The one client testimonial belonged to a company that no longer existed.
“Data without disclosure isn’t transparency,” Steele says. “It’s storytelling with a spreadsheet.”
When she saw that automation had made indifference scalable, she finally closed the dashboard and opened a blank document:
RFP — New PEO Evaluation.
It felt like rebellion.
“Automation scales everything,” Steele said. “Including indifference.”
The next morning, she called her CEO.
“We’re going to market,” she said.
“The board’s going to ask why.”
“Because transparency isn’t a switch,” she said. “It’s a habit.”
There was no exit call, no fight. Just precision.
The PEO sent an offboarding checklist. She filled it out like a ritual.
For the first time in a year, silence felt like relief.
She looked around the office — the same desk, the same light, the same city.
Only now, everything looked sharper.
“Technology doesn’t reveal truth,” Steele says. “It removes excuses.”
The next renewal wouldn’t be a decision. It would be a declaration.
And this time, she’d write the terms herself.
The boardroom was all glass and restraint.
Sunlight sliced across the table, turning water glasses into prisms.
Maya stood at the head, laptop open, eyes steady.
“Let’s start with renewal,” she said.
Admin Fee: +15%
Health Plan: +32%
Compliance Rating: B–
Average Response Time: 3.1 days
Each number landed like punctuation.
“These aren’t errors,” she said. “They’re symptoms — of a partnership built for efficiency, not performance.”
She clicked. The slide changed.
Vendors optimize cost. Partners optimize trust.
The COO shifted. “So what’s the fix?”
“Benchmarking,” she said. “Not auditing. Benchmarking. We verify cost, service, risk — every metric. And we hold them to market standards. If they can’t meet them, we move.”
The next slide showed two columns: Vendor vs. Partner.
Vendor | Partner |
Reactive | Proactive |
Opaque | Transparent |
Invoiced | Benchmarked |
Automated | Accountable |
Comfortable | Competitive |
“We’ve spent two years outsourcing friction,” she said. “It’s time to reintroduce accountability.”
At the bottom of the slide, one logo: Dinsmore Steele.
“They benchmark PEOs — cost, service, compliance. They don’t sell. They analyze. And they’ve already shown our current provider is 22% above market.”
The CEO leaned forward. “So we’re not replacing.”
“We’re reinventing,” she said.
“You finally found the leverage.”
“No,” she said. “I finally measured it.”
Within weeks, the incumbent PEO cut admin fees by 11% before bidding began.
Transparency had that effect.
Employees noticed first: fewer errors, faster responses, fewer HR apologies.
Finance noticed next: real-time reporting, clear invoices, no surprises.
“Funny thing about accountability,” Steele says. “Once you demand it, everyone gets faster.”
The new agreement wasn’t perfect. But it was clear.
And that was enough.
Later, alone in her office, Maya stared at her reflection in the glass.
Same skyline. Same woman. Different gravity.
She thought about everything she’d learned — that peace of mind isn’t a product, that systems mirror culture, that technology tells the truth if you’re willing to look.
She thought about her team — HR, finance, her CEO — and made a quiet note to thank them before the week was out.
She smiled — not the tired kind, but the earned one.
She’d traded comfort for control and discovered how lonely clarity can be.
But it was the kind of loneliness that builds legacy.
“The right partner doesn’t just save you money,” Steele says. “They make you sharper.”
She closed her laptop.
Outside, the light shifted — sharp, clean, unapologetic.
For once, it didn’t feel like weather.
It felt like clarity.
In the months that followed, benchmarking became her new operating rhythm.
Not a project — a habit.
Benchmark.
Validate.
Negotiate.
Then decide.
It wasn’t about distrust.
It was about discipline.
“That’s the quiet revolution,” Steele says. “The moment a CFO stops renewing convenience — and starts buying clarity.”
If you’re staring at a renewal email right now, consider this your signal.
Benchmark before you sign. Audit before you agree.
Because what you don’t question, you subsidize.
And clarity, as Maya learned, always pays for itself.
Dinsmore Steele is the Strategic PEO Advisory™ that helps growth-stage companies and private equity portfolio firms align cost, compliance, and clarity — turning HR into a source of leverage, not liability.
Chief Operating Officer
Stephen Clemente serves as Chief Operating Officer at Dinsmore Steele, where he leads operations, finance, administration, sales enablement, and marketing in support of the firm’s PEO advisory mission. He focuses on strengthening how organizations evaluate, structure, and optimize their PEO relationships — helping clients improve cost, performance, and long-term outcomes through objective, data-driven guidance.
Throughout his career, Stephen has led global, cross-functional teams across a range of industries, including technology, eCommerce, and professional services. He has successfully raised venture capital for startup organizations, guided companies through growth and transformation, and helped maximize enterprise value during business sale and exit processes. His leadership approach emphasizes process discipline, organizational alignment, and building high-performing, collaborative teams.
