Deal Engine has appointed Michael Santos to its board of directors. Santos joins at a moment when private capital firms are shifting from broad AI experimentation toward platforms built to handle production-grade workflows. His background sits squarely in that shift.
A career across the private capital technology stack
Michael currently serves as Global Head of Sales at Chronograph, a leader in portfolio monitoring and investment data. Before that, he spent ten years at DealCloud and Intapp, scaling the business internationally across front-office deal management and CRM. Earlier in his career, he worked with iLEVEL in portfolio monitoring and Investran in back-office fund accounting, both now part of larger platforms.
That arc means Michael has operated across the full private capital technology stack, front, middle and back office, with direct experience in how firms buy, implement and get value from each layer.
Why he joined
“I'm delighted to welcome Michael Santos to the board at Deal Engine. He brings a wealth of knowledge of Private Markets and strategic technology adoption. As firms look to gain competitive advantage through AI, the need for robust market data foundations are more important than ever. Deal Engine’s unique Intelligence Warehouse is now being selected as the strategic architecture by a host of leading PE and IB firms. Michael brings the expertise and senior relationships to help firms make the right technology decisions to stay ahead of the market.” Phil Westcott, Founder CEO
Michael was drawn to the specific problem Deal Engine is built to solve: critical information locked inside documents, spreadsheets and disconnected workflows that never becomes usable data.
"I joined the Deal Engine board because the company is solving a fundamental problem in private markets: turning complex, unstructured information into reliable, actionable data," said Michael.
"Many firms believe they can build AI solutions internally, and getting to a proof of concept is deceptively easy. Getting to a secure, scalable, auditable production environment is a different problem entirely. As AI moves from experimentation into high-volume production workflows, token economics become a real operational challenge. Inefficient model routing, redundant calls, and uncontrolled cost-per-query add up fast, and most firms don't see the burden until they're already scaling. Successful platforms need to deliver the right intelligence while managing token consumption, routing work to the right model at the right cost, and maintaining trust in every output. Deal Engine has built a truly unique intelligence warehouse product with real rigor around accuracy, efficiency and trust, which is exactly what the market demands. I'm looking forward to helping the business scale."
Where he will focus
Michael will work with the team to sharpen go-to-market strategy, identify the highest-value use cases by buyer persona, and build a commercial narrative connecting Deal Engine's capabilities to measurable client outcomes.
He also brings a clear read on where the market is heading. Many firms are experimenting with building AI solutions in-house, and reaching a proof of concept is often deceptively easy. Reaching a secure, scalable, auditable production environment is a different problem, and it's one Deal Engine is built to solve.
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