Keela Robinson
Keela Robinson

—Eight months after joining Urbanspoon, Keela Robison has been promoted to CEO from SVP and general manager. She is the first to hold the title in several years, following the Seattle company’s acquisition by IAC. Robison will draw heavily on her background for the job, given the restaurant review site’s investments in mobile. Most recently, Robison was VP of GameHouse, a division of RealNetworks, but prior to that she was at Amazon, where she oversaw a group of 30 employees working on the Amazon Fire Phone. She also has held positions at WhitePages and T-Mobile. Urbanspoon also confirmed that Mindy Shaw, the company’s director of marketing and product management, was promoted to chief product officer.

—Scott Mahan plans to resign from publicly-traded Bsquare on Aug. 15th in order to take a new job at another company, according to a SEC filing today. The name of the new company was not disclosed in the filing. Mahan, who has served as vice president of operations and CFO at Bsquare, previously served in executive roles at Cranium, Spry, Xylo and Qpass. “We are grateful to Scott for his many years of service to Bsquare. He has made significant contributions to our company during his 10-year tenure, and we wish him success in his future endeavors,” said CEO Jerry Chase in a statement.

—Context Relevant, the Seattle big data analytics startup, has named climate researcher Dr. Sarah Strano to the fast-growing team. “Sarah is an expert at understanding noisy sparse data in a time series, a trick that Wall Street desperately needs help with right now. ” said CEO Stephen Purpura.

Michael Mattmiller.
Michael Mattmiller.

—Michael Mattmiller was confirmed this week by the Seattle City Council as Chief Technology Officer and Director of the Department of Information Technology for the City of Seattle. “Michael brings new energy and a fresh perspective to solving technology solutions and operating more efficiently,” said Councilmember Bruce Harrell, chair of the Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee. “I look forward to working with Michael to make Seattle the most innovative city when it comes to use of technology in government.” Mattmiller previously worked as a senior strategist for enterprise cloud privacy at Microsoft, and before that worked on data management consulting for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

—Enlearn, a Seattle non-profit that uses data to optimize learning of individual students, has named Karen Cator and Rob Lippincott to the board. Cator is president and CEO of Digital Promise and is the former director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. Lippincott is the CEO of Teach-Now and is formerly a venture partner at i2Capital Group. “We’re thrilled to have Karen and Rob join our Board of Directors,” said John Mullin, CEO of Enlearn. “They share a deep understanding of the educational challenges we’re going to address and demonstrated ability to drive powerful educational innovation. Their expertise will prove invaluable as Enlearn moves forward to transform learning outcomes for students all over the world.” Enlearn is backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

—Ian Lurrie has returned to the CEO post at Internet marketing agency Portent, just six months after moving to the position of chairman and consultant. “Shortest. Career change. Ever,” Lurie writes in a blog post. “I’ve said that running an agency is like wrestling with a s–t covered bear. I got some time to wash the stink off. After 19 years, I needed that. In another 19, I’ll need it again,” said Lurie, who founded the company in 1995.

—Terri Richardson has joined autoGraph as director of media, overseeing the company’s push into entertainment, broadcasting and media. She previously worked at Microsoft, serving as director of strategic programs and business management. “As content moves from the TV to mobile devices and recommendation engines continue to improve and evolve, Terri is going to play an important role as autoGraph seeks to improve the consumer experience,” said autoGraph CEO Henry Lawson. “We’re delighted to have someone with her expertise and background on our team.” AutoGraph is formely nFluence Media.

Know of a notable tech industry hire? Email tips@geekwire.com. More Tech Moves here. GeekWire’s Tricia Duryee contributed to this report.

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