President and Co-founder, Benztown

Dave “Chachi” Denes is president and co-founder of Benztown, a leading international radio imaging, production library, programming, podcasting, jingles and voiceover services company with more than 3,000 affiliations across six continents. Based in Los Angeles, Denes co-founded Benztown in 2008 alongside acclaimed international radio producers Andreas Sannemann and Oliver Klenk, who are based in Stuttgart, Germany. Today, Benztown operates studios in Los Angeles, New York, London and Stuttgart.

Benztown has been named to the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing privately held companies for five consecutive years and is consistently recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. media sector. The company has also been honored multiple times as “Imaging/Production Company of the Year” at the Worldwide Radio Summit in Los Angeles and was recognized for “Best Workplace Culture” by Glendale Tech Week.

Denes has also been featured on the cover of Radio Ink magazine in recognition of his leadership and innovation in the radio industry.

Denes began his audio career in 1996 at Star 100.7/KFMB in San Diego, serving as producer and on-air sidekick for Michael Steele, and later as producer for Jagger and Kristi. After a year as assistant producer for Rick Dees at KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, Denes joined KBIG and KOST-FM in 2001 as operations manager. In 2004, he was named program director of KBIG/MYFM at just 28 years old, becoming the youngest program director in Los Angeles radio history.

Denes holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of San Diego and currently serves on the board of directors as co-chair of the Library of American Broadcasting.