PAT CROCE
Pat Croce graced the cover of Success magazine as the first person to ascend from the training room to the boardroom of a professional sports team. His remarkable success as a physical therapist and pioneer in the sports medicine field to the colorful leader responsible for the resurrection of the Philadelphia 76ers as an NBA championship contender has been defined as one of the most amazing stories in sports history.
Through his business savvy, dynamic personality, and emphasis on customer service, Croce created Sports Physical Therapists, a sports medicine empire of 40 centers in 11 states, into a top-ten finalist for the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Following the sale of his company, Croce focused his entrepreneurial spirit and indestructible positive attitude on the purchase of the NBA’s last place team, the Philadelphia 76ers in 1996. During his 5-year tenure as President, the team rose from worst to first in the NBA standings and broke franchise records in attendance, revenue, merchandise, and consecutive wins on the way to the NBA Championships against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2001.
Croce is a New York Times best-selling author, nationally-renowned motivational speaker, and a commentator for the Summer Olympic Games on NBC for the sport of Taekwondo.
Not one to rest on his own past, Croce is a constant student of history as founder of the world-renowned St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum and the recently-launched living museum, the Colonial Quarter in St. Augustine, Florida.
As a serial entrepreneur, Croce has been the proud recipient of the “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award, featured on the cover of Inc magazine as “The Dale Carnegie of the 21st Century,” and honored with A&E Biography’s “Community Hero” Award. He is Chairman of Pat Croce & Company that has controlling interests in six notable Key West restaurant/bars (Green Parrot, Half Shell Raw Bar, Turtle Kraals, Rum Barrel, Island Dogs and Charlie Mac’s).
ED BEAUMONT
Ed Beaumont is a highly successful entrepreneur with over 30 years experience in all aspects of business management. As a highly successful CEO, COO and CFO, Ed has broad-based expertise in business strategy, information technology, finance and business development. Ed co-founded and served as CEO of CoreTech Consulting Group from 1992-2001 a company that specializes in the application of new and emerging technologies. During his tenure as CEO, CoreTech grew its annual revenues to over $50 million, and was named to the Inc 500 and Deloitte Fast 50 lists of the fastest growing companies in the US for several consecutive years. Ed has also won numerous awards for his professional accomplishments including Ernst & Young’s 2000 “Entrepreneur of The Year”.
Prior to co-founding CoreTech, Ed spent 20 years in the banking industry holding senior leadership roles in retail banking, commercial finance, investment banking and information technology. He serves on the Dean’s Executive Board for the Drexel University College of Information Science and Technology and has taught graduate level courses at the University. He serves or has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards as well.
He was awarded Drexel’s Outstanding Alumni award in 1992. Ed holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Temple University and an M.S. in Information Systems from Drexel University.
DAN MCKINNEY
Dan has been involved as an operator, launching and managing technology products and services, and as an investor for over 25 years. Dan is a co-founder and managing partner of NextStage Capital, an early stage technology venture fund. Prior to co-founding NextStage Capital, Dan was vice-president and officer of Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE), a publicly traded venture capital firm. During his tenure at Safeguard, Dan led approximately $75 million of early stage venture investments. He was also member of Safeguard’s investment committee.
Prior to Safeguard, Dan was a sales and marketing executive with IBM for over ten years, where he also had profit & loss responsibility for one of IBM’s Internet businesses in the Financial Services industry. Dan also spent a portion of his career at IBM in the Mergers & Acquisitions group. There he was responsible for one of IBM’s only minority investments made in the 1990s. During his tenure with IBM, Dan developed an alliance that ultimately became one of IBM’s top 20 Global Alliance Partners, was integral in launching IBM’s largest Internet initiative in the Financial Services industry, and was responsible for and/or involved in launching several new software & services products.
