Baird Global Investment Banking Integrates Ren Systems
February 20, 2026 – Baird Global Investment Banking recently integrated Ren Systems, an AI-powered relationship intelligence platform used by sales, business development, and professional services leaders. “It’s not every day a century-old financial institution changes how their investment bankers work,” said Canay Deniz, co-founder and CEO of Ren Systems. “It says a lot about Baird’s culture that they’re leaning in. Ross Williams, chief operating officer of Baird Global Investment Banking, is rolling out Ren Systems’ AI across 100+ investment bankers because the traditional toolkit wasn’t built for how dealmaking actually works today.”
“It used to be you’d have Excel for modeling, PowerPoint for presentations. You would grab your screwdriver to screw something in, and you’d grab your hammer to nail it. But there’s this eye-opening experience when you start using these natural language tools where you expect more — Ren has the ability to surface key relationships and news and make it actionable in a way that previously didn’t exist.”
Baird is a global investment bank with more than 540 banking associates, offering corporations, entrepreneurs, private equity and other financial sponsors a broad range of advisory and financing solutions. Since 2021, Baird has completed over 800 advisory transactions, representing $396 billion in transaction value, and 343 financings, raising over $150 billion.
Ren automates research, meeting prep, and outreach by understanding the users’ business objectives and syncing with their CRM, Outlook, calendar, and iOS contacts. Ren monitors hundreds of thousands of sources, surfaces timely and relevant alerts about key contacts and companies, and recommends actions to help uncover and win deals. Ren Systems was founded in 2019 by Mike Hayes, Matt Zames, Jon Zames, Mr. Deniz, and Lionel Hertig, to help business leaders strengthen relationships in a world of increasing noise.
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“Ren gives you the information you need to reach out precisely when it matters most,” explained Mr. Deniz. “Other tools give dealmakers the who and how, but we give them the why and when.”
“The CEOs were unanimous that the core of CRE—long-term client relationships and strategic dealmaking—remains uniquely human,” Mr. Deniz said. “That’s exactly the tension that led us to build Ren. If relationships are the core, then not missing the moments that matter in your network is the job. That’s hard. Less than 10 percent of your clients post on LinkedIn. The real signals (M&A rumors, leadership changes, office lease filings) live in places most professionals never see.
Past Funding
Ren previously received a $3.5 million funding round was led by JLL Spark Global Ventures, the venture arm of commercial real estate firm JLL, with participation from Camber Creek, ZoomInfo, and Contour Ventures.
JLL Spark, JLL’s venture arm investing in technology-enabled CRE solutions, led the financing. The global commercial real estate behemoth was an early adopter of Ren, making relationship intelligence available to its brokers and client facing teams.
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“Our industry is built on strong relationships,” said Ajey Kaushal, principal at JLL Spark. “At JLL, we take tremendous pride in our unwavering commitment to our clients’ needs, consistently offering exceptional service. Ren’s AI platform is central to our success – it seamlessly empowers our team to stay ahead of market fluctuations, uncover new prospects, and ultimately unlock extraordinary value for our clients.”
“The amount of information available online is growing exponentially,” said Camber Creek managing partner, Jake Fingert. “Ren leverages artificial intelligence to help people identify what is important and work through all the noise, creating more meaningful business relationships and opportunities more quickly. This is particularly important in real estate and other industries where relationships are highly valuable.”
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Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
