Todd Pierce, chief digital officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is departing from that role after 18 months, the organization confirmed to GeekWire on Friday.
“Todd Pierce and the foundation’s executive leadership team have mutually determined that Todd will depart his role as Chief Digital Officer,” the foundation said in a statement. “We thank Todd for his work and leadership over the past 18 months, including assembling a strong leadership team, investing in the broader IT team’s personal development, and for pushing us to take risks and leverage digital tools (social, mobile, analytics, and cloud) to accelerate the foundation’s core work. Leigh Morgan, Chief Operating Officer, will serve as the foundation’s interim leader of IT.”
Pierce joined the Gates Foundation in April 2015, in what was then a newly created role. A news release at the time quoted Morgan.
“Todd brings a wealth of leadership experience from life sciences, technology and biopharmaceutical organizations and the public sector,” Morgan said. “His demonstrated commitment to talent development, combined with a keen understanding of cross-functional operations, will enable Todd to shape and lead an increasingly integrated strategy for technology and digital platforms in service of the foundation’s mission.”
Near the end of June of that year, the foundation announced that it was cutting 33 jobs in its IT department. A spokesperson said in a GeekWire story that “growth and the changing digital landscape have caused us to rethink the organizational structure of our IT department.”
Prior to the Gates Foundation, Pierce was a senior vice president at Salesforce. His bio on the foundation website says prior to Salesforce he “spent more than 20 years in the healthcare industry including 10 years as the chief information officer at Genentech where he led the company’s move to cloud and mobile technologies and later, as the global head of Pharma IT and Group Infrastructure for Roche.” He also held several leadership positions in the public sector including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the County of Santa Clara as chief information officer.
— Remitly, the Seattle-based money-transfer startup, announced that it has added Karim Meghji as chief product officer.
Meghji, who has over 25 years of product development and innovation experience, will oversee product management, design and engineering. According to a news release, he has “led numerous product teams through large scale growth and global expansion” at companies including Booking.com, where he was head of product, buuteeq as the chief product officer and VP of engineering, and RealNetworks, where he was part of product development leadership.
“Karim is the ideal leader for our next stage of global growth,” Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer said in a statement. “He has a unique set of experiences scaling up and managing large businesses and we’re ecstatic that he’ll bring those skills to Remitly.”
Remitly, which describes itself as the largest independent mobile remittance company in the U.S., raised another $38 million last month in its latest investment round as it continues to expand its service, adding seven countries throughout Central and South America.
With Meghji coming board, co-founder Josh Hug will take on a new role as chief operating officer, focusing on strategic expansion, data leadership, risk product, customer service and operations.
