— Bellevue-based corporate wellness technology company Limeade has appointed Mitch Risner as its new vice president of sales.
Before Limeade, Risner was the Group VP of sales for SumTotal, a talent management solutions provider. At SumTotal, he built a 35-person team that grew the business ten-fold. He also led the customer success team where he improved customer retention by over 20 percent.
“Limeade has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, and we’re excited for the next stage of success under Mitch’s energizing and expert leadership,” Limeade CEO Henry Albrecht said in a statement. “Besides being a great fit with our target customers and our culture, Mitch is a guru of the world-class sales process we need to scale Limeade to the next level.”
Risner is now responsible for leading new business development at Limeade, overseeing all sales and new revenue. Currently, Limeade serves over 100 employers including Jamba Juice, Ohio State University, and Cincinnati Children’s hospital.
— Socrata, the Seattle-based digital governance startup, has added Jackie Golden as its senior VP of customer success, Bill Cull as its senior VP of sales, Robin Jones as its VP of strategic growth, and Bill Lawler as its senior VP of Learning & Development.
“Socrata is at an important inflection point where we are beginning to execute aggressively against multiple growth initiatives,” says Kevin Merritt, the CEO of Socrata, in a statement.
“Jackie is the author of the ‘land and expand’ strategy many software companies are using to maintain strong growth within their customer base,” Merritt said in a statement. “Bill Cull’s background at the intersection of government and data has prepared him to lead our sales organization in bringing the most innovative open data solutions to market.”
“Robin brings the entrepreneurial experience and passion necessary to build the Socrata Open Data Network into a powerful platform that gets government data into the hands of people who are making the big and small decisions that impact their lives,” he continued. “Finally, Bill Lawler will take responsibility for sales training, growth, development and certification, a role that will be critical to ensuring we can execute against all three growth initiatives.”
Golden is an author, speaker, and customer success consultant for software companies such as Hyperion, Cognos, Ascential, IBM, and WorkFront.
Cull was most recently the VP of the global public sector at Splunk, a Seattle software company. Prior to Splunk, he was the VP of public sector sales for Endeca (now Oracle), FileNet (now IBM) and Kofax (now Lexmark). He also has experience in governance from working as a city employee and general manager in San Diego and San Francisco, where he focused on eGovernment portals.
Jones has worked with a number of different startups in leadership positions including Geoloqi (now Esri), Avnera, Fonjax (now Keynote Systems), and UPEK (now Apple). She is also a venture advisor at Elevate Capital and currently serves on the board of directors for TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) Oregon.
Prior to working with Socrata, Lawler was with Dell as its VP of enterprise sales and director of inside sales. Before that, Lawler worked in various management capacities at Apple.
— Gage Group, a Minneapolis-based engagement marketing agency with offices in Seattle, announced that it has hired Brian Crouch as a management supervisor for its client, Microsoft.
Prior to joining Gage, Crouch was a managing director at The Avatar Group, a management consulting agency. Before that, he worked as the content marketing director for SDL, a content management and language solutions company. Crouch got his B.A. in international relations from Seattle Pacific University.
“Our priority has always been to do great work that thrills clients,” said Mark Kurtz, chief growth officer, VP of new media, and head of Gage’s Seattle’s office, in a news release. “Brian’s experience dovetails nicely with what we do here at Gage: combine tried-and-true marketing services with our innovative technical solutions to help solve some of our clients’ biggest marketing challenges.”
— Phytelligence, a Seattle-based agricultural biotechnology company has announced the hiring of Ken Hunt as CEO, Tyler Spurgeon as COO, and Tim O’Brien as CRO. The company is growing its team in an effort to aggressively scale the organization and to increase its plant engineering production.
Ken Hunt is the former CEO of agricultural biotechnology company Anawah, which sold to Arcadia BioSciences — a company that subsequently went public in May 2015. Before that, he was the executive VP at Paradigm Genetics, later acquired by Monsanto.
New COO Tyler Spurgeon was a research site leader and senior biologist at Dow AgroSciences before joining Phytelligence. He oversaw site operations of a 15-acre research facility and its greenhouses. Before that, he worked at the Exelixis Plant Sciences research greenhouse facility.
Tim O’Brien was executive vice president for a direct marketing agency called Cesari Direct, prior to joining Phytelligence. During his 9 years there, he grew billing over 400 percent. Prior to that, he was the CMO and senior expedition leader at Rainier Mountaineering, Inc.
“The decision to join Phytelligence was an easy one given the companies’ proprietary solutions to meet severely unmet needs of growers in the food crop space,” said new CEO Ken Hunt in a statement. “Our one-of-a-kind tissue culture process enables growers to access stronger plants, have full genetic control over their crops, get from initial planting to real profits in a shorter period time, and shore up the severe shortage faced by this industry. I’m excited by the pipeline of future solutions Phytelligence is developing.”
Phytelligence was founded in 2012 by Amit Dhingra, a Washington State University professor, who serves now as chief science officer for the company. Last year, Phytelligence reported a five-fold increase in plant orders. The company plans to produce over 9 million plants in the next two years, according to its website.
— Northwest Center a Seattle-based nonprofit that serves the disabled has appointed a new CEO, Ben Ravani. The mission of Northwest Center is to promote the growth, development, and independence of people with disabilities through education, rehabilitation and work opportunity programs. The nonprofit serves 1,000 families annually.
