Latest news with #PacificNW
Geek Wire
4 days ago
- Business
- Geek Wire
Tech Moves: Smartsheet adds to C-suite; Gradial and Zeno Power name senior leadership
Tech Moves covers notable hires, promotions and personnel changes in the Pacific NW tech community. Submissions: tips@ Stephanie Berner. (LinkedIn Photo) — Smartsheet's leadership shakeup continues with the appointment of Stephanie Berner as its new chief customer officer. Berner comes to the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software giant from Atlassian, where she served as senior vice president. Berner has also held leadership roles in customer success at LinkedIn, Box and elsewhere. Last week Smartsheet disclosed that long-time CEO Mark Mader is leaving his post while Sunny Gupta steps in as acting CEO. The company also recently named named Tony Giannino as director of security and compliance. '[Berner's] experience in the work management market, proven track record and deep understanding of the B2B SaaS customer journey will be key as we enter a new era of AI-driven innovation,' Gupta said in a statement. — Gradial, a Seattle startup using AI agents to help marketing operations teams increase productivity, has added three new members to its senior leadership: Vikas Kamran joins as president. Kamran was founder and CEO of Revel for nearly 14 years. Infogain acquired Revel in 2020 and Kamran transitioned to chief digital officer for the company. joins as president. Kamran was founder and CEO of Revel for nearly 14 years. Infogain acquired Revel in 2020 and Kamran transitioned to chief digital officer for the company. Richard Rocca is vice president of sales and comes to the role from Adobe, where he worked for more than a decade. is vice president of sales and comes to the role from Adobe, where he worked for more than a decade. Chelsea Halliday is now head of marketing. Halliday has held marketing leadership roles for companies including Zillow Group, Vercel and MongoDB. A.C. Charania. (LinkedIn Photo) — Zeno Power, a Seattle startup developing nuclear-powered batteries, hired A.C. Charania as senior vice president of space business development. The company, which is co-located in Washington, D.C., announced $50 million of new funding in May. Charania was most recently chief technologist at NASA and has 25 years of experience in aerospace innovation in the public and private sectors. At Zeno Power, Charania will lead the company's pursuit of deals with NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial companies. Charania was also with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, leaving the role of lunar campaign director. — Longtime Seattle-area investor Brianna McDonald has joined the board of directors at the Angel Capital Association. This spring, McDonald became CEO of a new organization called Ecosystem Venture Group, which blends startup investment funds with services for entrepreneurs and investors. Phil Levin. (UW Photo) — Phil Levin is stepping in as interim director of the University of Washington's EarthLab, an institute that spans multiple colleges and departments. Levin is a conservation scientist, professor in the UW's College of the Environment, and lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy of Washington. '[T]he challenges we face are enormous. Climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental injustice — none of these have quick fixes. But I've never believed our job is to be optimistic. Our job is to be honest, brave, and imaginative,' Levin said in announcing his new role. Levin succeeds Ben Packard, who served as the inaugural Harriet Bullitt Endowed executive director of EarthLab beginning in 2017. Packard had previous leadership roles at The Nature Conservancy and Starbucks. — Lauren Olson, former director of fund management at the Seattle-based investment firm Breakwater Ventures, is now the fund operations manager at betaworks in New York. Betaworks this summer announced the close of a $66 million fund to invest in pre-seed and seed state startups. Olson previously worked for the SeaChange Fund and Madrona Venture Group. — Will Daughterty, president and CEO of Seattle's Pacific Science Center, joined the board of trustees for PCC Community Markets (PCC). The long-time retail grocery cooperative has also hired Amy Chow as the co-op's new chief financial officer. Chow was previously with the high-end kitchen and cookware store Sur La Table.
