It has been a busy week for people on the move at Pacific Northwest technology companies. Here’s a look at some of the latest key hires, promotions and appointments:
ICO Global Communications, which is in the process of changing its name to Pendrell Corp., has overhauled its management team as part of larger transformation at the Kirkland company. New additions include chief scientist Robert Mechaley Jr., a co-founder of Clearwire who previously served as chief scientist at AT&T Wireless. Other additions include Timothy Dozois as corporate counsel and secretary and Mark Fanning — also a former Clearwire and AT&T Wireless exec — as chief people officer.
“We are very pleased to have Rob, Tim and Mark joining us” said CEO Ben Wolff, the former Clearwire CEO who resigned from Craig McCaw’s Eagle River in order to focus all of his efforts on the company. R. Gerard Salemme, also a former Clearwire executive, stepped down from Eagle River to take on the full-time position of Chief Strategy Officer at the company.
In many regards, telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw appears to be getting the band back together at ICO, a satellite communications company with a troubled and confusing history.
ThePlatform, a Seattle-based online video management and distribution service, has named Simon McGrath as general manager of Europe and promoted Darren Grimstead to the position of director of European sales. The appointments will help drive the company’s efforts in Europe, with CEO Ian Blaine saying that McGrath’s addition comes at “a key inflection point in the history of thePlatform and the overall video market.” McGrath has more than 20 years of experience, most recently working as chief marketing officer at SeaChange. Grimstead, who spent the last eight years leading thePlatform’s media and entertainment sales efforts, previously worked at NetReflector and Loudeye.
Likewise, the heavily-funded Bellevue company which was in the news last week after it sold off two of its product lines, has promoted Gerald (Jerry) Carter to the position of CTO. Likewise is moving deeper into storage software, and Carter will help lead the charge. A veteran of the open source software movement, Carter previously worked at HP and VA Linux. He’ll replace Manny Vellon who is retiring from the CTO post but will remain with the company as a Technical Fellow.
Coinstar, the Bellevue maker of coin counting machines and Redbox video kiosks, has named Nelson Chan to its board of directors. Chan is the former CEO of Magellan Corp., a maker of portable GPS navigation devices. Before Magellan, Chan worked at SanDisk.
Sanaz Ahari, a former group program manager for Bing, has left Microsoft after seven years to join Google, according to TechCrunch. She’ll lead the search giant’s display advertising efforts in the Pacific Northwest.
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