Meet our Advisory Board

Cate Heaman

Founder and CEO Prelude Solutions

Cate Heaman is a proud CEO of a woman-owned business, Prelude Solutions, with 23 years of experience in telecommunications. As a CEO, Cate leads with purpose, courage, humility, humor, and character. Her role is to instill confidence in the eco-system of her team, partners, and clients to achieve high performance and growth for all. As a woman-owned leader, Cate celebrates and advocates for the power of individual differences, diversity and inclusion, and racial equality for all. She has a passion for networking, coaching, and leading, and gives her time and talents to advocate for a range of nonprofits, to support Philadelphia institutions, and to help coach recent college graduates. Cate enjoys using her broad education and professional skills to audit provider and carrier invoices while optimizing and providing strategic transformation for voice, network, cloud, and data environments. Cate brings additional value with her many years as planning expert and proven expertise in Avaya/Cisco and Microsoft Products. Cate has been a direct owner/partner of businesses in the Philadelphia region since July 2005, when she founded her first telecom auditing and consulting business. Cate sold off the hardware and software portion of that business in 2016 and started Prelude Solutions as a woman- owned business, now recertified for a third year in 2021. Collectively, Cate has over 23 straight years of sales in telecommunications, starting her career at ATX in 1998. Cate spent 7.5 years with ATX before starting her first company, which she grew to over 45 persons spanning the tri-state region. Cate has a deep passion for Philadelphia and owned a home in Northern Liberties prior to moving to West Chester, PA in 2008.

Board Experience

• PHL Diversity Board Member – 2021 to Present
• Health Works Academy – STEM Curriculum for 9-12k – 2020 to Present
• Prelude Solutions – 2016-Present
• Cradles to Crayons
• Alzheimer’s Association –2016-2019
• Brian’s Cancer Research- CHOP
• Little Smiles Board Member from 2006-2012
• Ronald McDonald House Board Member from 2009-2014

Professional Accolades

• 2009-2014 The Philadelphia 100 Fastest Growing Companies with CSG Global
• 2011 Brava Awards for top female CEOs
• 2012 Mass Mutual Citizens Award
• 2014 Hall of Fame Brava Award
• 2014 and 2015 Future 50 Smart CEO
• 2014 and 2015 Future 50 Smart CEO
• 2015 PhillyMan Magazine: Woman of the Year
• 2015 Avaya Overall Achievement Partner Award
• 2015 Avaya Platinum Partnership Award
• 2015 Best Places to Work 2015
• 2017 Chairwoman of Legacy
• 2020 and 2021 The Philadelphia 100 Fastest Growing Companies for Prelude Solutions.

Candida Toccia Seasock

CTS Associates, LLC

Candida Seasock is an innovative business advisor who focuses on serving mid-size companies. She specializes in enabling client growth, both through internal executive teams and through external advisory boards.

As a Confidential Business Advisor serving mid-size companies, she specializes in enabling client’s strategic growth by concentrating on company vision, culture, operations, and sales. Presently serves on several compensated Advisory Boards and Manufacturing Board of Directors.

Candida’s approach is based on strategic marketing, operations, human capital, and finance. She has successfully assisted management teams ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to emerging growth companies, but she is best known for her ability to build high-value market recognition for mid-size companies.

Candida understands how to quickly generate business opportunities, identify revenue streams, and develop marketing cycles. Everything she does is based on sound management and personal ethics.

Prior to 2004, Candida held positions as Partner, CIO, VP of Sales and CFO in organizations such as Deloitte, CoreStates First Union, Grant Thornton International and Unisys, as well as several mid-size companies in industries ranging from Financial Institution, Supply chain, Technology and Manufacturing.

