Tom Petro
Board Member-in-Residence
Tom lives by the adage that strong cultures eat strategy for lunch, but when the two are aligned, great things happen. With over 30 years as a seasoned corporate executive, venture investor, and board member, Tom offers extensive leadership experience to help global clients realize exponential growth as Board Member-in-Residence at Mach49.
A defining moment in Tom’s career came when he quit his corporate job in 1987 to start a data analytics business. The company was a trailblazer in using early machine learning applications, from consumer packaged goods marketing to financial services. Despite the odds, the business flourished and was eventually bought by a public company — an experience that shaped everything that followed, informing how Tom approached running businesses, taking risks, the significance of having a talented team, and the immense impact of having both mentors and friends in the market.
As CEO, Tom led the turnarounds and the repositioning of two public companies — one of which was a NASDAQ IPO — in addition to founding two private companies. An early stage venture investor in financial services, fintech, life science, and tech-enabled services companies, Tom is a trusted advisor and partner to entrepreneurs and management teams as they navigate the uncharted terrain from pre-revenue to growth stages, including businesses like BizEquity, WealthHub Solutions, and OrthogenRx. He has a passion for helping early stage startups and founders grow, and a demonstrated knack for moving the needle with teams at the earliest stages.
At Mach49, Tom’s extensive leadership experience paired with his deep understanding of the challenges startups face make him a uniquely qualified advisor for global clients seeking to create, launch, and scale new ventures. At the board level, Tom brings public and private company governance experience and serves as a partner to the senior executive team on leadership, strategy, and execution issues. His significant boardroom experience includes Board Chair positions and other leadership roles on compensation, risk management, finance, and executive committees. His financial background and public company CEO experience also qualify Tom as a Sarbanes-Oxley SEC financial expert, and he is currently a Board Member of Univest Financial Corp. and Fintegra.
Outside the boardroom, Tom has been a thrill-seeker — from ice climbing and high-altitude mountaineering, to whitewater kayaking and skydiving. Replete with lessons in risk management, teamwork, and trust, activities like these directly translate to his work with early stage companies and in corporate boardrooms. To balance his thrill-seeking nature, since the age of 26 Tom has also spent one week each year in total silence in a monastery, cultivating his calm, clarity, and focus.
Tom holds a BS in business management from Point Park University. He also earned the CERT Certificate in Cybersecurity Oversight, conferred by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University for board directors, and is Directorship Certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors.
A defining moment in Tom’s career came when he quit his corporate job in 1987 to start a data analytics business. The company was a trailblazer in using early machine learning applications, from consumer packaged goods marketing to financial services. Despite the odds, the business flourished and was eventually bought by a public company — an experience that shaped everything that followed, informing how Tom approached running businesses, taking risks, the significance of having a talented team, and the immense impact of having both mentors and friends in the market.
As CEO, Tom led the turnarounds and the repositioning of two public companies — one of which was a NASDAQ IPO — in addition to founding two private companies. An early stage venture investor in financial services, fintech, life science, and tech-enabled services companies, Tom is a trusted advisor and partner to entrepreneurs and management teams as they navigate the uncharted terrain from pre-revenue to growth stages, including businesses like BizEquity, WealthHub Solutions, and OrthogenRx. He has a passion for helping early stage startups and founders grow, and a demonstrated knack for moving the needle with teams at the earliest stages.
At Mach49, Tom’s extensive leadership experience paired with his deep understanding of the challenges startups face make him a uniquely qualified advisor for global clients seeking to create, launch, and scale new ventures. At the board level, Tom brings public and private company governance experience and serves as a partner to the senior executive team on leadership, strategy, and execution issues. His significant boardroom experience includes Board Chair positions and other leadership roles on compensation, risk management, finance, and executive committees. His financial background and public company CEO experience also qualify Tom as a Sarbanes-Oxley SEC financial expert, and he is currently a Board Member of Univest Financial Corp. and Fintegra.
Outside the boardroom, Tom has been a thrill-seeker — from ice climbing and high-altitude mountaineering, to whitewater kayaking and skydiving. Replete with lessons in risk management, teamwork, and trust, activities like these directly translate to his work with early stage companies and in corporate boardrooms. To balance his thrill-seeking nature, since the age of 26 Tom has also spent one week each year in total silence in a monastery, cultivating his calm, clarity, and focus.
Tom holds a BS in business management from Point Park University. He also earned the CERT Certificate in Cybersecurity Oversight, conferred by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University for board directors, and is Directorship Certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors.