Known for his commitment to delivering exceptional client outcomes, Stephen works to ensure every engagement results in a high-quality advisory experience and long-term partnership. At Dinsmore Steele, he collaborates closely with the advisory and client service teams to enhance benchmarking, negotiation support, implementation oversight, and ongoing performance management — always with the goal of ensuring clients are fully supported and genuinely delighted with their results.
Director of Broker Sales & Strategy
Chad serves as the Director of Broker Sales & Strategy at Dinsmore Steele, where he leads the broker channel with a clear focus: delivering unmatched support, strategy, and results for our partners and their clients. With a strong commitment to responsiveness and transparency, Chad ensures every broker partner has the guidance, tools, and insights needed to navigate the PEO landscape with confidence. He excels at simplifying complex decisions, strengthening relationships, and aligning solutions that put the client’s best interest at the center.
Whether he’s shaping growth strategy, optimizing partner workflows, or advising on PEO fit, Chad brings both strategic clarity and hands-on follow-through — always grounded in his belief that great brokerage relationships are earned through consistency, honesty, and meaningful impact.
Outside of work, Chad’s world revolves around his family. He takes pride in being a dedicated husband and father, and one of his greatest joys has been coaching his kids throughout the years—from their early seasons to where they are today. Whether on the field or in business, Chad brings the same energy, patience, and commitment to helping people succeed.
Senior PEO Advisor
Alicia helps businesses navigate the world of PEOs—whether they’re evaluating options, switching providers, or simply looking to get more value from renewals. At Dinsmore Steele, she manages the RFP process from start to finish, gathers competitive quotes, and delivers detailed analyses that give clients clarity and confidence. Acting as a bridge between companies and PEOs, Alicia makes sure onboarding, compliance, and benefit transitions are smooth and stress-free.
With a strong background in PEO brokerage, consulting, and customer service, Alicia brings both industry expertise and a client-first mindset. Her style is strategic and detail-oriented—she’s known for keeping projects organized, proposals accurate, and communications clear. Over the years, she’s successfully negotiated lower fees, secured stronger service agreements, and uncovered hidden savings that translate into measurable ROI. Clients trust her not just for her knowledge, but for her ability to listen, advocate, and deliver solutions that make a real difference.
Alicia’s passion for helping others extends beyond the office. She’s a dedicated animal rescue advocate, actively volunteering with dog rescues and adoption efforts—and a proud dog mom of three herself. She also loves staying active through strength training, hot yoga, and pickleball. Whether with clients, colleagues, or in her community, Alicia thrives on building strong connections and supporting others in reaching their goals.
Peo Advisor
Ethan helps clients make sense of the complex PEO landscape, guiding them through evaluations to find the right long-term solution. Before joining Dinsmore Steele, he spent several years at ADP—starting in small business and later selling TotalSource—working closely with companies in blue collar industries, professional services, and tech. A consistent top performer, Ethan has built a reputation for listening closely, cutting through the noise, and finding solutions that actually solve the problems clients are facing.
His strengths lie in navigating the overwhelming number of PEO options to identify the best fit for each company’s goals. Ethan’s approach works because it’s rooted in problem-solving—he focuses on what matters most to clients and ensures every recommendation aligns with their specific needs. What he enjoys most is the trust clients place in him and the satisfaction of delivering solutions that truly fit.
Operations Director
Pat is the glue that keeps operations running smoothly at Dinsmore Steele. As Operations Director, Pat focuses on processes, workflows, and accounts—making sure nothing falls through the cracks and every system works the way it should.
With a career that spans industries and countries, Pat brings a truly global perspective to the team. Prior to joining Dinsmore Steele, Pat served as a Marketing Manager for a restaurant chain in the Philippines, a Regional Sales Director for a tech start-up in Vietnam, an Accounts Manager for the Central Bank of the Philippines, and an Operations Manager for an HR firm in Australia. This diverse background has given Pat the ability to see both the big picture and the finer details, spotting inefficiencies, improving workflows, and bridging gaps between teams to create systems that actually scale. Known for being strategic yet execution-focused, Pat makes sure every plan is not only effective but also executable.
Pat’s early career as an international model with Elite Model Management developed a sharp eye for branding, visual storytelling, and creative direction. That creative perspective still shows up in their work today, blending operational precision with design-minded detail. Outside the office, Pat enjoys exploring new ways to merge structure with creativity, bringing balance to both professional and personal pursuits.
Chief Human Resources and Client Experience Officer
Bobbi Jo is a seasoned HR leader who believes people strategy should always push the business forward—not just keep it running. With more than two decades of experience, she’s helped companies tackle big challenges like turnover, scaling through acquisitions, and building systems that make HR less reactive and more proactive.
As a former CHRO, Bobbi Jo knows what it takes to lead a high-performing HR team and get results in fast-changing environments. She’s streamlined processes, redesigned job structures, and rolled out performance tools that stick—all with a focus on creating efficiency without losing sight of the people behind the work. Having been both a sole contributor and a leader of large teams, she gets what HR professionals at every level are up against, and she knows how to help them shine.
