Longtime Zillow executive Chloe Harford is leaving the real estate tech company to join OfferUp as the company’s new vice president of product, GeekWire has learned.
Harford was among Zillow’s first employees and has worked in a variety of strategic roles at the company over the past twelve years. She most recently served as the company’s vice president of strategy.
Harford is also an active TechStars mentor and an advisor, and she’s served on the boards of REI and the nonprofit outdoors group, The Mountaineers.
“I’ve long admired OfferUp’s thoughtful approach to growth and its community-first mentality,” Harford told GeekWire via email. “OfferUp is the simplest and most intuitive way to buy and sell locally, giving people everywhere a chance to tap hidden value. It is inspiring to work with a team so dedicated to providing the best user experience.”
OfferUp is one of the fastest growing startups in Seattle and reached a $1 billion valuation last year, making it one of Pacific Northwest’s only “unicorn” companies, those who claim a valuation of more than $1 billion. OfferUp’s platform is used to sell second-hand items to other nearby users, making it a competitor to services like Craigslist and Facebook’s Marketplace feature.
“Chloe brings strategic thinking, creativity, and impressive experience to the table, and we’re thrilled to have her join the team at OfferUp,” said an OfferUp spokesperson. “Her experience building Zillow from the ground-up will be an asset to our executive leadership team.”
A Zillow spokesperson added: “Chloe has made enormous contributions to Zillow during her 12 years here, and we’ll miss her. We’re excited for her and wish her well on her next adventure.”
— The Amazon executive who led the company’s Amazon Go technology group, Bali Raghavan, recently joined real estate technology company Opendoor. A heavily-funded rival to Zillow, Opendoor has raised $320 million in venture funding. The company, which claims to allow home owners to sell their homes in “seconds,” is led by Movity.com founder Eric Wu and Silicon Valley venture capitalist and former PayPal exec Keith Rabois.
[Note: Wu’s name has been corrected since the original post.]
Raghavan joined Amazon in 2005, first serving in senior engineering roles and going on to serve as the company’s director of “just walk out technology” for Amazon Go, according to his LinkedIn. He now works as Opendoor’s VP of Engineering.
The move, originally reported by Axios, comes as Amazon ramps up its investment in grocery and retail locations. On Friday, the company announced it is buying grocery retailer Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Last month, it opened its Amazon Fresh Pickup locations for grocery pickup services.
Amazon Go, a cashier less convenience store that uses a variety of technology to automatically track what customers pick up, was first announced in December. Like many other Amazon projects, the company first opened the service to employees as a beta test, and six months later the service still hasn’t opened to the public.
— RFID-maker Impinj announced the addition of Jennifer Armstrong-Owen as the company’s vice president of people, environment, and culture.
Armstrong-Owen joins the company from Branded Entertainment Network, where she served as Chief Human Resources Officer. She previously spent twelve years as the VP of global human resources at digital media company RealNetworks and also spent six years working in compensation management at Group Health Networks. She also spent two years serving in the Peace Corps.
At Impinj, she will lead the company’s culture efforts, including social and environmental responsibility initiatives and a focus on developing the company’s culture, including diversity efforts.
“Many companies claim to put their culture first, but part of what drew me to Impinj is that they actually do put their culture front and center,” Armstrong-Owen said in a press release. “I’m thrilled to be a part of not only Impinj’s exciting progress as an Internet of Things leader, but also as a corporate proponent for areas that I care deeply about like fostering leadership and diversity.”
— Tony Bates, the former Skype CEO and Microsoft exec who was once in the running to be Microsoft’s CEO, has joined Silicon Valley investment firm Social Capital, according to a report by Recode.
Bates led Skype independently and then inside Microsoft for almost four years, leaving the company shortly after he was passed over for the CEO position. Satya Nadella got that job and Bates went on to lead camera company GoPro for two years.
Bates will focus on early-stage investments.
— Corporate wellness technology company Limeade announced that former VP of marketing Stephanie Camp is changing roles, moving to VP of strategy.
Camp joined the company as its director of marketing in 2013 and was quickly promoted to the leadership board. Prior to Limeade, she worked as the director of marketing for account management company Doxo and spent four years in social media and digital strategy at Microsoft. She will now lead the development of Limeade’s long-term growth strategy.
“Stephanie has been such a strong voice for the brand. She’s gifted at both creating a compelling vision and executing on it, which is vital for a company growing as quickly as Limeade,” Limeade CEO Henry Albrecht said in a press release. “I’m thrilled to work alongside her in this critical role to help guide our future direction.”
— Product Creation Studio, a Seattle-based product development contractor, bolstered its leadership team with two additions from the medical technology and devices industry: Don Baumgarten joins the company as director of mechanical engineering and Sonja Takatori as a Senior Team Leader and Program Manager.
Both Baumgarten and Takatori joins Product Creation Studio from Stratos Product Development, a big-name product development company with clients including Microsoft and Apple that shut down suddenly last month.
They also both have a history in the healthcare and medical devices field, which Product Creation Studio says will be a focus for the company in the near future.
Baumgarten was a senior lead product manager at Stratos for six years, before which he served seven years as the engineering product manager at Philips Oral Healthcare. He also spent seven years in technical and engineering roles at medical device company Boston Scientific.
Takatori also spent time as a senior lead product manager at Stratos, before which she spent three years as a senior technical project manager at defibrillator company Cardiac Science. She also spent six years as a group manager and group program manager at Expedia.
