Affinity Appoints Two Key Executives from Robinhood and Showpad
30.6.2022 16:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Affinity, the relationship intelligence platform for dealmakers, today announced the appointments of two key executives: Dustin Deno as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Rich Bessel as Vice President of Design.
“Over the past few years, we’ve seen exponential growth across relationship-driven industries,” said Ray Zhou, co-CEO and co-founder at Affinity. “As we enter our next stage of growth we are excited to welcome Dustin and Rich to our executive team. Their strong track records of driving revenue growth and designing world-class products at leading technology companies will be critical as we scale to meet growing market demand.”
Deno brings over 15 years of experience in SaaS, including building and scaling sales teams at Salesforce and Showpad. While at Showpad, Deno helped to grow global sales teams after the company secured their Series D funding and successfully navigated the team through the pandemic. Deno will lead Affinity’s world-class velocity sales organization and prepare for the company’s next stage of maturity. Additionally, he will continue to execute strategy across the venture capital, investment banking, and private equity sectors while investigating new market opportunities.
“I joined Affinity because the team and the product are second to none,” said Deno. “As a sales professional, I know the value of the accurate and actionable relationship intelligence that Affinity delivers, and our market opportunity is vast.”
In his role as VP of Design, Bessel will drive the company’s future product design from end-to-end, ensuring a cohesive, engaging experience across Affinity’s brand and product. His experience includes key roles at Robinhood, where in his first year he led a team to create an award-winning corporate rebrand, helping the company to reach 11.7 million monthly active users by December 2020. While at Intuit, Bessel helped create meaningful product experiences for the emerging “gig economy,” bringing the best together of two marquee products in TurboTax and Quickbooks.
“Affinity is a company with smart people doing impactful work on an amazing, high-value product,” commented Bessel. “Not only was I attracted by the technology and the management team, but I was also taken with Affinity’s company culture, which emphasizes balance and wellness, making it a place where people can thrive.”
As relationship-driven industries grow, Affinity is continuing to invest in the people and product it offers to the dealmaking markets. Affinity’s data and systems support customers’ CRM needs and collect relationship intelligence, saving precious time with automation while providing a digestible landscape of data. Across the Affinity platform, over 500,000 new introductions are made and 450,000 deals tracked per month. By capturing relationship exhaust—over 18 trillion emails and 213 million calendar invites to date—Affinity automates contact records and tracks activity saving over 260 hours every year in data entry work. As a result, customers can focus on making the connections to find and close their next deal faster.
About Affinity
Affinity is a relationship intelligence platform that empowers dealmakers in relationship-driven industries to find, manage and close more deals. With the most automated relationship intelligence insights and technology, Affinity enables leaders to drive deals, free themselves from data drudgery and ensure their teams can take action with confidence, knowing the context and history of every relationship. The Affinity platform, including Affinity CRM, is used by over 2,000 relationship-driven organizations around the world. Founded in 2014, Affinity is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by leading investors including Menlo Ventures, Advance Venture Partners, 8VC and MassMutual Ventures.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220630005138/en/
Contact information
Caroline Kamerschen
caroline@bospar.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Nanochon Receives Regulatory Approval from Panamá’s Ministry of Health to Initiate First-in-Human Clinical Study of Chondrograft™17.8.2026 22:44:00 EEST | Press release
Nanochon, a medical device company developing Chondrograft™, a novel patented implant for the treatment of articular cartilage defects of the knee, today announced that it has received regulatory approval from Panamá’s Ministry of Health to initiate its First-in-Human (FIH) clinical study in Panamá. The study will evaluate the safety and performance of Chondrograft™ in patients with focal chondral defects of the knee and represents a major milestone in the company’s clinical and regulatory development strategy. The trial will be conducted at The Panama Clinic in Panamá City under the leadership of Drs. Juan Osorio and Emilio Tufiño, experienced sports medicine surgeons, with Dr. Osorio serving as Principal Investigator for the study. Dr. Osorio stated, “I am pleased to be the Principal Investigator for this important study, and we look forward to contributing the data that will support a larger clinical study and subsequent market entry.” Nanochon selected Panamá for its growing reputa