PROFESSIONAL ACCOLADES:

• Founder and Chair of Executive Leaders for Advisory Boards (ELAB)
• Co-Founder and Chair for Women Chief Executive (WCXO)
• Alice Paul Institute Equality Award – 2014
• Greater Philadelphia Senior Executive Group Networking for Life Award
• SIM 2016 – Lifetime award for Leadership and Innovation
• NWCT: Network of Women in Computer Technology (1982 – 2004): Founding Member – Honorary Award

EDUCATION:     Rutgers University, BS (Accounting and Technology)

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE:  Financial, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Technology          

FUNCTIONAL EXPERIENCE: Chair, CEO, CIO, VP

GEOGRAPHIC EXPERIENCE: USA; Canada; Europe

BOARD EXPERIENCE:

FOR PROFIT: A wide range of private companies that serve the Supply Chain, Manufacturing,
Medical Devices, Financial and Technology sectors

 NON-PROFIT: ELAB (2004 –Chair) Society for Information Management (since 1991)

Greater Philadelphia Senior Executive Group (2002-2014)

Our Lady of Lourdes Health System (Virtual Health): (2001 – 2018)

HopeWorks (Camden) (2009-2014)

Rutgers University – Camden Advisory Board (1990 -2005)

Syd Weinstein

Puzzle Master in Applying Technology to Business and Strategy

Mr. Weinstein is a board level executive who takes both the helicopter view of business goals and the supporting role of Information Technology, particularly, cybersecurity. Has advised many companies on growing their SaaS businesses including pricing structures, product road map, development strategies, security, and customer experience. Expansive experience in linking technology to overall business strategy, operations, and people. Sees the total picture across all corporate functions and the interdependency of operations, finance, technology, marketing, sales and how to harmonize their contribution to a goal.

With his leadership, Mr. Weinstein guides teams, across disciplines and borders, to create breakthrough solutions to seemingly impossible to solve or intractable problems. He is the ultimate puzzle master who takes apart a problem and puts the parts together to solve it efficiently and cleanly with nothing wasted or left over. Mr. Weinstein is a strategic planner with a deep history of engineering solutions to complex technology and operational issues that are obstacles to growth and efficiency. He has an Engineer’s sense of ethics and fairness and seeks neither advantage nor credit over others. Works to one standard: “right” and be “right” for customers, the company, and shareholders

Mr. Weinstein career has included COO & CTO, PeopleMetrics; Strategy/IT Consultant-Global Infrastructure, Primavera Systems; CTO, sevenEcho; CIO, Patron Solutions dba New Era Tickets, A Comcast Spectacor Company; President/CTO, Myxa Corporation; President, Founder, Datacomp Systems, Inc.

Geographical Experience

• United States

Board Experience

• Prelude Solutions – 2021-Present
• Near-Miss Management – 2017-Present
• Executive Leaders for Advisory Boards – 2019-Present, Treasurer 2019-Present
• Delaware Valley Tesla Owners Club – 2019-Present, VP & Secretary, 2019-Present
• Society for Information Management, Philadelphia Chapter Board – 2016-2021, Treasurer – 7/2017-6/30/2021
• Greater Philadelphia Senior Executive Group, Board of Directors – 2010-2012, Vice Chair – 2011, Chair, Web & Technology Committee – 2005-2014, Co-Chair Technology Subgroup – 2005-2011
• English Ceramics Study Group of Philadelphia – 2012-present
• Wedgwood Society of New York – 1990-2010
• Cinekyd Enterprises, Inc. – 1996-2005

Professional Accolades

• 2015 Chris Pavlides Networking for Life Award, Greater Philadelphia Senior Executive Group
• 2011 SmartCEO Magazine SmartCxO
• ICCP – Certified Data Professional (CDP)
• ICCP – Certified Computer Professional, Systems (CCP)

Adrianne Miller

Adrianne Miller is a trusted advisor with the proven ability to achieve results and establish programs and processes that work in concert to support the strategic objectives, values, culture, and competitive edge of the organization. Experienced in multi-location, start-up, turnaround and established environments. A process-oriented business person with a “keep it simple” philosophy and over 30 years of strategic and practical business senior leadership experience.

