Brian Guy
Brian Guy.

Dev9, a Kirkland, Wash.-based software development consulting firm, has named Brian Guy practice director of cloud services.

As a consulting partner in the Amazon Web Services Partner Network (APN), Dev9 has been designated by Amazon as a professional service firm that helps organizations design, architect, build, migrate, and manage their workloads and applications for AWS. Guy joined Dev9 from AWS to lead the company’s efforts in helping organizations solve business problems with cloud-enabled custom software solutions.

Guy’s previous experience includes eight years at Microsoft in the mid 1990s, seven years at MySQL as a startup and as a part of Oracle, and several years as a tech entrepreneur. He was the recipient of the 2004 University of Washington Foster School of Business Technology Management MBA Alumni Entrepreneurship Award.

“Cloud services are essential for enterprises who want to affordably, reliably and easily scale their business,” Gabe Hicks, VP of Delivery at Dev9 said in a news release. “Dev9’s cloud services have become a cornerstone of our business. With Brian Guy leading our cloud practice, Dev9 is well-positioned to support our growing list of clients who need customized cloud software.”

Dave Kalman
Dave Kalman.

HackerAgency, the Seattle-based global direct marketing agency, has appointed Dave Kalman as its new chief technology officer.

Kalman’s focus will be on providing strategic direction to the agency’s marketing technology portfolio in the U.S., including front and back-end software development, data analytics and modeling, database management and agency IT operations.

A Los Angeles native, Kalman has 15 years experience as a marketing technologist, most recently as head of technology in the U.S. for RAPP.

“In hiring Dave, our focus was not only on the present. Like any advertising company, we value creativity. Like any technology company, we need to be on the leading edge of data and marketing automation and platforms,  and we want to do so keeping the data safety in mind,” Spyro Kourtis, CEO of HackerAgency, said in a news release. “As our world becomes more complex, the need to be ahead is magnified.”

Arun Theivendirarajah
Arun Theivendirarajah.

Usermind, builders of a unified platform for orchestrating business operations, has appointed Arun Theivendirarajah as vice president of product.

Theivendirarajah will lead product vision, strategy and execution at Seattle-based Usermind. He previously spent several years at RichRelevance as head of product management, where he grew to a portfolio of solutions that personalize the shopping experience for over 250 global retailers, including Office Depot, Costco, Tesco, Nordstrom, and Barneys New York. He also led development of website personalization and content delivery platforms at Amazon.

“Rarely, you meet someone insanely talented. In two years, he went from managing engineers to a VP of product. Theivendirarajah has an incredible background of leading enterprise product vision at Amazon and RichRelevance, and has driven portfolio growth of enterprise SaaS products,” Michel Feaster, CEO and co-founder of Usermind, said in a news release. “Our goal is to build a product that makes our customers’ lives better, and changes how the enterprise works. Arun is uniquely qualified to deliver on that promise.”

Elise Worthy
Elise Worthy.

Formidable, a Seattle-based consultancy and open-source shop, has added Elise Worthy as director of business development.

Worthy is a co-founder and board member at Ada Developers Academy, the non-profit, tuition-free organization that turns first-time female programmers into successful software developers. She is also founder and CEO of Brandworthy, designers of product and brand solutions for web-based companies, according to LinkedIn.

At Formidable, Worthy will oversee efforts to promote and grow the company’s open source brand as well as software development client work, which has been primarily JavaScript development for enterprise including customers like Walmart and Starbucks.

“I’m excited to join Formidable because of its unique approach to dev consulting,” Worthy said via email. “At our core is a strong commitment to open source software. We’ve released everything from graphing libraries to command line tools, and work to continually innovate not only for our clients, but also the JavaScript and open source communities in Seattle and beyond.
Robert Grammatica
Robert Grammatica.

Serum, a division of Seattle-based HackerAgency which serves as a data-driven healthcare marketing agency, has named Robert Grammatica as executive vice president, managing director.

Most recently, Grammatica launched My Elder Advocate, the first eldercare advocacy and care navigation franchise operation in the U.S. He also held dual roles at RAPP as global chief healthcare officer and managing director of the New York office. Grammatica also built multichannel healthcare marketing practices at Y&R Advertising, Wunderman NY and Chapman Direct Advertising. His experience spans health insurance, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, care coordination and consumer healthcare.

“The entire healthcare category is changing rapidly, with more data, greater precision and better patient outcomes at the core,” Grammatica said in a news release. “Serum has all of the required elements to play a major role in this new world.”

— Marc Tessier-Lavigne has resigned from the board of directors of Juno Therapeutics, the Seattle-based clinical cancer research firm.

According to an SEC Form 8-K, Tessier-Lavigne is stepping aside “entirely due to his new obligations as the President of Stanford University and not because of any disagreement with Juno or any matter relating to Juno’s operations, policies, or practices.”

The president of The Rockefeller University in New York City will take over at Stanford on Thursday, and he will continue to serve as a scientific advisor to Juno.

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