Tech Moves: Protect AI founders get roles at Palo Alto; F5 board chair to retire; new Chairguard hires
Co-founders of Protect AI, which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in April 2025, from left: Badar Ahmed, Daryan Dehghanpisheh and Ian Swanson. (Protect AI Photo)
— Two co-founders and former executives of Seattle-based Protect AI announced their new roles at Palo Alto Networks, the California cybersecurity company that acquired their startup in April.
Ian Swanson, Protect AI's past CEO, is vice president of AI security for Palo Alto Networks. The recent deal marked the third acquisition of a company that Swanson helped launch. He was also CEO and co-founder of Sometrics, which American Express bought, and of DataScience, which was acquired by Oracle.
Protect AI's former President Daryan Dehghanpisheh is now Palo Alto Network's go-to-market lead for AI security in North America. Dehghanpisheh's past employers include Amazon Web Services, Intel and The Howard Hughes Corporation.
Badar Ahmed, Protect AI's third co-founder and chief technologist and product officer, has not shared a new title.
While acquisition terms were not disclosed, sources reported the Protect AI deal was valued at more than $500 million. The company launched in 2022 and was ranked No. 10 on GeekWire 200, our list of top privately held startups in the Pacific Northwest.
Quincy Castro, left, and Eyal Bar. (LinkedIn Photos)
— Chainguard, a fully remote cybersecurity company valued at $3.5 billion, announced two new members of its C-suite:
Quincy Castro is now chief information security officer. Castro, who is based in Chicago, comes to the role from the open-source software platform Redis. Other past employers include Wabtec, GE Transportation and the National Security Agency.
is now chief information security officer. Castro, who is based in Chicago, comes to the role from the open-source software platform Redis. Other past employers include Wabtec, GE Transportation and the National Security Agency. Eyal Bar is Chainguard's chief financial officer. Bar was previously at monday.com and has 16 years of experience in finance and operations. Bar, who lives in New York, has worked for Verifood, EY, Motorola Solutions and others.
Chainguard launched four years ago and disclosed a $356 million investment round in April. The company is officially headquartered in Kirkland, Wash.
— Alan Higginson, a long-time board member and current board chair for F5, is retiring from his role, the company shared in a July Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Higginson will not stand for re-nomination at the Seattle tech company's annual shareholder meeting next spring, which will bring his tenure to 30 years. He became board chair in 2004.
Higginson was previously president and CEO of Hubspan, an e-business infrastructure provider, and president of Atrieva, which offers advanced data backup and retrieval technology.
Gilbert Wootton. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Gilbert Wootton, managing director of Accenture's Seattle office, has retired after more than 35 years with the global professional services company.
'I plan to ski a lot (water and snow) over next six months and spend significant time with [my wife] Carolyn,' he said on LinkedIn, adding that his 'intention is to maximize the third phase of my life.'
Wootton currently serves on the boards for Providence, the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) and the University of Washington Center for Sales and Marketing, as well as on the advisory board for the UW's Mechanical Engineering Department, from which he graduated.
John 'JG' Chirapurath. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Former Microsoft and SAP executive John 'JG' Chirapurath is now president of DataPelago, a data processing company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. Chirapurath, who is based in Seattle, comes to the role from SAP, where he served as executive vice president at the enterprise application company.
His career also includes 14 years at Microsoft, which was briefly interrupted for leadership roles at ProQuest and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. At the Redmond, Wash.-software tech giant, Chirapurath was most recently a vice president with Azure.
Ken Wong. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Ken Wong is now the lead of Databricks' recently opened R&D center in Vancouver, B.C. The new location will focus on artificial and business intelligence, real-time analytics, and next-gen enterprise data applications.
'With Vancouver's heritage as one of the birthplaces for analytics, the city has a deep pool of data and AI talent for Databricks to draw from,' the company said.
Wong was co-founder and CEO of Datajoy, which Databricks acquired in 2022, roughly two years after it launched. Prior to Datajoy, Wong was at SAP, Microsoft and Tableau Software.
— Kyle Wiggers has joined Ai2 as the Seattle nonprofit's communications lead. Wiggers comes to the role from TechCrunch where he led the news outlet's AI coverage. Wiggers has been a journalist for more than a decade and was previously at VentureBeat, XDA Developers, Digital Trends and other publications.
Chris Simms, left, and Gregory Buehler. (LinkedIn Photos)
— Friday Harbor, a Seattle startup using AI to produce mortgage documentation, named two additions to its leadership team:
Chris Simms is now head of strategic partnerships, joining the company from Mutual of Omaha Mortgage.
is now head of strategic partnerships, joining the company from Mutual of Omaha Mortgage. Gregory Buehler is a founding product engineer, having formerly worked at Seattle startups Supio, Pebble Health, Skilljar and others.
Friday Harbor launched last year and in April announced a $6 million seed round. The startups' two co-founders were past entrepreneurs-in-residence at AI2 Incubator.
Abhishek Priya. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Scowtt, a Kirkland, Wash., customer acquisition startup, named Abhishek Priya as its first head of engineering. Scowtt offers marketing software to analyze potential customer leads and predict which will result in sales. Priya, who is based in California, comes to the role from Everlaw and is a past engineering manager for Meta and Microsoft. Early in his career he was with Intel for more than 11 years.
Scowtt recently announced Eric Schwartz as its first chief revenue officer.
— Tyler Churchill is now a partner at Bonfire Ventures. Churchill, who is based in Seattle, has been with the firm for more than six years and joined as a summer intern. Previously he was a senior associate with OCA Ventures.
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