Mitchell Gold

Dendreon CEO Mitchell Gold is handing over the reins of the Seattle biotechnology company to board member and former Savient Pharmaceuticals CEO John Johnson. Shares of Dendreon, which have falling 58 percent in the past year, gained more than six percent on the news. Gold, who has served as CEO since 2003, plans to serve as executive chairman of the company until June 30th at which time he’ll become a board member.

“As Dendreon continues its evolution into a global oncology company, I am pleased to hand over the reins to John, whose drive and significant global oncology expertise will advance our continued growth as a leading biotechnology company, benefiting our
customers, our employees, our shareholders and, most importantly, patients with advanced prostate cancer,” said Gold in a statement.

Anthony Bay recently joined Amazon.com as a vice president, one of a number of recent hires from the Seattle startup community at the giant online retailer. His specific role at the company, disclosed in a LinkedIn bio, wasn’t disclosed. Bay most recently served as CEO of MOD Systems, the Seattle maker of digital media kiosks which fell on tough times after founder Mark Phillips was convicted last year of embezzling funds from the company. Prior to MOD, Bay served as chairman of Loudeye. He served as vice president of the digital media division at Microsoft in the late 90s. Amazon.com has been investing heavily in digital media efforts, including electronic books, music and video.

Camp

Limeade, a Bellevue company that specializes in health and wellness assessment programs for businesses, has named Brett Rubin as sales director; Sameer Halai as director of user experience; and Stephanie Camp as director of marketing. Rubin previously served as vice president of sales and business development at ShapeUp, while Halai and Camp previously worked at Microsoft. Limeade, led by Henry Albrecht, doubled its staff in the past 12 months.

Kazuo Hirai, who helped lead the charge for Sony’s PlayStation gaming console, is expected to take over the CEO post at the electronics giant this April, according to a report in The Guardian. “The path we must take is clear,” Hirai said in a statement sent to The Guardian. “To drive the growth of our core electronics businesses – primarily digital imaging, smart mobile and game; to turn around the television business; and to accelerate the innovation that enables us to create new business domains.

Kroah-Hartman. Wikipedia photo

Linux software developer Greg Kroah-Hartman has been named a fellow at The Linux Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux. “The Linux Foundation does extremely valuable work, and I am proud to join the organization,” said Kroah-Hartman, a Seattle area resident and an adviser to Oregon State University’s Open Source Lab. “I’m excited to continue my work on the Linux kernel alongside the best developers in the world and to increase collaboration among Linux Foundation members and kernel developers.”

Globys has named Chek Lim as senior vice president of engineering where he’ll oversee design and development of the Seattle company’s products for the telecommunications industry. Lim previously worked at Motricity, a Bellevue mobile software company. At Motricity, Lim served as senior vice president of engineering.  Before that, he worked in engineering roles at InfoSpace.

“Chek has the breadth and depth of experience to help us scale our organization and his deep engineering expertise will contribute to Globys’ continued success of delivering market leading solutions worldwide,” said Derek Edwards, Globys co-founder and CEO.

Allyis, a 16-year-old Kirkland technology consulting firm, has promoted Jason Herman to the position of CEO. Co-founder and former CEO Richard Law is transitioning to chairman. Herman holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, a Master’s Degree from Western Washington University and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Washington.

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