i2n relies on the support and leadership of our volunteer board.
Co-Chair - Guy Fardone
Tech Founder and CEO
Guy has 30+ years’ experience creating highly successful organizations and stakeholder value. Formerly Evolve IP’s CEO, he helped achieve numerous recognitions such as Inc. and Forbes Magazines’ Best Places to Work, Best Entrepreneurial Organizations in America, an 8 time participant in the Inc. Magazine 500/5000 and has led over three dozen mergers and acquisitions in the US and abroad.
Involved with i2n since 2011, Guy currently serves on various advisory boards and is passionately engaged in helping drive the Southeastern PA business community. He is a founding advisory board member of the Downingtown STEM school, a mentor in PACT Mentor Connect, was West Chester University’s Entrepreneur in Residence in 2019 and a former Philadelphia Business Journal 40 under 40 recipient. He lives in Chester Springs, PA, with his wife and 3 children, spends much of his free time at Marsh and French Creek State Parks mountain biking and is currently a coach and board president of the Chester County Crusader CYO Football Program.
Co-Chair - Michael S. Harrington
Partner, Fox Rothschild LLP
Michael S. Harrington is a recognized leader in this region’s venture capital, technology and entrepreneurial community. As the founding Partner of the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital Group at Fox Rothschild, a national law firm with more than 950 attorneys, he has assisted early- and growth-stage companies in the region’s technology, bio-tech, med-tech, and health care sectors for nearly thirty years. Michael serves as a strategic ally to his clients on a range of growth-related issues, including raising capital, venture and private equity, securities, commercialization of IP, taxation and various corporate matters.
Michael is a prominent advocate for the region’s startup community and is heavily involved in the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT), having served on the organization’s board of directors since inception. Michael is a frequent lecturer on topics important to startup and growth-stage technology companies.
Michael S. Harrington is a recognized leader in this region’s venture capital, technology and entrepreneurial community. As the founding Partner of the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital Group at Fox Rothschild, a national law firm with more than 950 attorneys, he has assisted early- and growth-stage companies in the region’s technology, bio-tech, med-tech, and health care sectors for nearly thirty years. Michael serves as a strategic ally to his clients on a range of growth-related issues, including raising capital, venture and private equity, securities, commercialization of IP, taxation and various corporate matters.
Michael is a prominent advocate for the region’s startup community and is heavily involved in the Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies (PACT), having served on the organization’s board of directors since inception. Michael is a frequent lecturer on topics important to startup and growth-stage technology companies.
Jonathon Beschen
Business Development Manager
Ben Franklin Technology Partners SEP
Jonathan Beschen is a Manager of the Business Development Group at Ben Franklin where he serves as the first contact with potential investments. Jon has a strong instinct for developing relationships with passionate people and finding ways to collaborate on creative ideas. He serves on many local advisory boards and is a familiar face in the local tech startup scene. Before starting at Ben Franklin, Jon ran local technology consultancy SparkNET Technologies, which developed and invested in cutting edge tech startups.
Carly Meyer Bentley
Vice President of Wealth Management
Wilmington Trust
Carly Meyer Bentley brings a wealth of experience to the i2n board. Her business acumen, strong network, and passion for entrepreneurship make her an asset for i2n and its many participating companies.
Her specialties include providing comprehensive wealth management advice to high-net-worth individuals and families, entrepreneurs, business owners, and foundations and endowments throughout the Greater Philadelphia Area. In addition, Carly serves as a trusted advisor to many entrepreneurs and business owners, with a particular interest in female community-building and empowerment.
Carly is the recipient of the 2017 Networker of the Year award with Gotham Networking in New York and chairs the Philadelphia and Mainline chapters. She is a past president of the Princeton Merchants Association where she led efforts to help entrepreneurs access innovative funding sources and is a diligent advocate for entrepreneurship and community economics. Carly is an active member of the Alliance for Women Entrepreneurs.
