On-demand trucking startup Convoy announced two new additions to its financial leadership team: Former Zillow executive and Amazon manager Tony Small joins the company as its chief revenue officer, and longtime investor and executive Brian Kreiner will serve as its chief financial officer, both new positions at the company.
Convoy has grown quickly since it was founded in 2015. In July, it raised $62 million from investors including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, joining investors such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. At the time, Convoy had 120 employees — now it numbers more than 225, and the company appears to be ramping up its financial plans with the two new hires.
Small spent nine years in leadership at real estate tech company Zillow, where he was most recently the senior vice president of emerging markets. He previously spent six years at Amazon and also four years at Microsoft.
“I’ve been following Convoy since last summer, impressed by Dan, the team they’ve built, the speed at which they’re executing, and the opportunity they’re going after,” Small said in a statement, referring to Convoy CEO and Founder Dan Lewis. I’m really excited about joining the team and playing a significant role in Convoy’s path to becoming a leader in a huge market.”
Kreiner was most recently the CEO of Los-Angeles based IT company Cal Net Technology Group, where he is still a member of the board of directors. He’s a longtime investment professional who is also currently the managing partner of Bay Area investment firm Olympic Valley Capital.
“I am extremely excited to be working with the stellar team at Convoy to continue move the industry forward, creating a step change in how goods are moved everywhere,” Kreiner said in a statement.
Earlier this week, Convoy announced new features for truck drivers and a partnership with Goodyear.
— Digital marketing company Moz has a new chief financial officer: Former TapInfluence CEO and CFO Ashish Gupta. The leadership change comes after former CFO Glenn Wisegarver left the company in September to become the CFO of audio hardware maker Global Lifestyle.
Gupta is a longtime Bay Area tech executive, with former executive roles at education technology companies HotChalk, Cengage and UniversityNow. He also spent four years as a group finance manager at Microsoft early in his career.
“We’re very lucky to have Ashish join the Moz team,” Moz CEO Sarah Bird told GeekWire in an email. “He knows Saas, MarTech, and the joys of adding new revenue streams in pursuit of growth. We’re already benefiting from his leadership and experience. Curiosity and urgency are contagious!”
The change in financial leadership comes shortly after Moz co-founder Rand Fishkin announced that he would step back from day-to-day operations at the company while remaining in his position on its board of directors.
— Discuss.io, a startup providing video conferences for customer research purposes, tapped longtime Nielsen executive Carlo Fava as its new chief financial officer.
Fava joins Discuss.io from Chicago-based venture capital consulting firm FCM, where he was a senior partner. He previously spent 15 years at global information technology company Nielsen, where he spent seven years as the company’s SVP and CFO.
“Carlo enables us to be laser-focused on investing in the necessary processes and operations that are essential when a company is expanding globally, as quickly as we are,” Discuss.io Founder and CEO Zach Simmons said in a press release.
— Seattle-based hardware design firm Product Creation Studio announced the addition of four engineers and designers as it continues to grow. The company partners with clients across several industries to develop hardware products, with an emphasis on designing medical devices.
David Seward joins the studio as a senior mechanical engineer following more than 16 years at Stratos Product Development, which specializes in consumer and medical product development. David Desmarais, a new mechanical engineer at Product Creation Studio, also joins the company from Stratos, where he was also a mechanical engineer.
Krissy Gianforte joins Product Creation Studio from healthcare company Phillips, where she was a lead verification and validation engineer. At Product Creation Studio, she will serve as a quality engineer.
Eli Hooper previously spent five years as an industrial designer at fitness equipment company Precor, and joined Product Creation Studio as a senior industrial designer.
