—Julep, the Seattle cosmetics startup backed by Maveron, Andreessen Horowitz, Jay-Z and others, has named Dwight Gaston as chief delivery officer. Gaston, who previously worked at Blue Nile as vice president of operations, will oversee operations, customer service, fulfillment and product development.
“After two decades in the e-commerce industry, I can honestly say I’ve never seen a more innovative consumer retail company than Julep,” said Gaston in a press release. “Julep customers are fanatical about the brand, and the company uses social and mobile to connect with this passionate community to find out exactly which products resonate and which don’t. Julep is on a tear and I’m excited to join the company to help build a distribution network that can scale with this tremendous growth.”
Julep, led by former Starbucks exec Jane Park, raised $30 million in venture funding in April.
—Salesforce.com named Mark Hawkins — the former CFO at Autodesk — as CFO effective August 1. He replaces Graham Smith who announced his retirement earlier this year. Hawkins joined Autodesk in 2009, and before that held finance roles at Logitech, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. At Autodesk, he oversaw the integration of more than 50 acquisitions.
—Twitter also has changed its CFO, with former finance chief Mike Gupta moving to the role of senior vice president of strategic investments and former Goldman Sachs partner Anthony Noto joining as CFO. Noto also is the former CFO of the National Football League. Re/code calls the switch the “daily dose of soap opera” at the San Francisco social media giant. Twitter’s COO, Ali Rowghani and North American media head Chloe Sladden recently left the company. Twitter announced the shift in a SEC filing today.
—Smashing Ideas, an 85-person Seattle digital agency, has promoted Brian Marr to chief strategy officer. The 18-year-old company was acquired by Random House in May 2011, and it is now part of Penguin Random House. Marr — a former managing director at the Wexley School for Girls advertising agency and former group marketing manager of emerging media at Microsoft — joined the company in 2012.
—The University of Washington has named 10 new members to its Presidential Entrepreneurial Faculty Fellows, a two-year program designed to spark more entrepreneurial activity at the university. The 10 members will serve as mentors and participate in entrepreneurial programs.
They are Chuck Murry, professor of pathology, bioengineering and medicine/cardiology; Mike Regnier, professor of bioengineering; Per Reinhall, professor and chair of mechanical engineering; Ed Clark, professor of microbiology and immunology; Michael Jensen, MD, director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and professor of pediatric hematology-oncology at UW Medicine; Satoshi Minoshima, professor of radiology; Shwetak Patel, associate professor of computer science and engineering and electrical engineering; Corey Fagan, clinic director, psychology; Jake Wobbrock, associate professor, Information School; and Andy Ko, assistant professor, Information School.
“These ten professors have encouraged the commercial sector to take notice of UW, to consider us first when seeking collaborators and cutting edge technology to form the basis of new patient treatments, products, and services,” said UW president Michael Young. “Our Entrepreneurial Faculty Fellows are a critical component of the ecosystem taking hold.”
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