Sal and Lisa DeTrane
Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer MedeAnalytics
Hometown: Philadelphia
In-demand grads: “What I’ve heard from a lot of companies is that they love hiring applicants from Temple, because they typically find that Temple grads have a strong work ethic and good common sense,” Sal said. “They are known to have an ability to practically apply their experience versus many other graduates that solely rely on their education.”
Alums Sal and Lisa DeTrane endowed a scholarship to honor of their appreciation for Temple and to support future entrepreneurs.
While visiting Main Campus with his son, Alex, last summer, Sal DeTrane, BBA ’93, was amazed to see how dramatically it had changed. The addition of the high-rise residences at Morgan Hall, renovations to Pearson-McGonigle Hall, and new shops mixed with the familiarity of Cecil B. Moore Avenue, added to the existing look of the Bell Tower and the expansive food-truck scene.
“It’s so interesting to see how much it’s changed and the amount of investment that’s gone into the campus,” said DeTrane, 44. “It gets more impressive with every visit.”
DeTrane and his wife, Lisa, BBA ’93, a fellow alum, have remained dedicated to Temple since their graduation nearly 25 years ago. Sal DeTrane frequently flies to Philadelphia from the couple’s Silicon Valley home for on-campus speaking engagements at the Fox School of Business, to visit clients in the area, and to attend Philadelphia Eagles games each fall.
The DeTranes’ Temple pride led the couple to start The DeTrane Family Endowed Scholarship, to help entrepreneurial students receive the same education that made Sal passionate about pursuing venture capital-oriented endeavors and helping emerging businesses succeed.
“We really wanted to support young entrepreneurs in Philadelphia since it’s not as common to start a business on the East Coast,” said Sal DeTrane. “Here in Silicon Valley, it’s more of a norm for people to leave their job to start a company.”
Sal and Lisa DeTrane met in several business and accounting classes at Fox and became friends before graduating, dating, and getting married two years later. After their honeymoon, the couple moved to California in 1996. Lisa transferred from Philadelphia’s AT&T office to a branch in California, continuing her work in sales operations, while Sal transferred within Andersen to help build the firm’s global technology investment banking practice based in San Jose.
“I had little knowledge of what venture capital or investment banking was when I was in college, let alone thought about it as a career,” he said. “I quickly moved into broader and increasingly early-stage business interests after graduation and moving to the Bay Area.”
He later joined The Angels’ Forum and The Halo Fund, where he co-managed a $50 million portfolio of venture-backed start-ups and developed more formal portfolio management processes. He left to start his own venture capital firm, Nucleus Partners, in late 2001 with a friend and colleague, Eric Walczykowski.
As founder and managing director of Nucleus Partners, DeTrane actively worked with companies as opposed to merely investing in and advising them. In 2003, Nucleus Partners invested in one of his portfolio companies, now called MedeAnalytics. DeTrane joined MedeAnalytics in late 2004 and played critical executive roles to develop and refine its strategy, raise all of its institutional capital, as well as implement operational best practices that enabled the company’s rapid growth.
In 2015, while preparing MedeAnalytics for an initial public offering (IPO), the Board and executive team decided to complete a majority recapitalization (or private IPO) with a leading software private equity firm called Thoma Bravo. DeTrane has been MedeAnalytics’ chief financial officer and chief administrative officer and has led all strategic planning, operational, and business development activities for over 12 years.
With Sal DeTrane’s success, Lisa took on the leadership role for their home and three children. “We balance each other out,” she said. “I feel fortunate in finding a great partner in life and having great kids. I enjoy being CEO of our household.”
The DeTranes enjoy the idea of their son possibly attending Temple next fall and their two daughters in the years to come.
“We don’t want to push our son into going to Temple, we want that to be his decision,” Sal said. “But we want to make sure he understands all the positives and everything Temple has to offer.”