The shopping
knowledge network

CEO

Michael Quoc is the founder and CEO of Demand.io. Michael founded Demand.io to apply AI, advanced engineering, and community-first principles to solve everyday consumer problems at scale. Michael's operating philosophy is to create aligned economic outcomes across his company, his employees, his community stakeholders, and business partners alike. Prior to founding Demand.io, Michael served as Head of Product at Yahoo, where he drove innovation across the Fortune 100 company's global network. Michael previously held product leadership roles at Desktop.com and investment and strategic advisory roles at Pequot Ventures and Jefferies Broadview. Michael studied Computer Science at UC Berkeley and holds a Bachelor's in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Chief Data Scientist

Hamid Benbrahim serves as Chief Data Scientist at Demand.io, where he architects AI knowledge systems and designs data infrastructure for the company's e-commerce intelligence platforms.

Previously at TD Ameritrade, Fidelity Investments, and Thomas Publishing Company, Benbrahim built and led data and AI organizations that developed and commercialized AI products across financial services and industry sectors. At Fidelity, he founded the Center for Applied Complexity Research, developing AI models for evaluating systemic risk and financial market dynamics. As Chief Data Scientist at TD Ameritrade, he implemented AI systems that reduced margin call rates and created a collaborative research platform connecting academic and business practitioners. More recently, as Head of Data and AI at IDS, he developed AI strategies for finance, healthcare, and manufacturing clients while implementing GenAI solutions integrated with enterprise technology stacks.

Benbrahim holds a PhD in Machine Learning and Engineering from the University of New Hampshire and an MBA from Columbia Business School, with additional executive education from Harvard Business School.

VP of Revenue & Strategy

Brian Li serves as VP of Revenue & Strategy at Demand.io, where he partners directly with the CEO to architect revenue growth strategies and shape long-term business development across the company's e-commerce knowledge platforms.

Brian brings extensive experience from high-growth technology companies, having held key leadership roles at LinkedIn ($4.3B IPO), Dave.com ($4.0B IPO), Lynda.com (acquired by LinkedIn for $1.5B), and Mezi (acquired by American Express for $120M). At LinkedIn, he was instrumental in establishing the M&A team, leading due diligence and integration for over 12 deals totaling $500M+ while developing strategic frameworks and data-driven methodologies for acquisitions. As VP of Business Operations at Dave.com, he facilitated strategic planning sessions with company leadership to redefine vision and corporate objectives, positioning the company for a successful $4.0B IPO. His experience spans developing merchant platform strategies, optimizing revenue models, and implementing strategic analytics frameworks across various business models.

Brian holds dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Finance and Accounting from New York University's Stern School of Business.

VP of Product Marketing

Elena Madrigal serves as VP of Product Marketing at Demand.io, where she leads product marketing strategy, positioning, messaging, and go-to-market initiatives across the company's e-commerce and AI-powered platforms.

With over a decade of experience at prominent technology companies, Elena previously held leadership positions at Amaze, GoDaddy, Canva, MOO, Microsoft, and Nokia. Her expertise spans developing strategic product narratives, launching AI-powered features, and executing global go-to-market strategies that drive growth. At Canva, she launched their Print business unit globally, while at GoDaddy, she led mobile app initiatives and AI-powered marketing automation solutions. Her experience at Microsoft and Nokia focused on bringing technology solutions to emerging markets, connecting users to their first digital experiences.

Elena is also dedicated to knowledge sharing as an Expert in Residence and public speaker at Product Marketing Alliance, where she teaches certification courses and delivers keynotes at conferences. She's recognized for her ability to turn product roadmaps into compelling storytelling and marketable moments.

Elena holds certifications in Marketing Leadership, Growth Series, and Product Led Growth from Reforge, along with Core Product Marketing and Master in Messaging certifications from Product Marketing Alliance. She also completed Design Thinking for Innovation at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Chief Architect

Bri Stanback, Chief Architect and technical co-founder at Demand.io, brings a background of working with startups, where innovation and agility were key to shaping successful products. From the company's early days, Bri has been instrumental in shaping its technical vision and architecture. Bri's blend of innovation, cultivated in fast-paced startup environments, along with leadership and a dedication to crafting robust, efficient systems, has guided the engineering team through numerous milestones, aligning with Demand.io's mission. Bri's expertise and leadership within the engineering team help drive the creation of solutions that benefit consumers, creators, and sellers.

Director of AI Systems

Jason Toy leads Demand.io's AI systems development, focusing on large language model development, evaluation, and alignment for the company's e-commerce knowledge platforms.

