Join us for a panel conversation on the exit and legacy mindset — focused on preparing for what’s next — without losing who you are. This reflective session supports leaders who are thinking about exits, transitions, second acts, or legacy building. It helps high performers redefine success, sustain wellbeing, and create meaningful impact beyond the business.
What You’ll Gain:
- Clarity around personal and professional transition planning.
- A healthier mindset for navigating uncertainty, identity shifts, and next-chapter decisions.
- A grounded approach to purpose, fulfillment, and long-term legacy.
Meet Our Panel:
Moderator:
Michael S. Harrington is a Partner at Duane Morris and serves as a team lead of the firm's Life Sciences and Medical Technologies industry group. He represents early- and growth-stage companies in the technology, life sciences, healthcare and clean tech sectors. Mr. Harrington’s experience includes advising institutional, strategic and private investors on structuring, negotiating and managing investments; representing private equity funds in raising capital and advising on requisite disclosures and federal and state securities law compliance; assisting growth companies in investment banking, accounting, management, private investor and other critical financing relationships; negotiating and documenting corporate transactions such as equity and debt financing, acquisitions, joint ventures and employment compensation and benefit arrangements; leveraging a company’s intellectual property through licensing, joint venture or development relationships and establishing distribution channels or similar means; and advising early-stage companies and investors on the opportunities and complexities of equity crowdfunding enabled by the JOBS ACT.
Panelist 1:
Matthew Cooper is a corporate attorney focused on small- to mid-market mergers and acquisitions, representing buyers and sellers across a wide range of industries throughout the Mid-Atlantic. He regularly advises business owners on sell-side transactions involving both private equity-backed and strategic buyers, and he also represents financial and strategic buyers in acquisitions, roll-ups, and growth-driven transactions. In addition to M&A, Matthew serves as outside general counsel to closely-held and middle-market companies, advising on entity formation, contract drafting and negotiation, governance, buy-sell agreements, and business disputes. Clients rely on Matthew for clear, commercially-grounded advice that keeps transactions moving, identifies issues early, and manages risk without slowing deal momentum. He is viewed as a pragmatic business advisor to many companies in the region. Matthew also maintains a niche practice in private securities offerings, advising private companies on capital raises under Regulation D with an emphasis on compliance and efficiency. Matthew began his career at an AmLaw 100 firm in Washington, D.C., where he represented Fortune 500 companies and private equity clients in complex corporate and securities matters. He brings that large-firm transactional experience to entrepreneurs and middle-market businesses with a clear goal: delivering sound judgment and getting deals done on the right terms and on his clients’ timelines.
Panelist 2:
John Ratliff is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience. He is the founder of align5, a strategic consultancy based in West Chester, Pennsylvania. John co-founded align5 in 2013 to advise growth company entrepreneurs and family enterprises on a variety of strategic issues including sell-side and buy-side M&A. John was also the founder and CEO of Appletree Answers, a telephone answering service company started in 1995. He grew the company organically by implementing strategies from Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (the Scaling Up methodology) and through a series of acquisitions to 24 U.S. locations and 650 employees. John sold Appletree Answers to a strategic buyer in June 2012. John is passionate about educating other entrepreneurs about the strategic exit process. John is a member of the YPO Philadelphia chapter since 2007, the EO Philadelphia chapter since 2004 and is a graduate of the Birthing of Giants class of 2008.
Panelist 3:
Sean Heberling, CFA is CEO of Marion Street Capital and a General Partner at Addvia Ventures, through which he exited a management consulting business at year-end 2025. Sean moved from advising Founders and CEO’s on capital strategy, scaling, and exit strategy for almost 7 years back to investing where he is focused upon building a meaningful next chapter that aligns capital with purpose. His work sat at the intersection of growth and transition, through which he helped leaders not just build valuable companies, but successfully convert that value into liquidity and long-term optionality. Drawing on experience evaluating over 10,000 companies and over 100 transactions, he brings a disciplined, investor-driven lens to the realities of exit planning. Beyond transactions, Sean worked with leaders to think through capital deployment, identity shift, and construction of a next act grounded in intention. He is Director and Treasurer for the Global Interdependence Center, a Past President of the CFA Society of Philadelphia, and a former Adjunct Professor of Finance at Villanova University.