“Startup studio” Pioneer Square Labs has added another big name to its leadership board: Peter Denton, who is serving as the company’s marketing lead.
Denton comes to PSL after nearly four years as VP of marketing for communication electronics company Stellar. He formerly served for a year as Cheezburger’s product manager, which is how he first met PSL managing director Greg Gottesman.
Denton told GeekWire in an email that he met Gottesman through Scott Porad, now CTO of Rover.com and previously Cheezburger’s CTO.
“I have been intrigued and excited about PSL since its inception for a few reasons,” Denton said. “First, the people here are world-class in building great businesses and technology. The atmosphere feels like a startup where you know you are going to work on something big. Second, I very much believe in a model where a lab with shared resources can quickly bring ideas to market and iterate rapidly to determine opportunities. Lastly, I love the Seattle startup culture and wanted to be more involved. PSL is at the nexus of the Seattle community and it’s been an awesome first month.”
At PSL, Denton leads digital marketing, product and market fit, and customer acquisition. He will also assist startups that spin out of the studio with roadmaps for marketing and product.
— Seattle’s Museum of Flight is also welcoming new leadership. Matt Hayes, who has been with the museum since 2000, was appointed as its first executive vice president.
There’s no denying that flying is a passion as well as a job for Hayes: he flew a plane solo before he even got his driver’s license. His first work at the museum was as a volunteer helping to restore a WWII bomber in 2000, and he began working there in a paid position in 2005.
For the past seven years, Hayes has served as the museum’s CFO, and he will now take over the day-to-day running of the organization. Museum of Flight CEO Douglas King will shift to focusing solely on the museum’s long-term planning and strategy.
“The Museum has reached a very exciting inflection point,” King said in a press release. “Having recently celebrated our 50th anniversary, the completion of a successful campaign and the opening of the Aviation Pavilion, we are looking to further solidify our long range commitment to the Puget Sound community. My focus will be on leading this plan and process. And there is nobody more capable, more committed or more experienced to lead the day-to-day operations than Matt Hayes.”
— Fast-growing cloud-based communications platform Spoken Communications announced the addition of Jan Wiersma as the company’s chief cloud officer and COO.
Wiersma has over 15 years of experience in building software- and infrastructure-as-a-service products and will lead Spoken’s “aggressive innovation agenda for new offerings,” according to a press release.
“I chose to join the Spoken team, as I was very impressed with the company’s vision for customer experience in the contact center,” Wiersma said in the release. “I am really looking forward to working with a very talented and innovative team as we realize the future of cloud-based artificial intelligence technologies for customer engagement.”
Wiersma comes to the company from language translation technology company SDL, where he had worked for five years, most recently as the company’s VP of global cloud services.
— Online bill pay startup Doxo added two new faces to the company’s leadership: Jim Kreyenhagen will serve as the company’s VP of marketing and consumer services and Jon Helin joins as the company’s director of business operations.
Kreyenhagen joins the company after 18 months as the CRO of search engine monetization company Infospace. He has a long history in Seattle’s digital media marketplace, previously working at AllRecipes and RealNetworks, among others.
Helin previously spent three years as the director of global support operations at tax software company Avalara, and has over 20 years experience building global, high-tech operations teams.
“We’re privileged and delighted to add Jim and Jon to the Doxo team,” Doxo CEO and co-founder Steve Shivers said in a press release. “We’re expanding our team to help support our rapid growth. In 2016 we more than tripled the payments we delivered on behalf of our users, and are seeing that growth accelerate this year. Jim and Jon will help us to continue this period of success and expansion. They’ll also ensure that we continue to provide the industry’s simplest mobile and online bill pay experience for consumers, while continuing to improve customer engagement and strong savings for the billers that have joined our network.”
— The Bend, Ore.,-based Cascade Angels Fund announced the addition of Seattle startup vet Robert Pease as a community advisor and member of the fund’s investment committee.
Pease has been advising, founding and leading startups for over 20 years. He currently leads Heinz Marketing’s Pipeline Performance group, which assists B2B companies in improving execution and accelerating revenue.
“Having helped start and grow several companies in the past, I am excited to be working with [Cascade Angels Fund Manager Julie Harrelson] and the Cascade Angels team,” Pease said in a press release. “Cascade Angels has made an impact in Oregon and beyond by providing early stage capital to high potential companies and is a great way for investors to support both their region and its entrepreneurs. There’s tremendous potential to grow and evolve the fund over the next few years.”