Joel Passen

Joel Passen is an entrepreneur and commercial leader with over two decades of experience building and scaling technology companies. He is the co-founder of Sturdy, an AI company redefining how businesses leverage customer data to drive growth, retention, and productivity. Sturdy transforms qualitative data into strategic intelligence to inform decisions, surface opportunities, and mitigate risk. Previously, Joel led global revenue at Beamery, where he scaled commercial operations and contributed to the company’s emergence as a category leader in talent technology. Earlier, he co-founded and built Newton Software, a B2B SaaS company that became a leader in applicant tracking. Bootstrapped from inception, Newton achieved rapid, profitable growth and served thousands of customers before being acquired by Paycor. Joel began his career founding Gravity Technologies, an early innovator in global BPO for talent acquisition. He has a proven track record of creating market-defining products, leading high-performing teams, and driving enduring enterprise value through disciplined execution and customer-centric innovation.