Who We Are

BrandRank.AI was born from a shared vision among our founders to harness deep expertise in trust, brand building, digital transformation, and consumer insights. United by a commitment to responsible innovation, we believe in the positive power of AI and the importance of leveraging diverse perspectives to unlock new opportunities and drive impactful growth.

Pete Blackshaw

Pete Blackshaw is the Founder and CEO of BrandRank.AI, a Cincinnati-based startup and SaaS platform and service that helps brands measure, protect, and grow trust through the power of AI-driven search and discovery.

Pete recently served as CEO of Cintrifuse, a startup catalyst, incubator, and venture fund backed by corporations such as P&G and Kroger, and considered a national role model. At Cintrifuse, Pete and his team supported hundreds of startups.

Previously, Pete was the Global Head of Digital at Nestlé, Switzerland, the world’s largest food company. He also served as CMO at NM Incite, a Nielsen and McKinsey joint venture, and started his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble, where he co-founded the first “Interactive Marketing” team and later launched PlanetFeedback.com, a VC backed consumer feedback platform that was acquired by Nielsen.

Pete is the author of Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3000 (Doubleday). He holds an MBA from Harvard and a Bachelor’s from UC Santa Cruz.

Hank Hudepohl is Founder and COO of BrandRank.AI, where he leads the operations and build of AI-driven applications and talent to monitor and optimize brand reputation and visibility in the answer economy.

Hank has led growth initiatives for both startups and enterprises, driving innovation and scale. During his 10 years at TripAdvisor, Hank guided the launch and growth of International Restaurants, Flights and Vacation Rentals, each highly profitable and contributing to the brand’s legacy as the world’s largest travel website with over 2 billion annual visitors. Most recently, he led the core SaaS products for a base of 50,000 SMB customers as a VP at Paycor.

A former U.S. Navy Intelligence Officer, Hank began his career as a Lieutenant aboard an aircraft carrier before breaking into the private sector, where he pioneered one of the first car shopping search engines—partnering with Hearst, Scripps, and top dealer associations to launch it into the market. With deep expertise in SEO, CRM, AI-powered content strategies and digital growth, he continues to be fascinated by the intersection of search and technology. Hank is a distinguished graduate of Harvard College.