— Apptio, the Bellevue, Wash. company that makes software to help CIOs better understand spending in IT departments, has added Zillow Chief Financial Officer Kathleen Philips to its board. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Philips’ addition brings Apptio’s number of board members to eight.
Philips has been with Zillow since 2010, serving as chief operating officer from 2013 to 2015. She was appointed chief financial officer and treasurer in August 2015. She has also been the company’s chief legal officer since September 2014, and secretary since July 2010.
Philips was instrumental in scaling Zillow to an $840 million company, and she will help Apptio bring its IT cost management applications to thousands of enterprise users.
Before joining Zillow, Philips was general counsel at FanSnap, a ticket comparison company that was acquired by SeatGeek. She has also worked at StubHub and Hotwire.
— Corey duBrowa is joining Salesforce as Chief Communications Officer, bringing with him more than 20 years of public relations experience. He’s leaving behind his post as Starbucks’ Senior Vice President of Global Communications, a position he’s held since 2010.
DuBrowa will relocate to the Bay Area, where Salesforce is headquartered, in July. There, he’ll lead the company’s communications team through its next phase of growth, reporting directly to CEO Marc Benioff. Salesforce is an enterprise software company that provides customer relationship management tools for businesses.
“I have been fortunate to have spent the last eight years with this amazing company – many happy memories, many opportunities to engage with all of you,” duBrowa said in an email to Starbucks employees shared with GeekWire. “I have truly valued your relationship and trust and I know Starbucks will continue to engage with you in any number of ways going forward.
I am now equally fortunate to be joining the Salesforce Ohana (“family” — a company we have long admired from afar over here).”
Prior to Starbucks, duBrowa was President of Account Services at communications firm WE Worldwide, where he managed public relations for high-profile clients, like Microsoft, AMD and T-Mobile.
— Technology industry veteran Parag Garg has joined T-Mobile as the wireless company’s new Vice President of Product, overseeing core elements of the company’s customer experience including billing, upgrades, switching and T-Mobile Tuesdays. The Bellevue, Wash.-based company says the hire is part of its effort to increase its focus on product management, to continue to improve its customer experience and customer satisfaction.
Garg was previously Vice President of Connected Home and Internet of Things for Sears Holdings, a position in which he also served as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer for the Seattle-based WallyHome sensor company that was acquired by the retail giant. He has held prior executive positions with Porch, Vulcan and Amazon.
— After more than a decade with Amazon, Craig Kulfan is joining engagement management company Qualtrics as Head of Technical Operations. He will be overseeing the company’s DevOps, networking, and IT departments.
Kulfan helped develop continuous deployment technology at Amazon, eventually presenting the concept to CEO Jeff Bezos. Though his experience with the e-commerce giant was a positive one, Kulfan wanted to join an earlier-stage, fast-growing company.
“Qualtrics is just beginning,” Kulfan said. “While growth is important, I am excited to be part of a leadership team that is focused on building a company for the long-term. The incredible team at Qualtrics is tackling some of the most challenging opportunities in tech right now. Qualtrics is defining the experience management space, making it possible for every organization in the world to understand the experiences of their customers and employees in a unique and powerful way.”
Prior to Amazon, Kulfan spent two years developing apps for Starbucks.
— Redmond-based predictive analytics company Versium added Dan Concannon as chief revenue officer. Concannon will oversee global sales and marketing as a part of the company’s executive leadership team.
Concannon, a sales and marketing veteran, most recently served as a strategic sales and business development advisor to The London Stock Exchange and DemystData.
“Predictive analytics is a developing, disruptive space and many businesses are just beginning to grasp its potential,” said Concannon. “I know from first-hand experience that being able to gain actionable intelligence about what motivates a customer or prospect to make a buying decision can make all the difference for sales and marketing teams.
— Capital One co-founder and QED managing partner Nigel Morris has joined Remitly, which makes it easy for immigrants to send money to their families back home via a mobile app, as a board observer. Morris will help guide company growth for Remitly, which has helped people send more than $2 billion across the globe and recently expanded to the United Kingdom.
Morris has invested in numerous consumer technology and lending companies including Credit Karma, SoFi, Green Sky, Prosper, Red Ventures, and MediaMath. Morris has served on the board of a number of companies including Capital One, The Economist, Brookings, National Geographic, and Ideas42. He is also the chairman of the board of ClearScore.
“Remitly is a company experiencing exponential growth, yet has the maturity of a company that has been in the market for decades,” said Morris. “This is really a testament to their senior leadership and ability to light up profitable new verticals while simultaneously maintaining a keen eye on executing in the here and now. They have the potential to truly change the nearly $600 billion remittance market, shaking up the industry with a laser focus on digitization, instant transfers, and lower fees, to help the historically disadvantaged immigrant consumer get more money home to loved ones. They are eliminating friction in the mobile world.”
— Mark Briggs is leaving KING 5 to join market research/news consulting firm SmithGeiger as vice president of digital strategies.
Briggs has been with KING for seven years as director of digital media and innovation. He is also a professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also is a principal at a firm called Journalism 2.0 that helps media companies modernize themselves in the digital age.
“I’ve been fortunate to work with some very talented, passionate and creative professionals at KING 5,” Briggs said. “I will miss working with them for sure. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish over the past seven years. But I’m also excited about this new opportunity and looking forward to tackling new challenges in different markets.”
— Chris Peetz has joined Frazier Healthcare Partners life sciences team as an entrepreneur-in-residence. He previously was CFO and head of corporate development at Tobira Therapeutics, a Frazier portfolio company that was acquired by Allergan.
Peetz will focus on identifying and licensing assets into a newly formed search company, Flashlight Therapeutics, that is focused on focused on oncology and liver diseases.
— Algorithmia, a Seattle startup focused on building an algorithm marketplace for developers, has added Ed Blankenship as its head of head of product.
Blankenship comes from Microsoft, where he was a senior product manager focused on DevOps, Visual Studio, and other projects. He also served in the U.S. Navy.
“We are super excited to have Ed join us leading product for the Algorithmia marketplace,” Algorithmia CEO Diego Oppenheimer said. “His experience in the developer space is unmatchable and we are thrilled with him to take the leap to grow Algorithmia developer population and tools.”
[Editor’s note: KING 5 and GeekWire are media partners; Nigel Morris’ position with Remitly corrected since original post.]