Thomas J. Burke
President & CEO
AOIC, LLC
Tom Burke is President & CEO of AOIC, LLC –a medical and scientific communications company providing content-driven initiatives for biopharmaceutical and non-profit organizations. AOIC shares i2n’s mission of innovation by advancing medicine and patient care; collaborating with healthcare professionals and biopharmaceutical companies to communicate clinical trial data to the research community. They also help nonprofit partners educate patients and caregivers about treatment advancements for specific diseases.
Tom has a BS in Chemical Engineering and a Bennett S. LeBow College of Business MBA, both from Drexel University. He became President & CEO of AOIC in 2016, serving in several marketing and management roles previously. Prior to that, Tom spent 15 years in business and engineering management for several pharmaceutical drug delivery and chemical manufacturing companies including FMC, Colorcon, and Allied Signal. A native of Pennsylvania and a resident of Chester County, Tom has served in community service for West Whiteland Township, Chester County, and the state of Pennsylvania for 18 years. He serves on the Board of the Chester County Economic Development Council (CCEDC). Tom also served on the Eastern PA Board of Trustees for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and was President of the Board. Tom is married to Sheri, and they have one son who loves sports, science, and math.
Patricia Diggin
Director, The Cottrell Entrepreneurship Center
Adjunct Professor of Management, West Chester University
Pattie Diggin earned an MBA from West Chester University in 1996. She joined West Chester University in 2011 as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing and currently serves as the Director of The Cottrell Entrepreneurship Center. Pattie sits on the Board of Directors at the Chester County Fund for Women and Girls where she heads up the Development and Marketing committees. She is also a member of the Ambassador and Education Foundation committees at the Greater West Chester Chamber of Commerce and sits on the i2n Board of the Chester County Economic Development Council. Since 2014 she has been a SCORE volunteer and works collaboratively with organizations in the region that are committed to expanding the impact of entrepreneurship programming and supporting development of small businesses.
As a member of the i2n Board of Directors, Pattie has continued to develop the relationship with the CCEDC to foster and support the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the county. The Cottrell Entrepreneurship Center and i2n have worked collaboratively on Startup Weekends, internship programming, the WCU Business Idea Competition and the annual WCU Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference.
Josh Maxwell
Chester County Board of Commissioners
Commissioner Josh Maxwell serves as Vice-Chair on the three member Chester County Board of Commissioners. Commissioner Maxwell currently serves as board member for the Transportation Management Association of Chester County, Chester County Conservation District, Pennsylvania Convention Center, West Chester Business Improvement District Authority, and as Ex-officio Board Member for Chester County Economic Development Council and Coatesville 2nd Century Alliance, Community and Economic Development. The Chester County Commissioners created the Restore Chester County initiative that brought together business, economic, education and government leaders to form a core team of the COVID-19 Business Task Force that focused on providing businesses with best practices for reopening and restoring Chester County’s quality of place. Josh continues to work to bring rail service back communities throughout Chester County that will support economic success and business growth in the region.
Michael V. McCann
President and Founder
MVM Associates, Inc.
MVM Associates, Inc., is a leading economic incentive management firm. Mike previously worked for the U.S. Department of Energy as a grant specialist where he managed multi-state energy conservation grant programs. Using this experience, he started MVM Associates in 1997, the first consulting firm in Pennsylvania to specialize solely in economic incentives such as grants and tax credits for private companies. Since then, Mike has overseen MVM’s expansion into the sales brokerage of transferable tax credits in Pennsylvania.
To date, Mike has helped hundreds of companies sell over $100 million in state tax credits. Mike is a board member of the Pennsylvania Film Industry Alliance. Mike holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in environmental studies with a minor in computer science from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania.
Marian D. Moskowitz
Chester County Board of Commissioners
Commissioner Moskowitz was elected to the Chester County Board of Commissioners in 2020 and was sworn in as Chair of the Chester Board of Commissioners shortly thereafter. She is also the Chair of the Chester County Economic Development Council and Secretary of the board of West Chester University. In 2017, Governor Tom Wolf appointed Marian to be a member of the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Ms. Moskowitz is a member of the Colonial Theater, the People’s Light Theater and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission boards. In 2015, she was named to the Board of the Delaware River Port Authority by Governor Tom Wolf and served that position until 2017.
