Ben Levenbaum - CEO of Xceleration

Ben Levenbaum
For over 25 years, Ben Levenbaum has been building employee recognition programs that
drive performance and engagement. Early in his career at MCI Telecommunications, he
helped launch one of the first online incentive platforms—paving the way for today’s $176
billion non-cash rewards industry. That experience sparked the founding of Xceleration in
1999, with a mission to help companies retain and motivate talent through rewards that
people value and aspire to earn.
Ben takes pride in the long-term partnerships Xceleration has built with enterprise clients
across diverse industries, and in the millions of individuals recognized across 90+
countries through its platform. He’s particularly energized by the opportunity to combine
Xceleration’s 25 years of engagement data with AI to generate powerful insights on how to
inspire performance and loyalty in a rapidly evolving workforce landscape.
A graduate of Emory University with a B.A. in Economics, Ben was recognized by the Emory
Entrepreneur Network in 2016 for innovation and impact. In 2015, he relocated
Xceleration’s headquarters from Atlanta to Charlotte, drawn by the city’s thriving business
environment and talent pool. Outside of work, Ben enjoys coaching youth baseball, sailing,
and traveling with his wife Sarah and their two teenage sons.


About Xceleration
For more than 25 years, Xceleration has been a trusted leader in enterprise rewards and
recognition. Our industry-leading SaaS platform helps companies strengthen culture,
retain talent, and drive performance through personalized engagement programs.
Xceleration partners with some of the world’s most recognized brands to deliver strategic,
scalable recognition solutions that create meaningful impact. Most recently, we
launched Moments—a luxury individual travel service that enables companies of any size
to reward top talent with unforgettable experiences. Having managed thousands of
individual travel rewards, we’ve seen firsthand how powerful travel can be in building
emotional connections, loyalty, and long-term retention—far beyond what traditional
recognition alone can achieve.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's another episode of iHeartMedia's CEOs. You should know in
today's business world, there's a way to ignite performance, boost engagement,
and turn appreciation into action, and that's to deliver through
meaningful rewards and it all starts with acceleration. Here's Ben Levinbaum.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Our programs they deliver rewards and travel incentives to companies
of all sizes that are looking to motivate and reward
their top employees. What we like to say is it's
you give somebody something of trophy value, right, so somebody
gets a watch, or they get a set of golf clubs,
or they get a trip, and that's something that they
can remember, they can talk about. They think they're about

(00:36):
their company and about what they did to get that
award each time they use it. And companies that are
that are providing those incentives, it certainly helps build their culture.
You know, you can visit our website or acceleration dot com.
We have a new travel incentive that is that is launching.
It's under the brand Luxury Concierge Travel, and that is
meant to deliver very high touch concierge trips for companies

(01:00):
of any size that want to reward their top employees,
their top customers with a real white glove experience. It's
not always just about salary. You know, people are interested
in professional development opportunities, but they're also really interested in
incentives and they're interested in how what else can I
enjoy as part of this culture, and the incentives go

(01:21):
a long way to that.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Building reward and recognition programs that drive results. It starts
with acceleration. This has been iHeartMedia CEOs. You should know