Bridget Frey

Here’s a quick look at some of the folks taking on new roles at Pacific Northwest technology companies.

Redfin is makingsignificant investment in analytics, hiring two new staffers who will help the online real estate company make more sense of the massive amounts of data generated by the company.

Bridget Frey joined Redfin in June as director of analytics engineering, while Kuba Poraj-Kuczewski joined earlier this month as director of analytical marketing. Frey — who CEO Glenn Kelman described as a “total super star” — previously worked at Lithium and Poraj-Kuczewski — who Kelman calls a “total beast” — served as senior vice president of media services at EducationDynamics.

“We spent a long time looking for these folks because they’re so hard to find,” explained Kelman, adding that he’s a big believer in the power of data-driven Web site development and customer service. Frey and Poraj-Kuczewski will help use Redfin’s own data to identify new profit centers and revenue opportunities.

“The brokerage is operationally intensive, so we track literally thousands of numbers about why customers stay with us through a year-long cycle, and why they leave. This helps us improve our service,” said Kelman. “The problem is even more interesting as you

Rich

work your way farther back, and begin to analyze why people visit Redfin and why they suddenly decide to work with a Redfin agent.”

Jaremy Rich, who curates the Seattle Startup Digest newsletter and serves on the board of Social Media Club Seattle, has taken a new job at PopCap Games as a monetization designer. In that role, Rich — who previously worked at Clearwire and ran the casual gaming news community winAround — will oversee the in-game economics of social media games such as Bejeweled and Zuma Blitz.

John Kahan, general manager of business and customer intelligence for Microsoft’s online services division,  has joined the board of 33Across. The New York company — which raised $9 million in venture capital from Flybridge Capital and First Round Capital earlier this year — describes itself as a social targeting platform. Kahan, who previously worked for 18 years at IBM, also oversees digital marketing efforts for Bing and MSN.

“Big brands are facing the realization that they must understand and leverage the social influence of their customers and
prospects in order to remain competitive,” said Kahan in a release. “33Across is a leader in providing enterprise-level social

Meyer

insights and, most importantly, making them actionable across the web.”

Greg Meyer, an early employee at Gist who previously worked at Expedia and T-Mobile USA, has joined San Francisco startup Assistly as director of customer wow.  “The passion I bring to Customer Wow is the same emotion I want to instill in everyone who uses Assistly or who contacts us—customer love and the expectation of being treated well as an everyday experience—I think it’s going to be fun,” he writes in a Quora post. Here’s the whole story of how Meyer, a TechStars mentor, landed the job. (Previously on GeekWire: Robert Pease says goodbye to Gist).

Internet Identity president and CTO Rod Rasmussen has been named to the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council of the Federal Communications Commission. “With the rise of e-crime and theft of personal information and intellectual property in recent months, there is a concern that the public and businesses could lose faith in our communications systems,” said Rasmussen. “I will be leveraging my background combating e-crime and securing the Internet’s infrastructure to bring a practical perspective to inform policymakers on how to address these issues.”

 

Know of a notable tech industry move or hire in the Pacific Northwest. Email: tips@geekwire.com

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