Leadership & Board of Directors

Joseph B. Elad
President & CEO

Joseph Elad is an experienced software executive who has founded and led several software companies since the mid-1980s. After earning a Bachelors in Engineering and an MBA, he joined the Ph.D. program of the Chemical Engineering department of the University of Delaware, completed his Masters there and proceeded to the Computer Science department where he worked in the field of Artificial Intelligence on a joint Chemical Engineering/Computer Science effort funded by DuPont and others. Having completed his course work toward a Masters in Computer Science, Joseph left the department in the mid-1980’s to found his first software company with other fellow graduates of the University of Delaware. Joseph is active, with his wife, Faith, in historic preservation and is an avid supporter of animal rights.

A. Ganesh Vaidyanathan, Ph.D.
VP of Research & Chief Science Officer

Dr. Ganesh Vaidyanathan brings with him significant experience in delivering innovative solutions to solve complex business problems using technology, data and multi-disciplinary concepts. Formerly a Senior Research Associate with DuPont, he is the inventor of the proprietary InfoEvolve™ suite of data mining tools based on the marriage of information theory with genetic algorithms and has developed a significant patent estate around data mining, pattern discovery and adaptive image analysis, with 18 patents awarded to date. Following his time at DuPont, Ganesh was the Founder & President of Indus Capital Management LLC, which provides predictive modeling and decision making technology to the hedge fund industry. Ganesh earned his PhD in Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his BA in Physics from Princeton University.

Frank T. Abbott
VP of Finance & Chief Financial Officer

As VP of Finance & Chief Financial Officer, Frank is responsible for all of Quantum Leap's administration, accounting, contract administration, facilities management and purchasing. Formerly with DuPont, he brings with him over 30 years of experience managing major business support functions including commercial and government contract administration, accounting, purchasing, shipping and receiving, inventory control and information technology. Frank led the transition of DuPont's Advanced Materials Systems (AMS) business unit through two changes in ownership with no interruption in services. Highlights of Frank's career include: developing education, orientation and training programs; conducting reviews of audits; and creating a corporate competency center to facilitate acquisition and management of government contracts. Frank left his position as Controller of Cytec Fiberite (previously DuPont's AMS) to serve as Vice President and CFO of IMG Americas, Inc., where he directed the successful implementation of SAP in the US subsidiary. He then went on to serve as Senior Vice President of The Guardian Services Group, Ltd. before joining Quantum Leap. Frank earned his Master of Commerce, Accounting & Industrial Management from the University of Richmond, VA. He is a Founding Member of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) and a member of the National Contract Management Association (NCMA).

Board of Directors

Rick Bennett

Quantum Leap Innovations is extremely pleased to announce the addition of Rick Bennett to our Board of Directors and as a Key Advisor to the leadership team. Mr. Bennett will contribute to the development of the company's business and operating plans as well as develop and guide the marketing strategy and execution. "I have spent my entire professional life finding and mentoring companies with truly disruptive technology." says Bennett, "I believe Quantum Leap Innovations' management has the horse power to make their unique and patentable Pattern Based Analytics software into an industry on a par with those created by Oracle and Salesforce.com. I am honored that they would invite me to be on their team." Rick Bennett was the one-man ad agency for Oracle, where in just six years he helped them expand from a $15 million sales year to their first billion-dollar sales year. He was also a driving force behind Salesforce.com’s pre-IPO assault on Siebel, and managed BIGFIX’s frontal assault against LANDesk, McAfee, Microsoft and Symantec. His client list includes numerous companies in the computer hardware, database, circuit design, education and artificial intelligence industries. Mr. Bennett, also a mathematician, is on the Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE) technology advisory board, and specializes in guerrilla warfare for early stage technology companies.

Stephen H. Coltrin

Stephen H. Coltrin founded Coltrin & Associates, Inc. in 1982. Under his guidance, the firm has become recognized as a leading strategic public relations firm giving counsel to global brands. Among the firm’s successes are the launch of Palm and the Salt Lake Winter Olympics. Mr. Coltrin currently serves as Vice Chairman on the board of directors for the International Radio and Television Society Foundation. He has also serves on the President’s Advisory Council for Brigham Young University. Previously, he served on the boards of two publically traded companies and WRFM radio in New York.

A recognized figure in business, broadcasting and the media community, Mr. Coltrin was one of the Honorary Vice Chairmen for Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame Awards. In 2003 he received the “Leo Hindery Media Ethics and Values Speaker of the year” award at Emerson college in Boston. He also received the prestigious Chapel of Four Chaplains Award for his use of transparency as a strategy to communicate the turn-around of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games.

