uZoom, an on-demand, one-to-one live video streaming service, announced this week that CEO Dean Graziano is stepping down from his role, to be replaced by Seattle tech veteran John Kueber. Graziano co-founded uZoom in December of 2015, and served as CEO for just under a year, leading the startup through its initial phase of growth.
“It’s been a pleasure to lead this great team over the last year,” Graziano said in a news release. “The company is well prepared for the future and this CEO transition reflects a key moment in uZoom’s growth as a company. John brings a wealth of experience and vision that will certainly propel uZoom into the next phase of this journey.”
Graziano is moving onto a new early-stage project, which he told GeekWire was in the works before he joined uZoom. The project is under wraps for the time being.
Kueber joins the company from Jrrny.com, a social media platform for travelers, and brings experience from a variety of leadership positions in the digital media industry. He joins the company as it prepares to scale and expand following its initial growth.
“uZoom’s groundbreaking technology of combining live video and commerce is unprecedented,” Kueber said in a release.“This is a fantastic opportunity to lead such a talented team toward our mission of giving our community access to thousands of experiences from real people around the world.”
uZoom made waves this summer by expanding its on-demand live streaming service to Brazil just before the Rio Olympic games, allowing those in Rio to make money by streaming sporting and cultural events to users around the world.
— Concur sales executive Ben Brewer has joined Seattle-based project management technology company LiquidPlanner as its new vice president of sales.
Brewer comes to the position from a 10-year career at Concur, where he served in a variety of leadership positions on the sales team, most recently a two-year stint as vice president of sales.
“LiquidPlanner represents a unique combination of people, technology, and culture and I’m excited to apply all that I’ve learned over the past decade at one of the Northwest’s premiere enterprise software companies and help LiquidPlanner aggressively grow its footprint in the manufacturing and IT sectors,” Brewer, said in a news release.
“My personal goal in this role is to challenge the status quo in project management by demonstrating how LiquidPlanner is a true agent of change and transformation for teams who are being asked to do more with less. It also became quickly apparent that LiquidPlanner is more than just cutting-edge technology — they have built a culture that puts people first and that value is reflected in the product itself.”
— Marketing content provider Ripl, which recently raised $1.8 million to pivot into the industry, announced the addition of Clay McDaniel as the company’s COO. McDaniel comes to the startup from global information content company ProQuest, where he served as vice president of global marketing.
McDaniel has been active in his new role since September, and told GeekWire he is overseeing Ripl’s core business management as the company continues to grow.
“Paul has built a passionate team and great culture at Ripl, and he reached out this summer as Ripl’s product adoption and growth began accelerating. I was attracted to the prospect of working with him again, of course. But I was also excited about helping this company unlock the power of digital marketing for small businesses around the world. The first two months have been a flash,” McDaniel said in an email interview.
— Cloud-based contract manager Icertis announced the addition of Sanjay Goel as its senior vice president of customer success, the third addition to its leadership team this month.
Goel joins Icertis after a 16-year stint at IT tech monolith Cisco, where he most recently served as director of global repairs.
“Throughout my career, I’ve always been laser focused on exceeding customer expectations. Icertis is a company that embodies customer focus and drives towards perfection across all facets of its business,” Goel said. “The opportunity to work with an A team, servicing the caliber of customers like Microsoft, ABB, and Becton Dickinson, is an honor. It’s a role I’m professionally and personally thrilled to be serving.”
Icertis also announced the promotion of Niranjan Umarane to vice president of product management. Niranjan previously served as general manager of pre-sales and product management at the company. His new position will include overseeing product management, market engagement, and partner solutions.
— Caller ID and spam blocking app Hiya announced the addition of serial entrepreneur Mike McSherry to its board of directors. McSherry is currently the CEO of Xealth, a digital healthcare startup, and was previously the CEO of Swype prior to its $100 million acquisition by Nuance.
McSherry’s resume also includes co-founding Boost Mobile, now part of Sprint’s network, and working in Microsoft’s MSN and e-commerce sectors both in the U.S. and Australia.
“Mike has an instinctive sense of how to leverage emerging mobile technologies to build innovative and disruptive new services,” Hiya CEO Alex Algard said in a news release. “Mike is a visionary and proven entrepreneur with a stellar track record. His insights will be invaluable as Hiya continues to innovate and grow.”
— Cloud computing startup Skytap has added two new faces to its leadership team: Jeffry Dyer, who will serve as senior vice president of worldwide sales, and Roger Frey, who will serve as vice president of business development.
Dyer joins Skytap from enterprise software provider MicroStrategy, where he served as vice president and general manager of western region field operations.
Frey joins the company from EMC Corporation, where he served as vice president of solutions marketing.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to join at such an exciting time of Skytap’s high growth,” Frey said in a release. “The problems Skytap is solving for its customers across a variety of use cases in the enterprise are huge, and Skytap’s technology has proven to be of great value to its partners. My team and I look forward to helping Skytap continue to deliver on its impressive results and achieve its aggressive goals by building, maintaining and executing upon new alliances and partnerships in the cloud space.”