Bobbi Jo is the person you call when HR needs to be more than just a support function. She guides businesses through PEO transitions, benefit renewals, and M&A integrations, while also digging into the nuts and bolts like compensation benchmarking, pay equity, recruiting strategies, and turnover action plans. She’s skilled at building or reworking HR systems, creating policies that actually work in practice, and setting up engagement programs that inspire real results. Whether it’s payroll, performance reviews, or planning the next generation of leaders, Bobbi Jo brings clarity, structure, and energy to every project.
Marketing Director
Rachel leads all things marketing at Dinsmore Steele, where she’s known for turning big business goals into smart, data-driven strategies that actually connect with people. Her superpower? Blending creativity with analytics to build marketing programs that not only look good but also drive real, measurable growth.
Rachel has worn just about every marketing hat: go-to-market planning, brand positioning, demand generation, team leadership, and more. She’s built marketing programs from the ground up, partnered with product, design, sales, and growth teams, and helped transform complex ideas into stories that resonate with customers. From launching new ad formats and running multi-channel campaigns to refining customer journeys with data insights, Rachel brings a mix of strategic thinking, collaboration, and a results-driven mindset.
When she’s not leading marketing initiatives, Rachel’s likely off exploring. She’s traveled extensively (including bungee jumping in Greece!) and loves experiencing new places and cultures. Rachel’s love for travel fuels her curiosity and creativity—she’s always drawing inspiration from new experiences. At home, she finds joy in music—she’s an accomplished pianist and never misses a chance to sit down at the keys.
Chief of Staff
Josh is an operations and marketing strategist who helps businesses scale by combining automation, CRM strategy, and airtight systems that eliminate chaos. With more than a decade of experience supporting executives and business owners, he’s built a reputation for translating big ideas into workflows that actually work.
At Dinsmore Steele, Josh manages client lifecycle campaigns, builds CRM automation in HubSpot, leads outreach strategies, and makes sure marketing vision translates into measurable results. Known for being proactive, precise, and systems-obsessed, Josh is the trusted behind-the-scenes operator who keeps both the DS team and their clients running smoothly.
Josh specializes in creating end-to-end systems that drive growth and efficiency. He builds CRM automation and marketing funnels, designs HubSpot workflows and sequences, and develops follow-up strategies for both active and lost deals. He also supports PEO lead nurturing and client retention efforts, while running survey campaigns, email drips, and slybroadcast voicemail outreach. Beyond campaign execution, Josh strengthens team communication systems, ensures content and campaign quality, and continuously optimizes processes to keep businesses running at peak performance.
SVP/Sales & Revenue
Cassandra joined Dinsmore Steele in 2023, bringing more than a decade of experience and a reputation as one of the top 1% of performers in the PEO industry—earning her the nickname “The PEO Queen.” Few, if any, know more about the inner workings of PEOs than Cassandra, and she uses that expertise to help clients navigate their options with clarity and confidence.
Her role focuses on guiding businesses to the PEO that best fits their needs and budget, then ensuring a smooth transition through the DS platform. With deep experience across PEO, ASO, EOR, HRIS, benefits, payroll, workers’ compensation, compliance, and risk mitigation, Cassandra brings both breadth and depth to every engagement. She combines market knowledge with high-volume productivity and strategic insights to help organizations achieve true scalability. Known for her compassion, professionalism, and dedication, Cassandra always chooses client success above everything else—even when that means losing profit.
Managing Partner
Barbara has been part of Dinsmore Steele since 2016, bringing with her a wealth of industry experience and a knack for building high-performing teams. An industry veteran, she quickly streamlined operations and helped shape a world-class team to better support clients, partners, and providers. What makes Barbara’s perspective especially unique is her background as a former partner in a successful PEO—giving her firsthand experience on both sides of the table and a deep understanding of what it takes to deliver real value.
Today, Barbara focuses on developing cost-effective PEO solutions for organizations of all sizes. She believes the key is understanding each company’s needs and vision, then researching and analyzing the best options to deliver the right fit. Beyond advising clients, Barbara also leverages her deep PEO expertise to work directly with both PEO and ASO providers, helping them expand their marketing engines and strengthen their reach.
Founder and CEO
In 2010, Rodney founded Dinsmore Steele with a clear vision: to give business owners an unbiased, efficient way to shop, compare, and negotiate with Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs). As CEO, he has spent the last 16 years redefining how companies build HR infrastructure—not by selling vendors, but by engineering smarter PEO strategies that protect margins and fuel growth.
Rodney often says most companies don’t pick the “wrong” PEO—they pick without a strategy. That lack of strategy costs businesses time, leverage, and profitability. Through Dinsmore Steele’s Strategic PEO Advisory™, Rodney and his team compress what would normally take months of research into a few days of outcome-driven analysis. The results speak for themselves: over 6,000 companies advised, more than $592M in savings delivered, and an average of $2,016.78 saved per employee, per year. Trusted by growth-stage founders, PE operators, and portfolio teams, Rodney has built an independent, strategic, and proven model that helps businesses design infrastructure that scales—because the right PEO strategy doesn’t just save money, it powers the next stage of growth.