Mr. Coltrin assisted with the promotion of Mitt Romney’s book, Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games, where Governor Romney wrote, “Coltrin was the strategist in the turn-around process.” The work he provided for the Olympic Truce Foundation of the United States, Governor Mitt Romney and the Salt Lake Organizing Committee garnered international recognition. He also worked on the publicity surrounding the Olympic Truce Ideal Award ceremony during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens where, at the request of U.S. ambassador, Thomas Miller Mr. Coltrin met with the prime minister of Greece and his aid to advise turning around the negative image the games had acquired because of failure to meet deadlines. In 2002 he was selected to be an Olympic torch bearer in Philadelphia.

Early in his career Mr. Coltrin had majority ownership in an AM/FM radio in Nashville, TN. He later moved into the pharmaceutical industry where his responsibilities included serving as Product Manager and Media Activities Manager for Burroughs-Wellcome. Mr. Coltrin produced some of the first medical information programs in the U.S. and pioneered spokesperson training in the pharmaceutical industry. He served as spokesman for both the National Pharmaceutical Council and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, where he was named National Spokesman of the Year.

Mr. Coltrin and his wife Gwen raised seven children and currently reside in Bucks County, PA.

Michael A. Cusumano, Ph.D.

Michael A. Cusumano is the Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, with a joint appointment in the MIT Engineering Systems Division. His seminal 2010 book, STAYING POWER, covers six enduring principles for managing strategy and innovation in an uncertain world.

"We are honored to have someone of Dr. Cusamano's stature agree to join our board," said Quantum Leap founder and CEO Joseph Budner Elad. "His support validates our vision of Pattern Based Analytics and the importance of our technology in today's uncertain world."

"It is with great pleasure and excitement that I join the Quantum Leap board," says Dr. Cusumano. "I have known the principals in the company for many years and have closely followed the evolution of their work in data analysis. The pattern-based analytics approach took years to develop. It significantly improves our ability to visualize and make sense of complex data sets and then apply these insights to a wide variety of business and other applications."
Michael Cusumano specializes in strategy, product development, and entrepreneurship in the computer software industry, as well as automobiles and consumer electronics. He teaches courses on The Software Business and Digital Platforms as well as Strategic Management and Managing Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Professor Cusumano earned his B.A. degree from Princeton and his Ph.D. from Harvard. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Production and Operations Management at the Harvard Business School. He is fluent in Japanese and has lived and worked in Japan for seven years. He received two Fulbright Fellowships and a Japan Foundation Fellowship for studying at Tokyo University. He has been a visiting professor at Hitotsubashi University and Tokyo University in Japan, Imperial College in London, the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, the University of Maryland, and Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.

Dr. Cusumano has consulted for some 90 companies around the world, including Alcatel, Amadeus, AOL, AT&T, BMC Software, Business Objects, Cisco, Ericsson, Fiat, Ford, Fujitsu, General Electric, Fidelity, Verizon, Hitachi, Huawei, i2 Technologies, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Motorola, NASA, NEC, Nokia, Nortel, NTT Data, Philips, Robert Bosch, Schlumberger, Siemens, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. He has been a director of several public and private companies, including Patni Computer Systems (www.patni.com, an IT services firm sold to iGate-Apax in 2011 for $1.2 billion) as well as Eliza Corporation (www.elizacorp.com, a communications and voice-recognition solutions firm which brought in Parthenon Capital Partners as a growth investor in 2011). He is a currently a director of Fusion Storm Global (www.fusionstormglobal.com, an IT solutions provider). He is also on the advisory board of Fixstars Corp. (www.fixstars.com, a developer of high-performance computing applications), and several other companies and organizations. He has also served as editor-in-chief and chairman of the MIT Sloan Management Review and writes a column on Technology Strategy and Management for Communications of the ACM. He was named one of the most influential people in technology and IT by Silicon.com in 2009.

Professor Cusumano has published 9 books. His newest book, Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World (2010), is based on the 2009 Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies at Oxford University and is translated into Japanese, Chinese, and Italian. The Business of Software (2004) was named one of the best business books of the year by Steve Lohr of The New York Times and is translated into Japanese and Chinese. Microsoft Secrets (1995, with Richard Selby) is a best-selling study of Microsoft's strategy, organization, and approach to software development, and has sold some 150,000 copies in 14 languages. Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco Drive Industry Innovation (2002, with Annabelle Gawer) examines how industry leaders orchestrate complementary innovations that make their platforms more valuable. Competing on Internet Time: Lessons from Netscape and its Battle with Microsoft (1998, with David Yoffie), was named one of the top 10 business books of 1998 by Business Week and Amazon.com, and played a central role in the Microsoft anti-trust trial. Thinking Beyond Lean: How Multi-Project Management is Transforming Product Development at Toyota and Other Companies (1998, with Kentaro Nobeoka) analyzes product development and platform strategies in the auto industry. He is also co-editor of Strategic Thinking for the Next Economy (2001, with Costas Markides) and author of Japan's Software Factories: A Challenge to U.S. Management (1991) and The Japanese Automobile Industry: Technology and Management at Nissan and Toyota (1985).