William Blake, the former general manager of parallel computing platforms at Microsoft Corp., has been named senior vice president and chief technology officer at supercomputer giant Cray Inc. Blake has more than three decades of high performance computing experiencing. He’s served on Cray’s board since June 2006, but will step down from that role this summer. Prior to Microsoft, Blake served as president and CEO of MIT spin-out Interactive Supercomputing.
“Technical innovation is the centerpiece of Cray, and the CTO position is important in matching our capabilities with the needs and direction of the marketplace,” said Cray CEO Peter Ungaro. “We wanted someone who understands current and future supercomputing technologies, someone with a passion for our business and our customers, and someone that can further evolve and realize our Adaptive Supercomputing vision as we drive towards integrating scientific simulation and Big Data analytics on a single, scalable supercomputing platform. All of this led us directly to Bill.”
Public relations firm Weber Shandwick Seattle has named Brooke Shepard as Executive Creative Director. Shepard returns to the firm after a year of helping to build the firm’s new sister agency, Current Lifestyle Marketing. In the new role, Shepard — a 15-year PR veteran — will oversee creative strategies for the digital campaigns and press announcements.
“We believe in the power of memorable stories and strong relationships, and in an era when anyone can share their story, it will take more to stand out from the crowd,” said Shepard.
Point B, a management consulting and venture capital firm, has promoted EJ Blanchfield to the position of chief operations officer. Blanchfield has worked at Point B for 11 years, with Chief Executive Officer Mike Pongon saying that she has a “finely honed ability to understand client needs.”
RealNetworks’ GameHouse unit has named Jared Brinkley, formerly of Playdom and Tagged, as general manager of social game design, reports Inside Social Games.
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