Transforming Data from
Inception to Impact

From 1987 through 1998, Joe Costello led Cadence Design Systems to be the number one company in the Electronic Design Automation market (chip design software). He grew the company from $10M in revenue to nearly $1B, which made it one of the ten largest software companies in the world. In 1997, Chief Executive Magazine named Costello the top-performing CEO of all publicly traded companies in North America. During this time, he also served on the boards of public companies including Oracle, Macromedia (Adobe), and Mercury Interactive.

After Cadence, Costello served as a board member and advisor for dozens of early technology companies and stepped in as CEO at several of them. He currently serves as Chairman of three companies: Metrics Design Automation, Kwikbit, and Arrikto.

Costello holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and physics from Harvey Mudd College, a Master of Science degree in physics from Yale University, and a Master of Arts degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mark is a co-founder of Blue Delta Capital Partners, a growth capital firm which is focused on the U.S. Federal Government Services marketplace, particularly on technology-enabled solutions and services companies. Mr. Frantz currently serves on the Board of Directors or Advisory Boards for numerous privately-held growth companies and non-profit organizations, and he is also on the Board of Directors for ASGN (NYSE: ASGN).

Mark has been actively involved in all of Blue Delta’s investments, including Metis Solutions (acq. by PAE), Sonatype (acq. by Vista Equity), 42Six (acq. by CSC) and PAE (acq. by Platinum Equity, NASDAQ: PAE). Mr. Frantz was also a member of the Board of Directors for CSRA (NYSE: CSRA) which was acquired by General Dynamics for $9.7 billion.

Prior to Blue Delta, Mark had the privilege and pleasure of investing in and working with over a dozen highly successful companies and their excellent management teams, including Sourcefire (Nasdaq: FIRE, then acquired by Cisco), NetWitness (acq. by RSA), and Blackboard (Nasdaq: BBBB, then acquired by Providence Equity),

Mark has served as the Managing General Partner of In-Q-Tel (the strategic venture capital affiliate of the U.S. Intelligence Community), a Principal with Carlyle Venture Partners, a Partner at RedShift Ventures, the Associate to the Senior Chairman at Alex. Brown, the economic and technology policy advisor to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and the Associate Director of The White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs under the 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush.

Mr. Frantz holds J.D. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. degree (double major, history and political science) from Allegheny College.

Donna Morea is a highly accomplished executive and board director who is nationally recognized in the software, IT services, and private equity communities. She currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors at SAIC, as the Chair of the Technology Committee for the Board of Truist, and on numerous other private corporate and not-for-profit boards. With over thirty years of operating experience, she has deep and vast experience building IT practices that focus on strategic, enterprise-wide solutions for large-scale organizations.

Paul Smith was most recently senior vice president and general manager of Public Sector at Red Hat. Smith joined Red Hat in November 2004 and for 17 years led the Red Hat government business unit with responsibility for sales, marketing, consulting, channels, and strategic planning. He was responsible for the U.S. federal government worldwide and the U.S. state, local, and education marketplace nationally.

Smith brings more than 40 years of experience marketing key technologies to the government marketplace holding various management positions in the sales of software solutions to government agencies, and to systems integrators.

Before joining Red Hat, Smith was vice president of Government Operations at VERITAS where he, within his 5-year tenure, helped lead his business unit to be the fastest-growing vertical within the company. Smith also worked at Netscape Communication, where he led sales for its state and local organization nationwide. Prior to that, he led sales organizations at Oracle in the areas of Public Sector, Aerospace, and Defense, and the Department of Defense. Smith also worked for Unisys Corporation, where he held management positions responsible for federal civilian agencies.

In 2019 Smith served as the gala chairman for the National Kidney Foundation’s marquee Washington fundraising event.

