Our Team

Umasudhan “Uma” Palaniswamy is Chief Executive Officer of WISEcode Labs. He brings more than 25 years of leadership experience across food, consumer health, nutraceutical ingredients, and science-based innovation. Uma began his career in microalgal biotechnology and became a founding member of Parry Nutraceuticals, helping develop and commercialize microalgae-derived ingredients globally. He later joined U.S. Nutraceuticals, operating as Valensa International, and advanced through commercial and operating roles to become President and CEO. Under his leadership, Valensa grew from an emerging extraction-technology business into a globally recognized branded-ingredient platform known for clinically supported products and vertically integrated supply chains. He was also part of the founding team behind Flomentum, a doctor-recommended, USP Verified consumer health brand, and is a named inventor on several U.S. patents. At WISEcode Labs, Uma is leading the company’s next phase of growth through expanded scientific capabilities, reliable testing data, and stronger partnerships with companies across the food system. Uma holds a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering, a master’s in international business, and an Executive MBA from the University of Central Florida. He has also completed an executive finance program at the Wharton School.

Neal Pawsat is Vice President of Finance and Accounting at WISEcode Labs. He brings more than 15 years of financial and operational leadership across global manufacturing, technology, and professional services. Neal began his career at Deloitte and KPMG, where he spent six years advising Fortune 200 and Fortune 250 financial institutions on transformational accounting standards, large-scale audits, and global GAAP and IFRS implementations across 11 countries. He later joined Amazon in support of the Devices and Services business, leading financial analyses that strengthened controllership and preserved company margins, and then moved to Honeywell as Senior Finance Manager for Corporate Functional Finance. At Honeywell he advised C-suite leaders across more than a dozen corporate functions and built a bottoms-up forecasting model used to support spin-offs, mergers and acquisitions, and organizational change. At WISEcode Labs, Neal leads financial strategy, governance, reporting, and operations, building the systems and processes the laboratory needs to scale its third-party testing services without compromising rigor or accountability. A licensed CPA in North Carolina, Neal earned his Master of Accounting from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and holds a B.S. in Business Finance and Economics from Georgetown College.

Sue Ann Seitz is our Vice President of Sales. She brings more than 30 years of technical sales and commercial leadership experience across food, pet food, animal feed, and laboratory testing. Sue Ann began her career at the bench before moving into technical sales, a progression that gave her a working understanding of both the science behind testing and what companies need from a laboratory partner. Over the course of her career she has built and managed customer relationships nationwide, led cross-functional sales efforts, introduced new testing services to market, and worked with companies navigating complex quality, compliance, and product-testing challenges. She holds an M.B.A. from Creighton University School of Business and a B.S. in Biology from Emory University. Her education and years of experience provide a scientific and regulatory foundation that underpins her approach to sales. That combination of laboratory grounding and commercial experience shapes how she approaches growth: beginning not with a menu of tests but with the question a customer is trying to answer, and the decision that depends on it. At WISEcode Labs, Sue Ann leads the expansion of our commercial relationships across food, ingredients, supplements, and related markets, guided by one of our core principles - that laboratory testing should be a partnership rather than a transaction. Outside the office, Sue Ann is embracing life in her new home base of Charlotte, NC after growing up in Omaha, NE. She's made the most of the move, road-tripping through the mountains and beaches of the Southeast with her daughters, family, and friends, and loving that both are now just a short drive away. When she's not out exploring, she's on the hunt for Charlotte's best restaurants to enjoy a wonderful meal, glass of wine, atmosphere, and conversation.

Reagan Brashears is our Business Development Manager. A food scientist by training, she brings research-grounded expertise in food safety microbiology, nutrition and animal science to the commercial side of our laboratory. Reagan completed her PhD in Animal Sciences at Texas Tech University, where her research focused on foodborne pathogen mitigation across beef, pork, and poultry production systems. Her work spanned biomapping, lymph node risk assessment, and pathogen intervention validation, combining laboratory research with data-driven approaches to understanding where microbial risk exists throughout food production. Her research has been published in the Journal of Food Protection, Meat and Muscle Biology, and Foods. A fourth-generation agriculturist, Reagan also brings an understanding of food production that extends beyond the laboratory, including teaching and mentorship, international collaboration, and hands-on research within production environments. At WISEcode Labs, Reagan serves as a bridge between our laboratory and the food companies we serve, helping customers move beyond whether an individual sample passed or failed toward understanding what testing reveals about an entire process - where risk may be entering the system, whether interventions are working, and where additional insight is needed. In her downtime, Reagan pursues her love of travel, food, culture, and music. You can spot her somewhere between her favorite concert, a great local restaurant, a warm beach, and the snowboarding slopes.

Sharon K.K. Beals (SKKB to her friends and colleagues) is a Food Safety and Regulatory Executive and member of the WISEcode Labs scientific leadership team. She brings more than 40 years of leadership in food safety, quality, and regulatory compliance across FDA, USDA-FSIS, and CFIA-regulated categories. Sharon has held executive roles at Maple Leaf Foods, US Foods, Smithfield Packing, Tyson Foods, and CTI Foods, working within complex food production environments where testing results must translate into decisions about risk, processes, products, regulatory compliance, and ultimately public health. Her career has been spent at the intersection of science, regulation, manufacturing, and consumer protection. That perspective makes her role distinctive: Sharon understands laboratory testing from the customer side of the equation, including what food safety and quality leaders need when results arrive and the questions the data must help answer. At WISEcode Labs, Sharon brings decades of operational and regulatory judgment to our scientific team, helping ensure our work remains connected to the real-world decisions our customers make every day. Sharon is the current Past Board President of the American Meat Science Association (AMSA) and an AMSA Fellow, and she serves as the first Executive Director of the Women’s Meat Industry Network. She is HACCP and PCQI certified and earned her B.S. in Human Nutrition and Foods from Cornell University. Sharon’s personal philosophy: “You control how you respond to the stimulus. Choose to be fabulous and choose to be kind”.