Dan’s past board responsibilities include: Sapphire Mobile (sold to Mpower), Atlas Commerce (sold to VerticalNet), Buystream, AgWeb (sold to FarmJournal), TWC Group (Sold to Manpower), RCD Technology and Greater Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technology (Greater Philadelphia Venture Group). Dan was also an observer at HX Technologies (sold to MeDecisions/ HCSC). Dan currently serves on the boards of Evident Software, Magnify Networks, Savana and the Ben Franklin Technology Investment Advisory Committee. He is also a board observer at TicketLeap. Dan graduated magna cum laude from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in Accounting and began his career as a CPA with KPMG.
WALTER BUCKLEY
Walter is co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Actua Corporation (formerly ICG). Prior to Actua, Walter was Vice President of acquisitions for Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., where he led many of Safeguard’s investments through the mid-1990s, including Diamond Technology, ChromoVision and Video Server. He also was responsible for developing and executing Safeguard’s multimedia and Internet investment strategies.
Before Safeguard, Walter was President and co-founder of Centralized Management Systems, Inc., a medical supply company, which he sold in 1987. Previously, he spent three years at CoreStates in the commercial lending group.
Walter was included in Business Week’s 2000 “eBiz 25,” listing of the 25 most influential people in electronic business, Price Waterhouse honored Walter with its “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2000, and the Greater Philadelphia Venture Group honored him with its “Entrepreneurial Excellence Award” in June 2000.
In addition to serving as Chairman of the Board for ICG, Walter sits on the board of ICG Commerce. He is Chairman of the Starfinder Foundation, a non-profit organization, the Board of Advisors of the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative and on the Board of Visitors of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Walter graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A degree in Political Science.
DAVID MOORE
David Moore is an accomplished senior executive, entrepreneur and angel investor with over twenty-five years of experience. Currently, David is a partner and sales leader at NinetyFive 5, a sales transformation company. He is also involved with multiple companies as an active Board Member and Advisor.
Throughout his career David has been known by colleagues and clients alike as a high integrity, energetic leader with a unique ability to envision and create successful outcomes to complex situations. Other attributes include diverse industry and functional expertise with tenacious commitment to driving sales, profit and market- share growth. David is a strong team leader and innovative thinker with broad based expertise in operations, finance and business development. He has a proven ability to quickly analyze key business drivers and develop strategies to grow both top line and bottom line results. David’s past endeavors include, in the early 1980’s he helped grow PC Concepts, a computer training company, to be one of the largest in the country before being sold to Ziff Davis Publishing in 1991.
In 1992, David cofounded CoreTech Consulting Group, a national IT services company headquartered in Pennsylvania. In just 7 years, David’s leadership grew CoreTech to over 500 employees and annual revenues north of $50 million before positioning for an eventual acquisition by Magic Software in 2000. Since then, David has been involved with numerous companies in a variety of roles including board member, consultant and acting CEO. As a board member and consultant David has been focused on building and executing growth strategies for small to midsize companies within a variety of industries. Some of these companies include an early stage IT consulting and application development company as well as an established digital marketing agency focused on utilizing social media to communicate brand messaging to consumers.
David has also built a number of startups as a Founder and CEO, including a knowledge based company for sport participants utilizing face-to-face instruction as well as internet, video and publication delivery channels and a high-end management consulting firm specializing in helping companies of all sizes with strategy, business planning, business development, executive recruitment and fulfillment. David currently resides in Pennsylvania with his wife Deborah and has three sons, David, Christopher and Michael.
BOB HINKLE
Bob has more than 25 years of experience developing business strategies and product plans for global organizations. During his career, Bob has built and managed Product Management, Marketing, and Engineering organizations. He brings extensive industry expertise in cloud computing applications and services. He has worked in startups and large corporations. Hewlett Packard Corp., Intel Corp., Avaya Corp., T. Williams Consulting, Verizon, Vonage, M5 Networks, and Dialogic Corp. are companies where Bob has brought his experience and leadership to bear.
Bob built and led Product Management for Dialogic which was purchased by Intel in 2000 for over $700M. For Intel he led targeting and integrating acquisitions in the US and Europe. At Avaya Bob developed and led the strategies for bringing enterprise applications from the cloud to mobile phones. Bob holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and a degree in business from Wharton.