Afiniti has appointed a new CEO as the company bounces back from bankruptcy.
Jerome Kapelus will seize the hot seat, replacing Hassan Afzal, who will now take a “strategic advisory role” at Afiniti.
Kapelus offers the company that all-important financial nouse, having served as Chief Financial Officer at Quartet Health and TCGplayer, before the latter was acquired by eBay.
More recently, the new CEO was President of PWCC Marketplace, where he led the business’s acquisition by Fanatics and its integration thereafter.
Overall, Kapelus brings 25 years of experience in transforming high-growth tech companies – which may prove crucial as Afiniti plots its path forward.
In an announcement, Kapelus described leading Afiniti as an “honor” and expressed his gratitude for Afzal’s leadership. He continued:
I look forward to building on his legacy by continuing to invest in cutting-edge AI technologies that bring tangible value to Afiniti’s customers and empower them to optimize their customer experience.
Afiniti still works with many big brands – including AT&T, Verizon, and Virgin – which leverage its patented AI routing solution.
However, as the contact center industry shifted to the cloud, it has faced heightened competition, and its business has come under increasing pressure.
Late last year, Afiniti hit breaking point, filing for bankruptcy with the Delaware courts on November 3, 2024.
It took a little over a month for the company to exit Chapter 15 bankruptcy, vowing to expand its portfolio.
Such reinvention is necessary as the cloud contact center tech industry becomes increasingly crowded, featuring the likes of AWS, Google, and Microsoft alongside various industry stalwarts.
Thankfully, Kapelus can offer experience in transforming businesses, coupled with financial brawn. As such, the move offers a somewhat hopeful step forward for the company.
Indeed, one of the key lenders that supported Afiniti through its bankruptcy – Vista Credit Partners – welcomed the move.
“Jerome is an experienced, operationally focused leader with a knack for innovative solutions that encourage transformation and drive growth,” said David Flannery, President of Vista Credit Partners and Chairman of Afiniti’s Board of Directors.
He has been an excellent addition to Afiniti’s leadership team and is a natural choice to lead the company through this important next phase of its journey.
That next phase must include a portfolio expansion. While Afiniti has extended its routing engine to target specific industries and support omnichannel, routing solutions are increasingly integrated into CCaaS platforms.
Although still relevant in legacy systems, the industry is evolving, and Afiniti will likely now need to play catch up.
After all, the vendor must remain competitive as budgets increasingly prioritize agentic, generative, and predictive AI.
Against this backdrop, routing solutions almost seem novel.
As such, it’ll be fascinating to see where Afiniti goes from here. Will it continue with past practices or make a genuine shift?
In the short term, demonstrating real value will be critical. After all, in the context of AI, industry-wide promises have been made for years without consistent delivery.
As such, Afiniti must establish a clear value proposition as it expands and embraces the new era of contact centers.