Using a strategic, holistic and practical approach to the people side of business, Adrianne has guided organizations through successful acquisitions, change initiatives, turnarounds and significant growth. As a Senior Executive Team member responsible for organization-wide business goals and strategy, she has established Human Resource practices, systems, and processes in alignment with company goals to grow one organization from $250M to $2.8B, and to support the turnaround of another organization preparing it for sale, as examples.

Adrianne understands how to use her significant experience in connecting people strategy to business strategy, compensation plan design, managing change, acquisition integration, organization development, communications and process improvement to identify issues, objectives and guide the many organizations she serves to successful outcomes.

Adrianne’s corporate experience includes McKesson, Collagen Corporation, with “C” level positions at VWR International and Decision One. Adrianne’s consulting experience covers various industries in for profit and not for profit areas.

Adrianne holds a degree in Business Administration with a major in Accounting from Baruch College, City University of New York, and continued her studies with coursework in Human Relations and Organizational Behavior at the University of San Francisco in California. Adrianne is an accredited Certified Compensation Practitioner.

Adrianne has served on a variety of boards throughout her career.

Angelo J. Valletta

President and Chief Executive Officer
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania

Angelo J. Valletta has close to 40 years of progressively responsible managerial experience in diverse industries with companies ranging in size from small consultants to multi-national firms. He has a proven track record of developing and building effective internal and outsourced distributed teams and is a turn-around specialist in operations and customer service. He has held multiple board-level leadership roles.

Angelo currently serves as President and CEO for the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania. He previously served as Managing Director/Region President/Executive Consultant and Banking Strategist for the world’s largest Global FinTech company; and President and CEO of an independent community foundation. Before that, he was Senior Vice President/Chief Information and Bank Operations Officer for Sun National Bank.

Angelo earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Temple University and his MBA from Philadelphia University. He serves on the following non-profit boards: PA Governor Economic Development Transition Committee, Red Cross Northeastern PA; Temple University; FOX Alumni Association (Emeritus); Pierce College Technology Advisory; Alvernia University O’Pake Innovation Board; and Chairman of the Louis A. Valletta Endowment. He mentors students at Columbia, Philadelphia, and Temple universities. He is a former elected official, having represented his district in Gloucester County, NJ, and has chaired several companies’ United Way campaigns.

Angelo is a published author and has most recently received the following awards.

• Red Cross of Eastern PA – Anita Lockwood Leadership Award
• Bank Systems and Technology Magazine Elite 8
• Temple University Alumni Diamond Excellence Award
• Smart/CEO Magazine Top 10 Executive Leaders
• Honored as one of Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders
• Named CIO of the week for Search CIO

Susan Widen

Susan Widen is a Finance and Operations executive with over 30 years of entrepreneurial mindset, leadership, and strategic thinking. She serves as Prelude’s Chief Financial Officer. Susan is responsible for strategic planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the finance and operations activities. Her business perspective in combination with a demonstrated tactical ability, develops strong working relationships with Prelude’s clients, partners, and suppliers.

Before joining Prelude, Susan led the finance and contact center operations teams of a retail healthcare marketing company whose patented technology provided the first consumer promotion validation process using POS transaction data. Her customer service / contact center experience was initially obtained through her role in the acquisition of a $30 million contact center. Susan actively participated in securing $27 million in funding and led the assimilation, structure and processes of the finance and accounting departments of the acquisition, its subsidiaries, and partnerships. Susan also led the finance and human resources activities of a technology / software development company and was instrumental in securing $15 million in its funding.

Susan earned a B.S degree in Accounting from the University of Delaware.  Her passion for finance extends into her personal life where she volunteers her accounting expertise for two local non-profits.

Marc Sinkow

Marc Sinkow has over 35 years’ experience as an entrepreneur and business advisor. He has built, operated and sold multiple healthcare distribution, manufacturing and service businesses both domestic and abroad. These businesses have been in home medical equipment, manufacturing and distribution (wholesale and retail) of examination gloves, and medical transcription. Currently he is the Chief Sherpa working with entrepreneurs facilitating independent peer advisory boards.