Tom Petro
Board Member-in-Residence
Tom lives by the adage that strong cultures eat strategy for lunch, but when the two are aligned, great things happen. With over 30 years as a seasoned corporate executive, venture investor, and board member, Tom offers extensive leadership experience to help global clients realize exponential growth as Board Member-in-Residence at Mach49.
A defining moment in Tom’s career came when he quit his corporate job in 1987 to start a data analytics business. The company was a trailblazer in using early machine learning applications, from consumer packaged goods marketing to financial services. Despite the odds, the business flourished and was eventually bought by a public company — an experience that shaped everything that followed, informing how Tom approached running businesses, taking risks, the significance of having a talented team, and the immense impact of having both mentors and friends in the market.
As CEO, Tom led the turnarounds and the repositioning of two public companies — one of which was a NASDAQ IPO — in addition to founding two private companies. An early stage venture investor in financial services, fintech, life science, and tech-enabled services companies, Tom is a trusted advisor and partner to entrepreneurs and management teams as they navigate the uncharted terrain from pre-revenue to growth stages, including businesses like BizEquity, WealthHub Solutions, and OrthogenRx. He has a passion for helping early stage startups and founders grow, and a demonstrated knack for moving the needle with teams at the earliest stages.
At Mach49, Tom’s extensive leadership experience paired with his deep understanding of the challenges startups face make him a uniquely qualified advisor for global clients seeking to create, launch, and scale new ventures. At the board level, Tom brings public and private company governance experience and serves as a partner to the senior executive team on leadership, strategy, and execution issues. His significant boardroom experience includes Board Chair positions and other leadership roles on compensation, risk management, finance, and executive committees. His financial background and public company CEO experience also qualify Tom as a Sarbanes-Oxley SEC financial expert, and he is currently a Board Member of Univest Financial Corp. and Fintegra.
Outside the boardroom, Tom has been a thrill-seeker — from ice climbing and high-altitude mountaineering, to whitewater kayaking and skydiving. Replete with lessons in risk management, teamwork, and trust, activities like these directly translate to his work with early stage companies and in corporate boardrooms. To balance his thrill-seeking nature, since the age of 26 Tom has also spent one week each year in total silence in a monastery, cultivating his calm, clarity, and focus.
Tom holds a BS in business management from Point Park University. He also earned the CERT Certificate in Cybersecurity Oversight, conferred by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University for board directors, and is Directorship Certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors.
A defining moment in Tom’s career came when he quit his corporate job in 1987 to start a data analytics business. The company was a trailblazer in using early machine learning applications, from consumer packaged goods marketing to financial services. Despite the odds, the business flourished and was eventually bought by a public company — an experience that shaped everything that followed, informing how Tom approached running businesses, taking risks, the significance of having a talented team, and the immense impact of having both mentors and friends in the market.
As CEO, Tom led the turnarounds and the repositioning of two public companies — one of which was a NASDAQ IPO — in addition to founding two private companies. An early stage venture investor in financial services, fintech, life science, and tech-enabled services companies, Tom is a trusted advisor and partner to entrepreneurs and management teams as they navigate the uncharted terrain from pre-revenue to growth stages, including businesses like BizEquity, WealthHub Solutions, and OrthogenRx. He has a passion for helping early stage startups and founders grow, and a demonstrated knack for moving the needle with teams at the earliest stages.
At Mach49, Tom’s extensive leadership experience paired with his deep understanding of the challenges startups face make him a uniquely qualified advisor for global clients seeking to create, launch, and scale new ventures. At the board level, Tom brings public and private company governance experience and serves as a partner to the senior executive team on leadership, strategy, and execution issues. His significant boardroom experience includes Board Chair positions and other leadership roles on compensation, risk management, finance, and executive committees. His financial background and public company CEO experience also qualify Tom as a Sarbanes-Oxley SEC financial expert, and he is currently a Board Member of Univest Financial Corp. and Fintegra.
Outside the boardroom, Tom has been a thrill-seeker — from ice climbing and high-altitude mountaineering, to whitewater kayaking and skydiving. Replete with lessons in risk management, teamwork, and trust, activities like these directly translate to his work with early stage companies and in corporate boardrooms. To balance his thrill-seeking nature, since the age of 26 Tom has also spent one week each year in total silence in a monastery, cultivating his calm, clarity, and focus.
Tom holds a BS in business management from Point Park University. He also earned the CERT Certificate in Cybersecurity Oversight, conferred by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University for board directors, and is Directorship Certified by the National Association of Corporate Directors.