Dr. Renato “Renny” A. DiPentima is the former President and CEO of SRA International. Renny helped take SRA public (NYSE: SRX) and grow revenue to $1.3 billion with a market capitalization of $1.75 billion. Prior to joining SRA as CIO in 1995, Dr. DiPentima held several senior management positions in the U.S. Federal Government, including serving as the Social Security Administration’s Deputy Commissioner for Systems and CIO. Renny served as Chairman of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Improvement Team as part of the President’s National Performance Review initiatives. He has been honored with numerous awards, including two Presidential Rank awards (Distinguished and Meritorious Service), as well as “CIO of the Year” during both his public sector and private sector tenures.   Dr. DiPentima serves on the Board of Directors of Cap Gemini Government Solutions LLC, iNovex, and Gunnison Consulting Group and the Advisory Board of Blue Delta Capital Partners and is a member of organizations including the Economic Club of D.C and the National Academy of Social Insurance. He previously served on the Board of Directors of Brocade Communication Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD) prior to its $5.5 billion sale to Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), and the Advisory Board of Red Hat, Inc.   Renny graduated with a B.A. from New York University, an M.A. from George Washington University and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. He has also completed the Program for Senior Managers at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Michèle Flournoy is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors, and former Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where she currently serves on the board.

Michèle served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 2009 to February 2012. She was the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense in the formulation of national security and defense policy, oversight of military plans and operations, and in National Security Council deliberations. She led the development of the Department of Defense’s 2012 Strategic Guidance and represented the Department in dozens of foreign engagements, in the media and before Congress.

Prior to confirmation, Michèle co-led President Obama’s transition team at the Defense Department.

In January 2007, Michèle co-founded CNAS, a bipartisan think tank dedicated to developing strong, pragmatic and principled national security policies. She served as CNAS’ President until 2009, and returned as CEO in 2014. In 2017, she co-founded WestExec Advisors, a strategic advisory firm.

Previously, she was senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies for several years and, prior to that, a distinguished research professor at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University (NDU).

In the mid-1990s, she served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy.

Michèle is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including: the American Red Cross Exceptional Service Award in 2016; the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1998, 2011, and 2012; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award in 2000 and 2012; and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996. She has edited several books and authored dozens of reports and articles on a broad range of defense and national security issues. Michèle appears frequently in national and international media, including CNN’s State of the Union, ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, BBC News, NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered and PBS’ News Hour, and is frequently quoted in top tier newspapers.

Michèle serves on the boards of CNAS, Booz Allen Hamilton, Amida Technology Solutions, The Mission Continues, and CARE. She serves on the advisory boards of The Leadership Council for Women in National Security, Sesame Workshop, Intel, and PIMCO. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affair, a current member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, and a former member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, the CIA Director’s External Advisory Board, and the Defense Policy Board.

Michèle earned a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Harvard University and a master’s degree in international relations from Balliol College, Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum scholar.

John R. Allen is a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star General and former Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.  He commanded Marines during the intense fighting in the Al Anbar Province in Iraq in 2007-2008.  Immediately following his retirement from the military, he served as Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense on Middle East Security, and was appointed by President Obama to be his Special Presidential Envoy to the global coalition to counter ISIL.

Today Allen serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Microsoft Corporation, is a Senior Fellow with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He is a permanent member of the Council On Foreign Relations and is a past President of the Brookings Institution.

General Allen was appointed by President Biden to the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Naval Academy where he was declared a Distinguished Graduate in 2021.  He was the first Marine Corps officer to serve as Commandant of Midshipmen at Annapolis.

General Allen has earned master’s degrees from Georgetown University, the National Defense University, and the National Intelligence University, where he is a Distinguished Graduate.

He is the co-author of the book Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence alongside Dr. Darrell M. West (Brookings Press, 2020). He is also the co-author of Future War and the Defense of Europe alongside LTG (Ret.) Frederick “Ben” Hodges and Professor Dr. Julian Lindley French (Oxford University Press, 2021).  Future War has been translated into German, Romanian, and, most recently, Ukrainian.  He is one of the originators of the term “hyperwar”.  As a co-inventor, Allen shares five AI related patents.  He advises multiple tech start-ups.