Geek Wire
07-08-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Tech Moves: Icertis names new CEO as Samir Bodas steps down; Smartsheet adds security leader
Tech Moves covers notable hires, promotions and personnel changes in the Pacific NW tech community. Submissions: tips@ Anand Subbaraman, left, is the new Icertis CEO, succeeding Samir Bodas, who co-founded the company. (Icertis Photos) Icertis has named Anand Subbaraman as CEO, succeeding Samir Bodas, who will become executive chairman of the Bellevue, Wash.-based contract management software company. Subbaraman is based in Bangalore, India, and has served as chief operating officer for Icertis for more than a year. He previously held leadership roles at BrowserStack and Finastra, and was with Oracle for more than 17 years. Bodas co-founded Icertis in 2009 and has been its only CEO. Icertis has raised $500 million, with a $50 million round confirmed in March. It was valued at $5 billion four years ago. Bodas said he is going 'focus on my health' but will partner closely with Subbaraman in the launch of new innovations. Tony Giannino. (LinkedIn Photo) — Smartsheet named Tony Giannino as director of security and compliance for the Bellevue-based enterprise software giant. Giannino is a long-time software engineers and joins Smartsheet from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of technology for risk issue management. He previously worked at Allstate, State Farm and other tech companies. Earlier this week, Smartsheet announced that CEO Mark Mader was stepping down in September after nearly two decades at the helm. Sunny Gupta, co-founder of Apptio and a longtime Seattle tech leader, is stepping in as executive chair and acting CEO. — Airplane manufacturing company Outbound Aerospace announced that David Anderson, a longtime Boeing product development leader, has joined its technical advisory board. Anderson was with the aerospace giant for more than 40 years, leaving the company in 2008 after working on aircraft including the 787 Dreamliner, 747-8, several 777 variants, and enhancements to the 737 family. More recently, he has worked as a consultant in the sector. Seattle-based Outbound Aerospace is building lightweight passenger aircraft from carbon-fiber and did a flight test with a small-scale prototype in March. Carter Rabasa. (LinkedIn Photo) — Carter Rabasa, an entrepreneur, investor and former employee of multiple Seattle-area tech companies, has taken a role at IBM as the head of developer relations and go-to-market for Langflow, an AI development tool. Rabasa is also a founder at 200 OK Ventures, an angel investing group, and owner of Event Loop, an event management business. He left a role at DataStax to join IBM and was with Twilio for more than five years. Graham O'Brien. (LinkedIn Photo) — Graham O'Brien has transitioned from an interim role to become the permanent chief financial officer at ZoomInfo Technologies, as disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Vancouver, Wash.-based ZoomInfo provides a subscription service offering data on businesses to sales, marketing and recruiting professionals. O'Brien has been with the company for close to eight years and is based in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area, according to LinkedIn. York Baur. (LinkedIn Photo) — York Baur has joined Dallas-based real estate tech company Lone Wolf Technologies as its chief industry relations officer. Baur was founder and CEO of the Bellevue real estate tech platform MoxiWorks. He stepped down from MoxiWorks' top leadership role in 2024, and resigned from its board last month. Baur previously launched and ran Peninsula Heritage Productions, a company that promoted Washington's Olympic Peninsula. 'York [Baur] embodies the same core belief that drives Lone Wolf, that technology should enhance and amplify an agent's strategy, not compete with it,' said Lone Wolf CEO Jimmy Kelly, on LinkedIn. Besmira Nushi. (LinkedIn Photo) — Besmira Nushi is departing Microsoft Research after eight years to become a senior manager at Nvidia in Zurich, Switzerland. She will be working to understand and compare AI and large language model capabilities with a focus on 'evaluation, gap analysis, and regression discovery for a broad range of capabilities for both language and vision modalities,' Nushi said on LinkedIn. 'I am stoked to be able to contribute to the larger mission of measuring and explaining progress in AI, and look forward to this engagement,' Nushi added. Jeanette Jackson. (LinkedIn Photo) — Jeanette Jackson is now the clean tech national director for RBC, a Canadian investment and banking services firm. Jackson joins RBC from Foresight Canada, a Vancouver-based clean tech accelerator, where she served as CEO for more than seven years. 'Over the years, I've had the privilege of working alongside brilliant entrepreneurs, investors, industry and ecosystem leaders who are driving Canada's transition to a net-zero economy,' Jackson said on LinkedIn. 'This next chapter is about amplifying that impact with a new network and set of tools.' — Infoblox, a network management and security services company, appointed Phil Venables to its board of directors. The company is based in the Bay Area, with offices in Tacoma, Wash., and across North America and Asia. Venables previously worked for Google Cloud and Goldman Sachs, and has provided security advice to major companies, government agencies and startups.
Geek Wire
01-08-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Tech Moves: Protect AI founders get roles at Palo Alto; F5 board chair to retire; new Chairguard hires
Tech Moves covers notable hires, promotions and personnel changes in the Pacific NW tech community. Submissions: tips@ 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 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.
