customer-operations
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Joel Grossman and the Long Art of Answering the Call
He began with an empty desk and helped build one company to a $220 million exit. At Numa, Joel Grossman is applying the same patient operating logic to the ringing phones, missed messages and frayed handoffs of the modern car dealership.
David Slater Makes Marketing Do the Work
At Front, the veteran of Adobe, Mozilla, Salesforce and one unruly startup is trying to make an AI-era marketing department behave less like a slide factory and more like a working product.
Gideon Ebose Is Teaching AI to Mind the Fine Print
The Rulebase co-founder took a designer’s route into fintech’s least glamorous work. His wager is simple: software can review every customer interaction without removing the humans who carry the responsibility.
Dan O'Connell
Dan O'Connell is the CEO of Front, the AI-powered customer communications platform used by 9,000+ companies. A veteran of Google, AdRoll, and Dialpad - where he helped scale ARR from $30M to $200M+ - O'Connell joined Front as CEO in May 2024, succeeding co-founder Mathilde Collin, with a mandate to drive the company's next phase of AI-led growth. He is a UC Berkeley Haas MBA, Santa Clara University alumnus, Ironman triathlete, and a recurring voice in the conversation about how AI will reshape human work rather than replace it.
Nehal Shaikh
Nehal Shaikh is the Chief Executive Officer (India) at Front, the customer operations platform headquartered in San Francisco. Front helps more than 8,000 companies manage customer communication across email, SMS, live chat, and other channels through shared inboxes, AI-powered automation, and real-time analytics. Backed by $338M in total funding and valued at $1.7B since its 2022 Series D, Front crossed $100M in annual recurring revenue in 2025. Based in Maharashtra, India, Shaikh leads Front's India operations as the company scales its AI-driven customer service platform globally.