Introducing Rebecca Campbell, Affinity CTO

Affinity is the relationship-driven CRM platform for private capital. We help top investors close better deals more quickly and—as we continue to scale and innovate—we’re delighted to welcome our new Chief Technology Officer to the team, Rebecca Campbell.

Rebecca will be driving forward these important initiatives, and her credentials speak volumes about the expertise she brings to Affinity. Keep reading to find out more about Rebecca’s experience at companies including New Relic and Mural, what drew her to Affinity, and why now is the right time to take a closer look at our open roles.

You’ve spent a lot of your career thinking about systems—technology systems, people systems, and how those interact. Talk us through what that’s looked like and what you’ve learned.

I’ve had a somewhat nontraditional route to my career. My first tech job was at an insurance company where I lucked out by landing on a team that led projects for our division. I was also put on the tech support hotline for the folks in our building. 

In addition, the first big project I worked on was to help build our division’s intranet. So off to HTML and CSS class I went! Over the next couple of years, I learned as much as I could. I took a Java class through the local community college, I made my own website with a Flash intro—it was an exciting time.

After that, I was hooked. I jumped around a bit learning different technologies at two other companies, and then spent almost 12 years in the private aviation industry, building software for air charter operators and brokers. We started with a two-sided marketplace, and then built a flight management system—part CRM, part quoting engine, and a lot of logistics for managing a fleet and all the trips. 

It was a small, scrappy startup but things changed a lot while I was there. We spun out from our parent company, bought another company, were bought by our Swedish competitors, and then sold off the company we bought. This gave me a great view into how startups operate in different phases. I also started managing people—kind of under protest at first—but it turned out I really loved it.

From there, I jumped on the New Relic rocketship. This was an adventure in scale: scaling people, scaling technology, scaling the number of companies we served and the size of those companies. I began as an engineering manager, wrangling our frontend monolith with a small but mighty team. I was progressively promoted to VP of Engineering while building out our services and UI platform. It was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work, and we were successful at speeding up the pace of engineering, as well as adding resilience and scale to our systems.

When I left New Relic in 2020, I co-founded a startup, Caregiven. My thesis statement was this: millions of people have cared for aging or ill adults in their lives, so why was everything such a surprise when my mom suddenly needed a lot of care? We built a mobile app aimed at family caregivers that helped with logistics. For example, all the documentation you find you suddenly need. 

My co-founder, Candice, had already defined the six phases of caregiving, and we wove that into the app to help people anticipate what was to come. We raised a small pre-seed round and started to get some good customer validation, but we went to raise our seed round at exactly the wrong time. We sold to Delta Dental of Iowa, and Candice went with Caregiven.

I then joined Mural, a collaboration company, and was leading the whole engineering team within about a year. At the time I joined, the world was coming out of COVID and trying to figure out what work should look like. I think we’re still figuring that out, but we’re a lot farther along than we were in early 2022. What I love about Mural and other collaboration companies is that they’re leading the conversation in terms of what’s possible when it comes to remote and hybrid work. I enjoyed getting up every day and working with my team to help other people do their jobs better.

That’s an impressive resume. What have been your top highlights?

Co-founding a company with a great team of people who were driven to make a difference at a really challenging time was terrific. I got a lot of first-hand experience that you really can’t get any other way—from pitching to investors to choosing payroll vendors. When you’re going from 0-1 that’s all on you. It was a lot of fun, and it helps me appreciate existing companies who already have all those systems in place.

Building out a services and UI platform from scratch was a huge undertaking at New Relic, and it came with many ups and downs. Over time, we honed and simplified our goal: we wanted to accelerate feature teams, and we wanted to make all the configuration and setup of services and components as easy as possible. Essentially, we wanted to make the right thing to do the easiest possible thing to do. 

My favorite moment was when my boss told me sales had asked us to slow down because we were putting out so many new features that they were having trouble keeping up with training. I was really proud of the team I’d built and the work we’d done that contributed to that moment.

What drew you to Affinity, and what’s your experience been like so far? 

The Affinity opportunity came along at exactly the right time, and hit all the things I was looking for. First and foremost in my job search, I was looking for a great team fit. After meeting with Ken Fine, CEO, as well as the exec team and the VP/Directors in Engineering, I was certain that this was a great group of people to work with every day. 

There’s also an uncanny fit between some of the technical challenges at Affinity and those I’ve worked on in the past. The more I learned about the product, the more interested I became. Affinity is a great business that delights our customers while still having room for growth. Really, it checked all the boxes. 

Now that I’m here, I’m looking forward to growing the business, and ensuring that our tech stack and systems help us stay ahead of the curve. I’m enjoying getting to know my team and the folks I’ll be working with, as well as going deeper into the product and learning its ins and outs.

What advice do you have for candidates interested in our open roles?

First and foremost, I’d say interest in our roles means you’ve got great taste. This is a fantastic company. After that, my advice is to really engage with your interviewers. For engineering roles, don’t be afraid to say you don’t know something, and use it as a chance to show how you reason through a problem.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I love to travel. Last year, my husband and I went to Barcelona to see a MotoGP race and visited Andorra for the first time. It was a fantastic trip! In between larger adventures, I tend to read a lot and pick up various hobbies from home improvement to woodworking to piano. 

Rebecca and her team have big plans for 2025 and beyond. Get news about every product update on our latest releases page. Interested in joining our growing team? Take a look at our open roles to find out more.