Mr. Cestare has over 30 years of experience in banking.   Prior to joining Patriot, Mr. Cestare served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer from 2010-2020 at Beneficial Bancorp, a $6 billion bank based in Philadelphia.  At Beneficial, Mr. Cestare was responsible for corporate finance and accounting, risk management, investor relations, capital deployment and optimization, corporate planning/budgeting/forecasting, profitability analysis, interest rate risk and liquidity management, and investor relations. While at Beneficial, Mr. Cestare assisted in the conversion of Beneficial from a mutual to a fully public company raising over $500 million of capital which enabled the bank grow from $4.0 billion in assets to over $6 billion in assets at the time of it sale.

Prior to Beneficial, Mr. Cestare was the Executive Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer of Sovereign Bancorp, Inc., a $92 billion Philadelphia bank. At Sovereign, Mr. Cestare was responsible for corporate accounting, management reporting, external financial reporting with regulatory agencies, including both Securities and Exchange Commission and Office of Thrift Supervision reporting, taxes, corporate planning/budgeting/forecasting and business line financial management.  Prior to joining Sovereign in 2005, Cestare was a Partner with the public accounting firm of KPMG LLP focusing on banks and other financial service companies. 
 
Mr. Cestare has served on the boards of many civic and professional organizations during his career including the Police Athletic League and the Preservation Alliance of Philadelphia.

Mr. Cestare received his B.S. degree in Accounting from the University of Delaware.