Professional Experience

• President, start-up home medical equipment company providing products and services billed to third-party payers
• Executive Vice President, medical products distribution company where he negotiated $2MM compensation trade agreement with China
• Managing Director of distressed Malaysian manufacturing company, managed 150 employees, negotiated with foreign suppliers and banks in preparation of ultimate sale
• COO/principal of domestic medical distribution company. Developed financial and marketing model to achieve annual growth of 36% with one-year high of 148%. Negotiated senior debt jwith no personal guarantees. Combined sales of manufacturer and distributor $10MM when sold
• Chief Financial Officer, specialty medical transcription service focused on physician and physical therapists. EBITDA five times industry average. Negotiated sale to strategic buyer.

Education

• BS, Business Administration/Psychology Ithaca College
• The Wharton School, post-graduate courses in Accounting, University of Pennsylvania

Boards & Organizations

• Former Board member, Entrepreneurs Forum of Greater Philadelphia
• Former Co-Chair Philly 100
• Former Adjunct Professor, Drexel University
• Former Board member, Radnor Crew Club
• Former Head coach, Quakers ice hockey club
• Amkor Karate third-degree black belt

Thomas M. Dugan

Tom Dugan has been working in Information Technology for over 40 years in varying capacities from Field Technician to Senior Management.  As a parallel entrepreneur, Mr. Dugan started and sold two companies operating both organizations simultaneously for 5 years during which both organizations had astounding growth.  His first company, eSource Group, was ranked as Philadelphia’s 14^th Fastest Growing Company by the Philadelphia Business Journal.  Shortly thereafter, his second company, Recovery Networks, ranked 6^th on the Philly 100 in 2009 and was also on the list in 2010 and 2011; Recovery Networks was also the co-awardee for the Best Practices in Business Continuity along with Hewlett-Packard for its work in innovating recovery solutions.  The company was also honored as the country’s fastest growing urban companies by the ICIC (ranked #45 in USA.)  eSource and Recovery Networks were acquired in 2009 and 2013, respectively.

After successful exists of both his companies, in 2014, he was selected as the Director of Technology for the World Meeting of Families – Philadelphia 2015.  In this role, Mr. Dugan was the third person brought into the Executive Team who were responsible for managing all aspects of the largest World Meeting of Families Congress which included the first visit of Pope Francis to the United States.  Working with various public and private entities, his role was to prepare the City of Philadelphia for arrival of millions of visitors, tens of thousands of attendees, thousands of priests, hundreds of bishops, scores of archbishops, dozens of cardinals … and one Pope.

Mr. Dugan was most recently a Senior Director at Dell Technologies focused on Private Cloud Converged and Hyper-Converged architectures.  He sits on Advisory Boards for CTN Solutions, Prelude Systems, PayforEd and regularly advises businesses on growth and management strategies.  An active board member, he is also a member of the Board of Trustees for Neumann University in Pennsylvania and sits on the Student Affairs and Finance Committees as well as on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity (Montgomery and Delaware Counties) where he chairs the Finance Committee.

He was a frequent speaker on various topics, particularly virtualization and disaster recovery as well as small business startup and entrepreneurship.  He had been selected as a tiered member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) through its work with Asigra, Inc.  A constant advocate for business continuity, Mr. Dugan taught training courses for CompTIA, the leading industry education and certification organization including certifying executives and business owners for the Executive Certificate in Data Recovery and Business Continuity.  Mr. Dugan had also been selected to be on the American Partner Advisory Board for the Asigra corporation.  Additionally, Mr. Dugan has served as a technology judge in “Best of” competitions for Storage Magazine, TechTarget, VMWorld and SearchServerVirtualization.com.

Active in numerous activities, Mr. Dugan is a certified Rugby Coach and Referee; a member of the MS Leadership Class of 2004; co-founded, organized, and led the first VMware Technology User Group in the Philadelphia region.