Dennis Egen
Founder & President
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Builders, operators, and technical leaders focused on AI visibility.
Sentient AEO is led by a team with experience across software engineering, security, digital delivery, strategy, and go-to-market execution. That mix shapes how the product approaches AI search optimization: as a practical operating discipline that connects content, structure, technology, and business outcomes.
Why this leadership mix matters for AI search optimization
Teams evaluating AEO software are rarely looking for another isolated dashboard. They need to understand how answer engines read their pages, how to prioritize fixes, and how to turn findings into a repeatable operating model. That requires technical judgment, delivery experience, and a practical understanding of how organizations adopt new workflows.
Sentient AEO is built around that reality. The leadership team combines experience from secure enterprise software, digital delivery, project leadership, strategic planning, and market-facing communication. The result is a product designed to help teams move from assumptions about AI visibility to a clearer, more actionable understanding of what their most important pages need.
Engineering and architecture
The leadership team approaches AI visibility with an engineering mindset. That means understanding how answer engines discover pages, interpret structure, consume metadata, and respond to technical quality issues that can suppress citation potential.
Security and governance
Many organizations need more than marketing copy advice. They need confidence that recommendations fit within broader requirements around architecture, privacy, compliance, and operational governance.
Delivery and implementation
AEO improvements only matter when teams can turn findings into shipped work. Delivery experience helps Sentient AEO focus on prioritization, repeatable workflows, and recommendations that survive real schedules and cross-functional handoffs.
Strategy and go-to-market context
The product is built for teams trying to connect AI search visibility to business outcomes. That requires positioning work, market understanding, and a clear view of how buyers evaluate new operating disciplines.
Leadership experience behind the product
The people behind Sentient AEO shape both the product and the way it is explained to customers. Their backgrounds help the company focus on the pages, signals, and workflows that matter when a team is trying to improve how it appears in AI-generated answers.
Founder & President
Dennis Egen
Dennis brings a software engineering and technical leadership background shaped by complex enterprise delivery, secure application architecture, and long-running client work for large organizations.
Sentient AEO was founded in 2026 by Dennis Egen.
Dennis has enjoyed success over the years creating and leading the technology vision for agencies building complex, secure, data driven marketing applications for clients such as Wawa, JPMorgan Chase, Aqua America, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Morgan Stanley, Ogilvy, Publicis, Barclays, and many more.
These applications were data driven and more than simply brochure-ware sites. Some had tens of millions of customer records containing personal information, marketing data such as segmentation, funnel, and analytics data, and many hooks to outside systems including SAML and SSO.
In addition to his day job running Engine Room, Dennis also teaches Software Engineering and Network Security at Rutgers University. Dennis has a B.S. and M.S. in computer science.
Chief Technology Officer
Ian Lebbern
Ian adds deep security, architecture, and governance experience that helps Sentient AEO treat AI visibility as an engineering and trust problem, not just a content exercise.
Ian has a wide range of information security and application development experience across multiple lines of business.
His 10+ years of experience includes consulting with large enterprise clients such as Morgan Stanley, Prudential, Wawa, JP Morgan Chase, and Barclays. He is a proven technical and security consultant offering reliability and proficiency in the management and design of secure architecture and applications.
An engaging team player, Ian is able to collaborate, build consensus, and clearly articulate technical concepts to executive management. Core skills include cloud architecture, IT governance, data classification and data privacy including GDPR and CCPA, regulatory compliance including ISO, PCI, and HIPAA, and Secure SDLC.
In 2014 Ian graduated from the University of Delaware with an M.S. in Management Information Systems. In 2019 he joined Rutgers University as an Adjunct Faculty member, teaching undergraduate and graduate level Cloud Computing classes.
Chief Operating Officer
Joann DiGennaro
Joann brings delivery discipline, project leadership, and execution planning that help teams turn AEO recommendations into work that can actually be prioritized and shipped.
Joann brings over 20 years of experience leading award-winning teams in web and digital media delivery.
A consummate problem solver and collaborator, Joann drives solutions that balance schedule and budget while always keeping the overall business objectives in mind. Joann is skilled in using both Agile and Waterfall project methodologies and holds PMP and CSM certifications.
From writing functional specifications to leading quality assurance, Joann adds a strong technology background to her project management expertise. Earlier in her career, she spent time in Silicon Valley working at several highly successful technology start-ups.
She tries to make time to travel the world and recently added the Cayman Islands to the dozens of stamps in her passport. Joann graduated from Cornell with a BS in Business Management and Marketing.
Chief Strategy Officer
Peter Zaleski
Peter focuses on strategy work that connects research, positioning, and the practical adoption questions teams ask when they evaluate AI search optimization.
As Chief Strategy Officer, Peter helps frame how Sentient AEO explains answer engine behavior, market change, and the operational decisions teams need to make when they move from early audits into a broader AEO workflow.
That role supports the product's emphasis on clear language, useful context, and recommendations that make sense to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Head of Sales & Marketing
Kyle Landis
Kyle represents the commercial and market-facing side of Sentient AEO, helping connect product value, buyer education, and go-to-market communication.
As Head of Sales & Marketing, Kyle helps translate the platform's technical and strategic strengths into a message that buyers can evaluate in practical terms.
That perspective matters because organizations choosing an AEO platform are usually weighing workflow fit, team readiness, and implementation support rather than features in isolation.
Common questions about the team
Buyers, operators, and internal teams usually want to know whether the people behind a product understand both the technical and organizational side of AEO. These answers summarize the way Sentient AEO positions that work today.
Who is Sentient AEO built for?
Sentient AEO is built for teams that need clarity on how answer engines interpret important pages and what to fix next. That includes marketers, founders, consultants, agencies, and in-house teams responsible for improving visibility across AI answers.
Why does cross-functional leadership matter for AEO?
AEO work usually sits across content, SEO, product, engineering, and reporting. A leadership team with technical, operational, strategic, and market-facing experience is better positioned to turn findings into changes that can actually be implemented and sustained.
How does the team think about implementation versus one-off reporting?
The product is designed around a repeatable workflow rather than a static report. The goal is to identify page-level issues such as thin content, missing context, weak structure, or incomplete markup, prioritize those issues, implement changes, and rerun audits to verify improvement.
What kinds of organizations is this team prepared to support?
The experience reflected on this page is relevant to individual operators validating AEO, agencies managing repeatable client work, and larger organizations that need broader coordination, rollout planning, and stakeholder alignment.