TOURISE and Oxford Economics Release New Global Report on Tourism Resilience in an Era of Permanent Disruption17.8.2026 17:33:00 EEST | Press release
TOURISE, in collaboration with Oxford Economics, today released a new report, “Resilience in a World that Doesn’t Reset: Redesigning Tourism for an Era of Permanent Disruption.” The analysis of 85 major crises over two decades shows a clear pattern: in a world defined by continuous shocks, destinations that act before disruption hits recover up to 1.5 times faster than those that wait. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260817880835/en/ “In a world that does not reset between crises, disruption is a constant feature of the global tourism landscape,” said His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia and Chairman of TOURISE. “The real test for destinations measures how they prepare for volatility, protect traveler confidence, and maintain continuity ahead of such events.” Using the current Middle East crisis as a lens, where Gulf hubs carry roughly 14 percent of global transit traffic, the r
The Expensify Visa® Commercial Card Brings New Proactive Spend Controls to 14 Countries17.8.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Expensify, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXFY), the easiest way to manage expenses, travel, and corporate cards, today expanded the reach of Expensify Card spend rules, the market-leading way for businesses to control corporate card spend before it happens. Available to businesses in 14 countries, spend rules let admins decide exactly how, where, and when each Expensify Card can be used, so only compliant transactions go through. Unlike traditional corporate cards that rely on after-the-fact expense review, the Expensify Card enforces policy at the point of purchase. Admins set the rules once, and the card handles the rest. With Expensify Card spend rules, admins can: Lock a card to a subscription. Give each recurring SaaS tool its own virtual card, so a vendor can only ever charge what it should. If the card owner changes teams or leaves, the subscription keeps running, with no swapping cards and no missed payments. Cover a one-time purchase. Issue a virtual card for a single transaction like event r
Riskified Analysis Finds Travel Fraudsters Are Adapting Faster Than Traditional Signals Can Keep Up, With May Flight Risk Up 32%17.8.2026 15:30:00 EEST | Press release
Riskified (NYSE: RSKD), a global leader in ecommerce fraud and risk intelligence, today released new findings from its Travel Industry Insights report, revealing how sophisticated fraud rings and AI-enabled fraudsters are evolving their tactics across airlines, hotels, and online travel platforms. Riskified’s analysis shows that fraudsters are increasingly adapting their behavior to resemble legitimate travelers, making traditional fraud indicators less reliable and creating new challenges for travel merchants. Riskified’s analysis of hundreds of millions of travel transactions across flights, hotels, and land transportation found that flight fraud risk increased through the first five months of 2026, with May 2026 marking the sharpest year-over-year increase at 32% compared to May 2025. The findings show that sophisticated fraud activity is not limited to predictable travel peaks, with organized fraud rings continuously adjusting their methods throughout the year. Riskified's travel n
PIF Delivers Strong Revenue and Profit Growth in 202517.8.2026 14:54:00 EEST | Press release
PIF today published its 2025 Annual Report demonstrating strong financial performance and continued progress against its long-term objectives. As a long-term investor with a unique mandate to drive the economic transformation of Saudi Arabia and deliver sustainable financial returns, PIF maintained a diversified portfolio in 2025, balancing returns with national impact and long-term resilience. Maintaining Financial Discipline In 2025, revenue rose 9% year on year to $120 billion, while net profit more than doubled to $17 billion, supported by stronger contributions from maturing portfolio companies. PIF retained over $900 billion in assets under management and achieved an annualized total shareholder return of 5.8% since 2017. Total shareholder return in 2025 was positively driven by increased dividends from portfolio companies and returns from financial investments. It was also impacted by downward movements in the valuations of some assets, as a result of wider market conditions, an
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom