Brian McAndrews has joined the board of AppNexus, a New York online advertising company backed by Microsoft, Venrock, First Round Capital and others. It marks the latest New York board appointment for the former CEO of aQuantive. Earlier this year, McAndrews joined the board of The New York Times. He also serves as a director of Clearwire, AdReady and Fisher Communications. McAndrews currently serves as a venture partner at Madrona. AppNexus also announced that former Skype executive advisor Edwin Gillis has joined the board.
“AppNexus is in an incredibly unique and enviable position as a market-leading ad technology solution that services both the buy and sell sides,” said McAndrews. “I’ve been following their meteoric rise over the past couple of years and am looking forward to getting involved with their strategic direction as they move forward and grow.”
Brian Goffman, the former CEO of Seattle startup Optify, has been named vice president of enterprise marketing at LinkedIn. Prior to leading Optify, Goffman served as a venture partner at Madrona Venture Group and worked as a principal at Austin Ventures. We’ve reached out to Goffman to see where he’ll be based in the new position, and we’ll update the post as we learn more.
Seattle tech veteran Jim Billmaier, the former CEO of Melodeo, Digeo and Asymmetrix, has joined Seattle mobile startup City Guru (formerly On The Go) as CEO. In a blog post, founder Drew Morrison could hardly contain his emotions of picking up an experienced technology executive like Billmaier who he notes has worked directly with Paul Allen and raised more than $700 million during this career. In addition, Olin Nichols, a former colleague of Billmaeir’s, has joined as CFO. “With Jim and Olin on our team and the list of talented people that are coming to work with us in the near future, I’m just astounded and am still pinching myself,” writes Morrison. City Guru is developing easy-to-use city guides for tourists and concierges.
Wang Hanhua, who led Amazon.com’s efforts in China, is stepping down at the end of this month, according to reports. Hanhua will be replaced by on an interim basis by Amazon Vice President of Retail Operations Steve Frazier. A spokesman said that Hanhua was not leaving for a competitor.
Envision, a Seattle maker of customer service center software, announced that Ron Strandin has rejoined the company in the role of CEO. He previously served as vice president of sales and marketing. Founder and CEO Rodney Kuhn is stepping down, but he will remain as chairman. Strandin, who most recently worked at pharmacy automation company Talyst, worked at Envision from 1999 to 2003.
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