Dinah Daniels

American businesswoman, CEO of Praendex, Inc., a Wellesley (MA) management consulting company . Daniels was heir apparent of the company founded by her father, Arnold, who developed a psychological assessment tool called The Predictive Index. Immersed in the company from age 8 when she began to earn a penny for every Predictive Index test she scored, Daniels became president of the company in 1986 and took the helm as CEO when her father died in September 1998. Under her leadership, the company grew significantly, although, she says, her relationship with her mother suffered as a result. One of four children, Daniels grew up in an upper-middle class suburb of Boston. She attended The Winsor School in Boston and then graduated in 1974 from Washington University in St. Louis, MO wiht a major in Latin, drama and the arts. Immediately afterward, she enrolled in the Katherine Gibbs School for secretarial training to perfect her typing and other practical skills. In the meantime, she had been working for the Boston Symphony Orchestra as a secretary. She left in the late 1970s after an interview with composer/conductor Andre Previn who hired her for the public relations department of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Continuing to take on more responsibility she was recruited by the Metropolitian Opera in 1981 to direct public relations for its bicentennial. She married Stephen Dick in 1982 and soon after was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It didn't stop her. She subsequently followed Previn to the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1985. After she moved back to Boston in the mid-80s she underwent a bone marrow transplant and went into remission. She joined her father's company in the Boston area and stayed with Praendex until her death. She died in her sleep at her Wellesley, MA home on March 11, 2007. Her husband attributed her death to pulmonary complications from the most recent chemotherapy treatment.