General Allen is a 2015 co-recipient of the Business Executive for National Security (BENS) Eisenhower Award.  He is also a 2016 co-recipient of the Scholar-Statesman Award from The Washington Institute.  He is also the recipient of multiple US and foreign military awards.

Dr. Boneh is a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University where he heads the applied cryptography group and co-directs the Center for Blockchain Research.  Dr. Boneh’s research focuses on applications of cryptography to computer security and to blockchains.  He is the author of over 200 publications in the field and is a recipient of the 2014 ACM prize and the 2013 Godel prize.  In 2016 he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Dan Geer is a security researcher with a quantitative bent. His group at MIT produced Kerberos, and a number of startups later he is still at it — today as a Senior Fellow at In-Q-Tel.  He writes a lot at every length, and sometimes it gets read such as the semi-famous paper on whether a computing monoculture rises to the level of a national security risk.  He’s an electrical engineer, a statistician, a farmer, and someone who thinks truth is best achieved by adversarial procedures.

Dr. Theresa Cullen is a family physician and clinical informatician who has led numerous large-scale health IT software development and deployment initiatives throughout her time in public service. She began her career with Indian Health Service (IHS) in 1984 as a family practice physician, and from 2006-2011 she served as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Director of the Office of Information Technology for IHS. In 2012, she retired from the U.S. Public Health Service with the rank of Rear Admiral and Assistant U.S. Surgeon General. Dr. Cullen went on to work as the Chief Medical Information Officer for the Veterans Health Administration from 2012-2015. She later served as Associate Director of Global Health Informatics at the Regenstrief Institute, where her work focused on the use of technology to meet clinical needs and improve health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr. Cullen became the Public Health Director of Pima County, Arizona, in May 2020. She successfully guided this county of over one million residents through the COVID-19 pandemic. She also developed a local public health data modernization initiative and initiated and integrated a data analytics team, focusing on community engagement, human-centered design, and public sharing of data through dynamic dashboards. In addition, she has developed a strategic approach to transformational health status change to help achieve health equity. She has worked closely with federal, state, and local partners to ensure that community needs are integrated into work. She is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed articles.

Shannon O’Brien is Chair of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. She is the former State Treasurer and Receiver of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As Treasurer, she led efforts to improve fiscal controls, accountability, and management; created a statewide financial literacy program; and led improvements at the State Lottery resulting in an increase of $100 million in local aid to cities and towns. Prior to that she served as a State Representative and State Senator.  Shannon was the 2002 Democratic nominee for Governor of Massachusetts.

She worked as a litigation attorney at Morrison Mahoney and Miller, was an Emmy-nominated television journalist at Boston’s WB 56, and served as CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater Boston. She served on the board of a publicly traded investment bank in New York as well as a de novo community bank in Newton MA. From 2008-2010, she served as chair of the NY Pension Reform Commission to enhance transparency and accountability within one of the nation’s largest public funds. She was co-founder and president of BeeDoo Cloud Services Corporation.

Shannon was previously the founder and principal of the O’Brien Advisory Group, providing strategic advice, government affairs, and business development services for cutting edge technology companies primarily in clean energy, health care, telecommunications, voting access, and financial services.

Shannon is a graduate of Yale University and Boston University School of Law.

Sonal Shah is the chief executive officer at The Texas Tribune. She has started and led social impact efforts in academia, government, and the private and philanthropic sectors for over 25 years. Previously, she served as interim executive vice president at United Way Worldwide. Sonal founded The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) in Houston and founded and led Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation. Her background in government and policy includes leading the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation in the Obama administration, serving as an international economist at the Department of the Treasury, and as policy director for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. In the private sector, Sonal led Goldman Sachs’ environmental strategy and Google’s global technology and impact investment initiatives.

Sonal grew up in Houston and earned a B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago and an M.A. in economics from Duke University.