Ravani joins the Northwest Center after a long career in tech, serving for 20 years as a general manager at Microsoft. Before that, he worked for Cummins and Boeing. He has also been a strategic advisor and investor to healthcare and technology startups in the Seattle area.
“As an organization there is perhaps no better way to signal our values and determination than by welcoming Ben Ravani,” said Northwest Center Board Chair Mike Gano in a news release. “Like the rest of the team at Northwest Center, alongside our clients and their families, Ben has a passion to serve and to create a positive impact in our community and in the lives of people with developmental disabilities.”
— Pathable the Seattle-based software startup focused on the meeting and event industry, has picked up Matt Hodge as its new VP of sales. Before working at Pathable, Hodge was the VP of sales at Motivate, an Atlanta-based company that offers employee motivation consulting. Prior to that, he was the VP of sales at SignUp4, an event-planning software company, which was cquired by Cvent in 2015.
— Zillow Group board member Gregory Waldorf, who joined last year after Zillow Group acquired Trulia, will not stand for re-election to the board when his current term expires in June 2016. Waldorf’s departure is voluntary and not due to any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to Zillow Group’s operations, policies, or practices.
Waldorf was eHarmony’s founding investor in 2000. Through the early years of the company’s growth, he was an active advisor and board member, and was eventually appointed CEO of eHarmony in 2006. During the last five years of his time at eHarmony, Waldorf drove the company’s global expansion. Then, Waldorf served as a director of Trulia from September 2005 until February 2015, when he joined Zillow Group.
After Waldorf’s departure, a majority of the Zillow Group board may not be comprised of directors who meet the independence standards of the Nasdaq Stock Market Listing Rules. If that is true, the company will reestablish a majority of independent directors, Zillow Group said in an SEC filing.
“The Board expresses its sincere appreciation for Mr. Waldorf’s service to the Company and the valuable contributions he has made to the Company’s success,” Zillow said in the filing.
— Placed, a Seattle location analytics company, has hired Jim Watson as its senior vice president of Strategy and Operations and Aaron Johnston as its SVP of Sales. Watson was a former exec of aQuantive before its acquisition by Microsoft. He also was the COO for SPARQ, which was acquired by Yahoo, and the co-Founder of Placements.io. Watson will be responsible for helping Placed to rapidly scale its business.
Johnston is the former head of agency sales and account management at Google within the company’s DoubleClick division. As SVP of sales at Placed, Johnston will be responsible for revenue growth as well as building out and leading the sales organization.
Currently, Placed works with 150 partners and has 1.6 million active users. It is backed by Madrona Venture Group and Two Sigma Ventures.
— Healionics Corp, a Seattle medical device startup, has hired a new CEO, Mike Connolly. He will help Healionics commercialize its technology, a specialized material to coat medical devices that are implanted in the body. The material, called STAR, helps to fights against bodily rejection of the devices.
“I am honored to be joining Healionics and look forward to commercializing its platform technology and launching STARgraft, a new synthetic graft for improved vascular access for hemodialysis patients,” said Connolly in a release. “The United States spends $50 billion annually on patients with kidney failure, mostly due to complications associated with vascular access. Healionics’ STARgraft offers the potential to reduce these costs and, more importantly, increase safety, health and quality of life for the patients.”
Connolly previously was CEO of Mirabilis Medica, an ultrasound company in Bothell, Wash. Before that, he led the regional office for the venture capital firm vSpring (now Signal Peak). He is the co-founder of two successful companies, Novacept and Cohesion Technologies, which later sold for a combined $365 million.
— Portland, Ore.-based startup Act-On Software, a provider of marketing automation for businesses, has appointed of three new sales executives: Tim Maloney as the VP for mid-market sales, Tom Cooper as the VP of strategic accounts, and Jens Vang-Lauridsen as the VP of European, Middle Eastern, and African (EMEA) sales. The company’s new hires are part of its strategy to scale the business, which currently serves over 3,000 businesses worldwide.
“It’s great to bring onboard three sales veterans with over 50 years of combined experience — who have the sales and leadership expertise to build on our already successful growth trajectory,” said Tom Cameron, CRO of Act-On Software, in a release. “With their proven track records, I know that they will make an immediate impact on the company and help us to further establish our foundation as a leader in marketing automation.”
Maloney was most recently the VP of worldwide channels and alliances for Cloudwords. Prior to that, he spent ten years with Autodesk, where he grew and directly managed the company’s global partner and reseller networks.
Cooper will work to expand Act-On’s enterprise and strategic accounts. Before coming to Act-On, he was the senior manager of Autodesk’s major accounts, where he supported the company’s North American operations.
Finally, Vang-Lauridsen will be responsible for leading the company’s expansion of its European market shares. He has worked previously in EMEA sales at both Zimbra and Telligent.
— Icertis, the contract management tech company, has added Michael Keithley to its advisory board to provide technological and strategic guidance for the company.
“Michael is one of the most forward-leaning and visionary CIOs I have met,” said Samir Bodas, co-founder and CEO of Icertis in a press release. “He is a highly recognizable figure in the technology industry, and especially in the cloud community, in large part due to his role helping CAA grow to the global agency it is today. I am looking forward to his insight and guidance as we take Icertis to the next several levels.”
Keithley is currently the CIO of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), a global entertainment and sports agency, where he oversees all aspects of technology and digital media. He is active in the business development, corporate consulting and entertainment marketing of CAA. He is also an active venture capitalist.