Previously serving as VP of Engineering at CrewSnap and CPO/CTO at Cloudapp, Jason has built and scaled engineering teams across multiple technology companies while implementing advanced AI solutions. At Cloudapp, he oversaw approximately 40 developers and product managers, significantly increasing revenue through product improvements and implementing TypeScript Lambda microservices. As Head of Engineering at Somatic Labs, he led the development of generative machine learning models and built machine learning deployment pipelines using Docker and Python for PyTorch and TensorFlow models. His earlier roles include serving as GM at Filepicker, where he increased revenue five-fold by fixing tracking systems, and as Architect at Socmetrics, where he built real-time pipelines for processing millions of social media profiles.

Jason holds a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from Northeastern University, with a focus on machine learning and applied mathematics, and has additional training from the School for Poetic Computation where he experimented with generative models for image and video creation.

Staff UX Researcher, AI

Kelly Hirsch leads user research initiatives for AI-powered shopping experiences at Demand.io, designing research strategies that inform product development and enhance user experiences across the company's commerce platforms.

With experience at Robinhood, ZipRecruiter, and Ethos, Kelly has built and led research practices that combine quantitative and qualitative methodologies to drive product decisions. She previously served as Head of UX Research at Ethos, a Series-D life insurance startup valued at $2.7B, where she built the research practice from the ground up and was promoted to lead a team spanning both B2C and B2B research. At ZipRecruiter, she led all research for the employer side of the business, developing standards for benchmarking experiences across both job-seeker and enterprise users. Her background includes senior research roles at Robinhood, where she led strategy for core product across mobile platforms, and work as a research consultant for financial advisory firms and legal AI startups focused on predictive analytics.

Kelly holds a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Texas A&M University, an M.A. in Experimental Psychology from California State University, San Bernardino, and completed additional coursework in Applied Data Analysis for Social Sciences at Caltech.

Staff Software Engineer

Isaac Sornborger serves as Staff Software Engineer at Demand.io, where he drives architectural direction for ShopGraph and verification systems while leading the design and implementation of distributed systems.

Prior to joining Demand.io, Isaac spent over 7 years at Northrop Grumman, progressing from Software Development Intern to Principal Software Engineer where he was responsible for delivering critical tools for engineers in large government programs. During his tenure at Northrop Grumman, he developed sophisticated CAD features, modeled geometric representations of 3-dimensional solids, and maintained near 100% uptime of tool performance for thousands of users across multiple environments. Isaac also worked as a Media Systems Assistant at Santa Clara University, where he was responsible for university-wide media maintenance and real-time troubleshooting.

Isaac holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a Math focus, both from Santa Clara University.

Senior Product Designer, AI

Drishti Vidyarthi leads product design for AI-powered shopping experiences at Demand.io, establishing design systems and driving UX strategy for SimplyCodes and Product.ai.

Drishti brings experience from IBM where she designed the company's newest GenAI business intelligence tool, creating core experiences for onboarding, alerts, conversational interactions, and dashboards while establishing foundational design libraries for AI explainability and transparency. Prior to joining Demand.io, she held design roles at Epixego where she led a team designing an innovative online mentorship course for university students, served as a Design Consultant at Telosity (Vinaj Ventures) conducting design thinking workshops for mental health technology companies, and worked as a Product Designer at Grit Digital Health redesigning mental health platforms for college students. She has consistently demonstrated expertise in creating intuitive user experiences for complex AI-driven products.

Drishti holds a Bachelor of Science in Informatics with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Washington, where she was recognized as a Purple and Gold Scholar and Dean's List recipient.

User Insights Data Analyst

Cansu Kaya leads user journey analysis at Demand.io, focusing on leveraging data to drive user engagement strategies and enhance product experiences through AI-powered insights.

Previously serving as Business and Data Analytics Manager at Yummly, Cansu directed analytics initiatives that significantly increased subscription revenues through enhanced user engagement metrics and data-driven product optimizations. She led complex analytics implementations at Cardinal Path, where she built common data layers for clients using dbt, and established data quality and privacy initiatives at Merkle that directly impacted analytics integrity across diverse industries. Throughout her career spanning Hero Digital, Kariyer.net, and N11.com, Cansu has specialized in implementing advanced tracking solutions, developing predictive models, and creating insightful dashboards that translate complex data into actionable business strategies.

Cansu holds a Master's degree in Energy Sciences & Technology and a Bachelor's degree in Management Engineering from Istanbul Technical University.

Director of Business Operations

Jimmy Doheny leads Demand.io's business operations, overseeing the company's affiliate operations, crowdsourcing systems, AI data operations, and content operations teams.