Geek Wire
17-07-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Speed, AI agents, and ambition: Madrona's newest partner on what's next for enterprise software
Tech Moves covers notable hires, promotions and personnel changes in the Pacific NW tech community. Submissions: tips@ Sabrina Albert (Wu) speaks at Madrona's annual meeting earlier this year in Seattle. (Madrona Photo) Sabrina Albert (Wu), a key early-stage investor at Madrona Venture Group, has been promoted to partner — stepping into a more prominent role at the Seattle firm at a time of rapid technological upheaval. 'We're living through one of the most dynamic and consequential moments in tech history,' Albert told GeekWire. Since joining Madrona in 2021 after a 3-year stint with Vector Capital, Albert has worked with various enterprise software startups such as Pulumi, Clarify, SeekOut, Finpilot, and others. Albert is especially bullish on enterprise AI agents embedded directly into business workflows. She's looking for startups taking advantage of new infrastructure technology to rethink traditional systems and processes. 'We're going to enter a world in which these agents function both as semi-autonomous and fully autonomous coworkers,' Albert said. 'They're going to have similar goals as employees like you and I, and they're going to be starting to work like us.' She believes this shift will fundamentally alter how humans interact with software: from static apps to more dynamic, AI-powered co-workers. And she thinks there's a 'willingness from a lot of industries' to adopt this new approach. When assessing pitches, Albert focuses on 'founder-market fit' to determine what makes a particular CEO the right person to lead a company. She said startup leaders building companies today need to iterate quickly and be open-minded about adopting new models or tools that can improve customer experiences. 'What your customers need yesterday may be different than what they need today,' she said. 'Being able to be dynamic in this environment is more important than ever.' Albert, who helps publish the Aspiring for Intelligence newsletter, said she sees an abundance of technical talent and ambition in the Seattle tech ecosystem — but wants to see more founders willing to swing big. She's also thinking about the city's next generation of founders, builders, and operators. 'It's exciting to see how much innovation is happening,' Albert said. 'A lot of earlier-in-career builders are coming to Seattle, being brought here by a variety of different things — and I just would love to see it flourish.'
Geek Wire
10-07-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Nvidia leader, UW prof Dieter Fox joins Allen Institute for AI to lead new robotics initiative
Tech Moves covers notable hires, promotions and personnel changes in the Pacific NW tech community. Submissions: tips@ Dieter Fox, senior research director at Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and University of Washington professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. (UW Photo) Dieter Fox, the former head of Nvidia's robotics research lab in Seattle, has joined the nonprofit Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) to lead a new initiative. 'I'll be building a robotics team focused on foundation models for robotics — drawing on AI2's strengths in language, vision, and embodied reasoning,' Fox said in a LinkedIn post. Fox, a longtime computer science professor at the University of Washington, joined Nvidia in 2017 to open the tech giant's robotics lab near the UW. Ai2, founded in 2014 by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has deep ties to the UW's Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, including several UW faculty who are also Ai2 research leaders. 'For this new robotics effort, we're looking for exceptional researchers, engineers, and interns with backgrounds in vision-language models; simulation and planning; and large-scale training for reasoning and control,' Fox said on LinkedIn. Fox grew up in Germany and previously led Intel's research lab near the UW. Fox said he'll continue teaching as a professor at the UW. He joined the university in 2000 and is the head of the UW Robotics and State Estimation Lab, or RSE-Lab. In 2017, Fox was tapped to create the Nvidia Seattle Robotics Lab after meeting the semiconductor juggernaut's CEO, Jensen Huang, in Honolulu that year. The two were attending the annual CVPR conference, which brings together experts in computer vision. 'Since then, Nvidia Robotics has grown from a small research effort into a significant force in both industrial and humanoid robotics,' Fox said in his post. 'I'm immensely proud of what we built: a world-class robotics research team tackling object manipulation, motion generation, simulation-based training, human-robot collaboration, synthetic data generation, and generative AI for robotics.' Yash Narang, who was running the lab's simulation and behavior generation team, will take over as leader of Nvidia's Seattle Robotics Lab. Silicon Valley-based Nvidia, which hit a $4 trillion market capitalization this week, has corporate offices in Seattle and Redmond. Last year it acquired OctoAI, a Seattle AI infrastructure startup co-founded by Luis Ceze, another UW computer science professor.