An entrepreneur in her own right, Commissioner Moskowitz is a real estate developer and has been involved in a variety of economic development projects in Chester County, including work to support entrepreneurship and small businesses across the region. She led the development of Franklin Commons in Phoenixville, a former abandoned industrial building that now houses multiple educational facilities, businesses and various community institutions, most of which are owned and run by women.
Reginald Motley
CMC Leader, Global R&D Operations & Biosimilars
Teva USA
Reginald Motley leads cross-functional biologics product development programs, from drug product development to commercialization / launch market, at Teva USA, a large generics pharmaceutical company, in West Chester, PA. Reginald participates in the QED Proof-of-Concept technology program within the University City Science Center, in Philadelphia PA, as a business proposal reviewer. The QED program funds and supports academic researchers developing early-stage life science and healthcare technologies with high commercial potential. He also participates in the TechAdvance Fund as a proposal reviewer and the HealthAdvance Fund as a Mentor-In-Residence at Rutgers University. These funds provide commercialization funding to assist the development of early-stage life sciences technologies and support continued follow-on investments from industry partners and external investors.
Reginald has extensive experience in product lifecycle management from conceptual development through design development to commercialization, focused on biologics, utilizing drug delivery systems and medical devices. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a M.S. in Systems Engineering from Penn State University – Great Valley campus.
Samantha F. Musser, CPA
Partner
Stephano Slack, LLC
Samantha Musser leads Stephano Plus, the outsourced accounting practice at Stephano Slack, a CPA firm providing creative business and tax advice to help privately owned companies achieve their goals. She assists clients with all their accounting needs to provide real-time visibility into their performance, freeing them up to concentrate on growing their businesses.
In addition, as a point person at Stephano Slack for UPstart, a virtual incubator at the University of Pennsylvania, Samantha helps start-up companies get their accounting systems set up correctly as they launch and grow.
Samantha began her career with Stephano Slack as a tax intern before graduating from Philadelphia University with a B.S. in Accounting and Finance, then went on to earn her CPA and gain experience in tax and non-profit audits. She spent over two years as a Controller in private industry, helping run a family-owned business before she returned to Stephano Slack.
James A. Nemes, D.Sc.
Chancellor
Penn State Great Valley
James A. Nemes is chancellor, chief academic officer, and professor of mechanical engineering at the Penn State Great Valley campus, which hosts the Penn State Great Valley Launchbox. Dr. Nemes earned his M.Sc. and D.Sc. from The George Washington University and his B.Eng. from the University of Maryland. Prior to joining Penn State in 2007, Dr. Nemes was an associate professor of mechanical engineering and William Dawson Scholar at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Nemes began his career in industry and government, with an initial appointment at the Kennedy Space Center supporting the space shuttle program and also as a research engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society for Engineering Education.
Ernie Post, D.Ed.
State Director, PASBDC
As State Director of the Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center, Ernie holds certificates in international trade and exporting from Thunderbird Management School. His specialties include entrepreneurial learning, online learning effectiveness, international trade, and economic development. He assisted in launching the CIM program that provided the primary PC and CAD/CAM training for a Fortune 100 Company and initiated the launch of the international trade program at Gannon University.
Ernie provided strategic direction for the launch of a blended learning program for nascent entrepreneurs at KUSBDC and also taught MBA and undergraduate courses in international trade and marketing research. He has over 20 years of senior level management responsibility in a higher education management consulting group.
Susan Springsteen
Vice Chair
Chester County Industrial Development Authority
Susan Springsteen cofounded nth Solutions LLC, a vertically integrated product development, business incubation, and manufacturing company that advances innovation from concept to commercialization with “Made in America” products that save lives, save money, and preserve natural resources. She leads the Company’s QOZ initiatives and is part of a team transforming a vacant historic Lukens Steel office building located in Coatesville into nth Innovation Center. Now a Keystone Innovative Zone, this project will serve as nth Solutions’ new headquarters and support the growing entrepreneur community in the region.
