Leadership Team

At Actemium Avanceon, our strength lies in our people.

We are a team of talented, creative, and fun individuals who are passionate about driving innovation in manufacturing automation and information systems. Our focus is simple: helping our customers solve complex challenges with smart, scalable, and value-driven solutions.

Whether you’re working with our engineers, solution architects, project managers, business leads, or support teams, you’ll experience a collaborative and engaging partnership from start to finish. We believe great projects are built on strong relationships, founded on trust, accountability, and outstanding customer service.

In a world where system development can feel transactional, we remain grounded in the idea that it’s still people working with people. For us, the journey is just as important as the destination. Our team makes that journey exceptional, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Matt Ruth (President / CEO) is our longest-tenured team member. With decades of experience, he leads the company’s direction and champions our culture. Matt works closely with our teams and customers to explore what’s possible through DataOps, AI, OT Managed Services, and Digital Transformation.

As Actemium Avanceon’s “people champion,” Matt ensures relationships—both internal and external—are built on integrity, honesty, and transparency.

Matt has a natural curiosity for how things work and why. He uses that mindset to solve complex problems and connect the dots in creative, effective ways—whether within our company or for our customers. He’s a pro at identifying business challenges, charting the right path, and aligning the resources needed to get the job done. Over the years, Matt has built strong relationships with our customers by delivering innovative, reliable solutions that meet their real-world needs.

He also serves on Actemium Avanceon’s Executive Steering Team, where he helps drive growth, innovation, and continuous improvement across the business.

Outside of work, Matt has been happily married to his wife Kelly for over 25 years. They have two adult children and a Springer Spaniel named Nova. He’s a diehard Villanova basketball fan and an avid outdoorsman—whether he’s chasing a big catch on the ocean, tracking game in the woods, climbing a mountain trail, or conceptualizing an innovative OT solution, Matt brings passion, purpose, and energy to everything he does.

Brian Fenn (COO) enjoys solving varied and complex problems, whether they involve people, processes, operations or technology. You know that girl or guy who seems to know everything about anything? Brian loves working with those folks and finding ways to synergize his know-how with their expertise to help our customers and ourselves achieve awesomeness. As CBIO (Chief Bad Idea Officer), Brian routinely comes up with bad ideas that others mold into productive initiatives. Employed by Avanceon since the age of thirteen, Brian has held almost every engineering position in the organization. Early experience with batching, SCADA systems, MES and reporting helped shape his interest in the business side of manufacturing.

Outside the office, Brian enjoys spending time with his stupendously wonderful wife (and Avanceon editor-in-chief) Jenn, energetic toddler Zadie and stoically indifferent (yet incredibly friendly) Scottish terrier Marley. When not on the racquetball court or in the kitchen, Brian can be found enjoying the outdoors, cheering on Pitt, completing odd home or engineering projects, creating noise-pollution to be passed off as music, appreciating music created by people who’ve mastered the wondrously infinite musiscape (if that’s not a word, it should be), writing much too long (but somehow grammatically correct albeit not reader-friendly) sentences riddled with spelling errors (since corrected by aforementioned grammarian super-wife) and using too many parentheses.

Tracey Johnson (Vice President of Operations) leads eight operational business units and the Project Management Office (PMO). Since joining the company in 2007, Tracey has held several roles across different departments, gaining a broad perspective on the business before stepping into a senior leadership role in 2018 and an executive role in 2022.

Around the office, Tracey can be found dressed down in her “uniform” (jeans, sneakers, and an Actemium fleece). Her main focuses are on strengthening delivery performance, driving operational improvements, and supporting the growth and development of her leadership team. She also has a passion for artificial intelligence and how it can be leveraged to improve processes, increase efficiency, and scale operations.

Tracey lives in Downingtown, PA with her husband Michael and their four dogs—Roxie, Penny, Barkley, and Paulie. Their daughter, Shayla, recently graduated from Rowan University with a degree in Business Management and played on the women’s basketball team. Outside of work, Tracey enjoys spending time at the shore, cheering for the Philadelphia Eagles, and relaxing with a glass of wine.

Susan Schlegel (Vice President of Sales) oversees the New Business Group (NBG), Actemium Global Network, and Strategic Partnerships. She brings a strategic focus to building long-term, value-driven relationships and works closely with Engineering and NBG teams to deliver tailored, best-fit solutions for each customer. Her leadership fosters a culture of collaboration, trust, and customer-centric innovation, consistently driving project success and exceeding expectations..

Since joining the company in 2011 with 18 years of prior sales experience, Susan has played a pivotal role in accelerating growth. Despite having no prior manufacturing background, she quickly immersed herself in the industry, gaining deep insight into customer needs and engineering challenges. “Every customer and project is unique,” she says. “Not a day goes by that I don’t learn something new. Engineers are passionate about what they do, and it’s incredibly rewarding to help them solve problems.”

Susan lives in Reading, PA with her husband David and their dog Chloe. They have three grown children—Samantha, Hannah, and Griffin. Outside of work, she enjoys long-distance running, spending time with family, and sharing good food and wine with friends.