With over seven years at Demand.io, Jimmy has progressed through multiple roles including Director of Revenue Operations, Senior Manager of Revenue Operations, and Partner Marketing Manager. He began his career at Connexity (formerly PriceGrabber), where he formed strategic partnerships with companies like AOL and Quotient, consistently exceeded sales quotas, and led the adoption of new social influencer platforms. Earlier in his career, Jimmy worked at Aflac, where he achieved significant sales results during his internship, and at SnowShoe Stamp, where he assisted in developing 3D-printed technology products.

Jimmy holds a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Economics and Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Director of Technical SEO & Product Quality

Harrison DeSantis directs technical SEO and product quality initiatives at Demand.io, overseeing search visibility optimization across web properties while ensuring exceptional product quality standards across all user touchpoints.

As Product Director at TrueCar (NASDAQ: TRUE), Harrison led the company's pre-qualification lending product and vehicle research platforms, growing research product traffic by 500,000 monthly users and improving marketplace conversions by 10% through technical SEO optimizations. He previously served as SEO Director at 3Q Digital, where he managed a team of account managers driving SEO performance for clients across diverse verticals, built a revenue-generating App Store Optimization practice, and oversaw website strategy for 12-15 clients simultaneously. His experience spans technical SEO implementation, structured data strategy, Core Web Vitals optimization, and comprehensive quality assurance frameworks.

Harrison holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara and is a Certified Scrum Product Owner with additional technical certifications in Python for Data Science.

Senior AI Engineer

Dylan Ler develops advanced AI and machine learning systems at Demand.io, where he enhances the ShopGraph knowledge platform and implements large language models to transform e-commerce data processing.

Dylan brings extensive experience from WebMD, where he served as a Senior Data Scientist & Machine Learning Engineer, building recommendation systems with BERT embeddings, developing AI chatbots with GPT-4, and creating deep neural network solutions that achieved 90%+ engagement rates. His technical background includes creating natural language processing applications for medical text classification, building churn prediction models with 98% accuracy using XGBoost, and developing data visualization dashboards for analytical decision-making. Previously, Dylan mentored students in Udacity's AI Engineer Nanodegree Program, where he guided learners through deep learning, computer vision, and software development for healthcare applications.

Dylan holds a Master's in Computer Science from William Jessup University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from UCLA, where he specialized in computer vision, computational photography, and speech recognition.

Data Architect, ShopGraph

Kelli Schall architects and develops the data structures and taxonomies that form the foundation of Demand.io's ShopGraph knowledge platform, transforming complex e-commerce information into structured, valuable knowledge that powers all our products and services.

With over 10 years of experience in taxonomy development and information organization, Kelli brings extensive expertise to Demand.io's data architecture team. At System1, they collaborated with SEM, SEO, Mapquest, Answers.com, and publishing teams to develop taxonomies supporting multiple business lines, managing postgres databases and leading taxonomy initiatives. Their background includes roles at academic institutions including the University of Southern California where they served as a Science & Engineering Reference Library Associate, and Los Angeles City College as a Reference Library Intern. Prior to focusing on information architecture, Kelli worked as a medical coder at Regal Medical Group and Heritage Victor Valley Medical Group, where they analyzed clinical documentation and applied classification systems.

Kelli holds a Master of Library and Information Science from San Jose State University and dual bachelor's degrees from UC Santa Cruz in Ecology and Evolution and Feminist Studies. Their interdisciplinary educational background contributes to a unique perspective on organizing complex information systems.

Senior Visual Designer

David Guzman directs visual design initiatives at Demand.io, developing brand systems and ensuring consistent visual expression across all products and platforms.

With experience at acclaimed agencies NVE Experience Agency and Omelet, David has developed brand systems and creative assets for major clients including Amazon, Disney, Google, Netflix, and Walmart. At NVE, he led creative direction on branding and experiential design for high-profile activations spanning entertainment, retail, and technology sectors, while his tenure at Omelet included producing comprehensive visual content and campaigns for global brands. His expertise encompasses branding, visual identities, campaign development, and social content creation, with particular strength in translating complex brand requirements into coherent visual systems.

David studied Graphic Information Technology at Arizona State University and Graphic Design at Santa Fe Community College, building a technical foundation in both design principles and digital production systems.

Marketing Specialist, Product

Jessica Ho serves as Marketing Specialist, Product at Demand.io, where she drives product marketing initiatives for SimplyCodes, the company's AI and community-powered coupon platform.

Jessica previously worked as a Content Marketing Associate at Crexi (Commercial Real Estate Exchange), where she produced content across multiple formats to drive brand awareness and customer acquisition while managing production operations for podcasts and case studies. Her experience includes freelance writing for Wicked+ Creative Marketing Agency, where she developed thought leadership content and SEO-optimized lifestyle articles for hospitality brands and real estate clients. At Evercast, she produced targeted social content across multiple platforms for the creative industry, created advertising copy that increased lead engagement, and published corporate forecasts. Jessica began her career at the Entertainment Technology Center at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, where she reported on emerging technologies and communicated complex technical information to entertainment executives from major studios and technology companies.

Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a minor in Cinematic Arts from the University of Southern California, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and was recognized as a Presidential Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.

Senior Video Content Lead

Robert Guicheteau serves as Senior Video Content Lead at Demand.io, where he develops AI-driven social video content across TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts to engage millions of users and showcase e-commerce technologies.

With experience at Adobe and leading campaigns for Fortune 500 companies including Google, eBay, Samsung, and Kellogg's, Robert has established himself as a digital content strategist specializing in high-performance social media. As Chief Executive Officer at Robert Francis Digital, he orchestrated a 217% increase in engagement and generated 100 million aggregated views by producing targeted video content. Throughout his career, he has developed viral marketing strategies that seamlessly integrate brand messaging into trending content, led multi-million dollar influencer campaigns, and built successful channel strategies driving significant audience growth. His work with creators has generated over 10 billion views, demonstrating his ability to align content strategy with business objectives.

Robert holds a Bachelor's degree in Business, Management, and Marketing from The Evergreen State College.

Senior Full Stack Engineer

Cutler Simpson leads HQ full-stack engineering at Demand.io, where he develops scalable applications and implements cloud-based solutions for the company's e-commerce knowledge platforms.

With experience at Google and Goldman Sachs, Cutler has built a career developing sophisticated technical solutions across multiple industries. At Caribou Biosciences, he developed fullstack React applications with Python backends for data warehouse integration and migrated proprietary bioinformatic workflows to Nextflow. During his time at Google, he improved advertising effectiveness by creating SQL pipelines for data synchronization and owned an internal tool securing over $5 million in annual revenue. At Goldman Sachs, he reduced configuration failures by 67% through improved tooling and served as the end-to-end owner for a Java microservice with global responsibilities.

Cutler holds a Master of Science in Systems Medicine from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa, with minors in Business Administration and Computer Science.

Product Designer

Janelle Hizon designs product experiences for Demand.io's AI and e-commerce products, focusing on creating intuitive user interfaces and conducting research to inform design decisions.

Prior to joining Demand.io, Janelle worked as a Product Design Intern at Discord where she owned the Avatar Editing feature design on the Nitro team, and as an AR Product Design Intern at Meta Reality Labs where she developed vision work for augmented reality remote collaboration tools. She also led design at a web3 recruitment platform and served as a Mixed Reality Prototyper at PlaybookXR, creating interaction visualizations for 3D prototyping tools. Throughout her career, Janelle has demonstrated expertise in UI/UX design, AR/VR interfaces, and translating user research into effective design solutions.

Janelle graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, where she received the prestigious full-tuition "Trustee" Scholarship and Engineering Fellowship.

Executive Operations & Coordinator

Eunice Kim serves as the Executive & Operations Coordinator at Demand.io, where she oversees HR operations, manages administrative systems, and provides executive support while driving strategic initiatives.

With experience at Block (formerly Square) and Snap Inc., Eunice has developed expertise in optimizing organizational processes and implementing effective systems across multiple business functions. As a Technical Program Manager at Block, she led AP automation and e-invoicing projects across eight countries, reducing processing time by 30% and implementing Agile methodologies that improved project outcomes by 25%. During her tenure at Snap Inc., she managed data annotation projects, optimized legal and privacy processes, and developed internal knowledge systems that enhanced team efficiency. Prior to these roles, Eunice gained valuable experience at Neiman Marcus, where she analyzed sales data to inform strategic brand placement decisions and resolved high-priority customer issues.

Eunice holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Language & Literature from UCLA and completed an Associate's degree in Liberal Arts at Santa Monica College.

AI Content Strategist

Sean Fisher leads AI content strategy at Demand.io, where he develops and implements AI-driven content systems while overseeing quality and alignment across platforms.

Prior to joining Demand.io, Sean served as Junior Editor at GOBankingRates where he pioneered their AI content program, creating AI-written articles that reached more than 5 million readers and headlines generating over 1 million clicks. His role involved developing AI content workflows using ChatGPT, managing teams of freelance writers, and optimizing content for engagement. Before GOBankingRates, Sean worked as a Copy Editor and Proofreader at WebMD, where he edited medical articles, digital advertisements, and managed editorial feedback across departments.

Sean holds a Bachelor's degree in Film and Media Studies with a minor in English from UC Santa Barbara and an Associate's degree in English from Orange Coast College.