Susan is also President and CEO of H2O Connected, LLC, an early revenue company whose multi-patented product line can detect every type of water loss problem that can occur in the 350+ million North American tank-based toilets. H2O Connected was recently spun off from nth Solutions LLC as an independent company in March 2019, making it the first QOZ Business in Chester County.
A graduate of Wheaton College, Susan spent over 25 years in wealth management and corporate finance. She provided daily stock market and business commentary for KYW NewsRadio 1060 for over a decade.
Susan is also President of the Chester County Library Trust and Vice Chairperson of the Chester County Industrial Development Authority.
Lois Stephens
Director, Membership
Life Sciences Pennsylvania
Lois Stephens serves as Director, Membership at Life Sciences Pennsylvania (LSPA), the statewide trade association for the commonwealth’s life sciences industry, representing medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies, investment organizations, research institutions, and myriad service industries that support the life sciences in Pennsylvania. In her role, Lois works closely with innovative biotech and medical device startups, building strong relationships and facilitating key strategic connections to help advance their organizations.
Prior to joining LSPA, Lois spent more than 20 years in the legal profession working for law firms throughout Southeastern PA. Her legal experience includes assisting in loan transactions involving loan programs under the Small Business Administration, as well as economic development initiatives with local governments and regulatory agencies.
As a life-long resident of Chester County and part of a second generation, family-owned-and-operated small business, Lois is committed to serving the region’s entrepreneurs, innovators and startups through the work of i2n.
Tim Wallace
Strategic Advisor
iPipeline
Tim Wallace has over 40 years of experience in the technology industry. Tim previously was the CEO of iPipeline from 2008 to 2019. Under his successful leadership, the company grew to be the largest provider of SaaS technology to the Life and Annuity industry and was acquired by Roper Technologies in 2019 for $1.625 billion.
Prior to iPipeline Tim served as President and COO of MEDecision Inc., a public software company. Prior to MEDecision, Tim was the CEO and Chairman of FullTilt Solutions. Prior to joining FullTilt in 2000, Tim served as CEO of systems integrator XeroxConnect, and as the President and CEO for XLConnect Solutions, Inc., where he was also one of the founders of the company. Tim and other members of the management team took the company public in October of 1996. Xerox acquired XLConnect in June of 1998 for approximately $420 million.
Mr. Wallace is the winner of the 2011 Ernst & Young Technology CEO of the Year, the 2013 PACT Enterprise Award for Technology CEO of the Year, and the 2014 Red Herring Top 100 Award. Tim received a Master of Business Administration from Miami University and a Bachelor of Science Degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and has served on the following boards: AccuWeather, Energage, BizEquity, FullTilt Solutions, Knova, MEDecision, Migo Software, NitroSecurites, Point.io, Serviceware, Snickelways, and XLConnect. Tim is also on the Board of Operation Warm, a nonprofit that distributes over 500,000 winter coats to children in need.
Christopher F. Wright, Esquire
Shareholder
McCausland Keen & Buckman
For more than 30 years, Chris has been contributing to the growth of technology companies and helping educational and research institutions to achieve their research, licensing and alliance objectives.
With prior experience as the General Counsel for a publicly-traded software company and on the General Counsel’s staff at the University of Pennsylvania for Penn’s Center for Technology Transfer, he is able to provide transactional and intellectual property advice grounded in a genuine understanding of his clients’ legal and operational opportunities and challenges. These clients include entrepreneurs and equity investors as well as growth companies and educational and research institutions.
Clients note Chris’ ability to contribute at every stage of the technology commercialization process, including collaborative research initiatives, new company spin-offs, growth and financing of new ventures, licensing and joint venture arrangements, as well as mergers, acquisitions and other exit opportunities.