We’re back for another round of voting in the GeekWire Awards. And today’s category — Hire of the Year — is a critical one as companies engage in an all-out war for talent.
This category is presented by Summit Group Solutions, and it marks one of three remaining categories in the Awards voting process.
We kicked off voting for the GeekWire Awards last week (see previous categories here) and we’ll continue tabulating the votes in the 14 categories as we announce new finalists every day. The winners will be revealed at the big GeekWire Awards bash on May 9 in Seattle.
Vote here for Hire of the Year:
Jeremy Jaech (SNUPI): Jaech has some big-time entrepreneurial successes under his belt already, namely Aldus and Visio. And now he’s joined with University of Washington computer science professor Shwetak Patel for home sensor startup SNUPI (Sensor Network Utilizing Powerline Infrastructure). “SNUPI is an incredibly innovative technology that promises to provide low cost and reliable sensing technology that everyday people can take advantage of,” said Jaech after raising the company’s initial funding round in December.
Charlie Kindel (Amazon): We’re still not sure what secretive project that Charlie Kindel was hired to work on at Amazon.com. But the former Microsoft Windows Phone general manager will certainly be one to watch at the online retailer. Kindel left Microsoft in 2011 to create his own startup, BizLogr. And then on April 1st of this year he announced his new gig at Amazon in a blog post. “Amazon presented an opportunity to build something new that has ginormous potential. I simply couldn’t pass the opportunity up,” he wrote.
Blake Krikorian (Microsoft): The former CEO of Slingbox joined Microsoft as a corporate vice president in the company’s Interactive Entertainment Business, home of the Xbox, in January after selling his startup to Microsoft. “As a 10-year Xbox LIVE subscriber, I have seen firsthand how Xbox has delighted us by reinventing how consumers experience games and entertainment,” Krikorian said in a press release at the time of the appointment. He also resigned from the board of Amazon at the time of the hire.
Scott Porad (Rover.com): Porad is a pet guy, obviously. He moved from Cheezburger — the humor site known for its funny captioned photos of cats — to Rover.com — the online pet sitting service — in January. The tech whiz is serving as senior vice president of product development at Rover, the Seattle startup that landed $7 million in venture funding
Matthew Schiltz (Tier 3): Schiltz has played a key role at some of Seattle’s fastest growing startups, serving as CEO of Symform, DocuSign, General Software and CourtLink. And now he’s leading the charge at Tier 3, a fast-growing cloud computing startup that’s backed by Ignition, Madrona and others. The 7-year-old company, which landed $10 million last September, named Schiltz to the top post in January.
The GeekWire Awards — originally started by Seattle entrepreneur Marcelo Calbucci — are in their 5th year now. Past winners have included Tableau Software, PopCap Games, angel investor Andy Sack, Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh, Zillow Chairman Rich Barton and many others.
Thanks again to our “Hire of the Year” category sponsor: Summit Group Solutions. Make sure to get your tickets today for this one-of-a-kind event today.
Previous categories: GeekWire Awards: Vote for Young Entrepreneur of the Year … Vote for Next Tech Titan… Vote for App of the Year… Vote for Perk of the Year… Vote for Do-Gooder of the Year… Vote for Startup CEO of the Year… Vote for Game of the Year… Vote for Bootstrapper of the Year… Vote for Innovation of the Year…. Vote for Startup Deal of the Year… Vote for Geekiest Office Space…