Derek Shen. (Photo via LinkedIn)

Derek Shen, the president of LinkedIn China, has reportedly resigned from his role at the Microsoft-owned company. The news was originally reported by the South China Morning Post and has since been confirmed by other outlets.

Shen joined LinkedIn to head its Chinese branch in 2014, prior to which he was the founder and CEO of leading Chinese group-buying retailer Nuomi. He formerly led business development for Google’s Chinese arm.

LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft last year for more than $26 billion. Shen led LinkedIn’s expansion into China over the past few years. The company’s expansion there faced strong criticism after it agreed to censor certain information per the request of the Chinese government.

The company issued this statement on Shen’s departure.

Derek Shen has decided to pursue new ventures outside of LinkedIn effective June 30. Until then, he will continue to work closely with the leadership team on the ground to ensure a smooth transition. Over the past 3+ years, Derek has built a strong foundation for our China business, transforming it from a start-up to a viable business that is creating economic opportunity for millions of professionals and companies. Besides booting our member base by more than 7x to more than 30 million currently, the legacy Derek leaves behind is a business in a position of strength and primed for success. We are looking to build on this and take it to the next level, by ensuring our China business continues to operate with the autonomy it needs to create great product experiences for Chinese audiences, while also being set up to more effectively leverage the scale and expertise in the APAC region and globally, and vice versa.

Matthew Biboud-Lubeck. (Amperity Photo)

Amperity, an AI-fueled marketing startup currently working in stealth mode, announced yet another notable addition to its leadership team today: consumer data and marketing veteran Matthew Biboud-Lubeck, who will serve as the company’s VP of Consumer Engagement Strategy.

Biboud-Lubeck comes to Amperity after spending seven years at international cosmetics company L’Oréal, most recently working as the company’s VP of data strategy. He also worked on customer relationship management.

“To have this kind of talent pick up and move to Seattle from New York to join a start-up, is so exciting not just for Amperity but I think is telling as to the kind of talent the start-up ecosystem in Seattle is starting to attract,” Amperity co-founder and CEO Kabir Shahani told GeekWire in an email.

At Amperity, Biboud-Lubeck will work with Amperity clients to help them get the maximum return on their customer data and will also forge external partnerships to that end.

“Companies have no choice but to activate a winning data strategy if they want to remain competitive,” Biboud-Lubeck said in a press release. “Marketers are constantly coming up with new ways to create personalized experiences and drive top line growth, but technology limitations make it slow and often impossible to realize these ideas fast enough. The opportunity to put data into the hands of the marketer in days, not years is what compelled me to join Amperity”.

Tim Westergren (via LinkedIn.)

Pandora co-founder and CEO Tim Westergren is stepping down from the CEO position, according to a report by ReCode.

Westergren has been with the Bay Area company since it was founded in 2000 and will stay on as CEO until a replacement is found. He will also remain involved with the company in other roles.

Westergren previously served as the company’s CEO from 2002 to 2004, but has spent the majority of his time there in other executive roles. He returned to the top job last year when former Pandora CEO and longtime Seattle technology executive Brian McAndrews stepped down from the position.

Westergren started Pandora after spending over a decade as a professional musician and composer. Pandora’s personalization technology stemmed from Westergren’s Music Genome Project, which sought a mathematical way to predict the kind of music listeners would want to hear.

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