— Sandy Anuras is leaving Blokable, a Seattle startup with a mission to develop low-cost housing at scale, to join Expedia as vice president of global marketing technology.
This is Anuras’ second tour with Expedia, where she worked previously for more than a decade and rose to become senior director of technology.
“Coming back to lead execution for Expedia’s digital marketing roadmap, which spans everything from traditional digital marketing to products like Trover and loyalty programs, will be an exciting and unique challenge when activated on a global scale,” Anuras told GeekWire in an email. “We’ll be leveraging the latest in machine learning and data science to advance Expedia’s digital marketing strategy and truly unlock a personalized communication experience for travel.”
Expedia is in the midst of an organizational overhaul and recently said goodbye to longtime executive Aman Bhutani, who was president of Brand Expedia Group.
Blokable, backed by the likes of Vulcan and other top investors, aims to lower the cost of building homes with its “housing development as a service.” The company delivered its first housing unit last year.
— Bill Ruckelshaus is taking over as chief financial officer of Seattle cloud security startup ExtraHop, reporting to CEO Arif Kareem. Ruckelshaus was CEO at Blucora, formerly known as InfoSpace, where he helped to transition the company’s focus from online advertising to financial services and technology. Prior to Blucora, he was an executive with Expedia and AudienceScience.
“Bill brings a rare depth and breadth of experience to ExtraHop leading and advising high-growth technology companies,” ExtraHop CEO Arif Kareem said in a statement. “As we continue to rapidly expand our business and gain market share in the rapidly expanding network detection and response market, Bill’s operational acumen and experience accelerating growth within the industry will be invaluable.”
“The company’s accelerating growth in cybersecurity, it’s recent expansion into SaaS, and the rapidly emerging network detection and response category combine to put ExtraHop on the precipice of a breakout year,” Ruckelshaus said.
ExtraHop has 450 employees and has indicated plans to go public by 2020.
— Kimber Connors is the new executive director of the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship (WSOS). Connors, who previously served as the organization’s deputy director, replaces Naria Santa Lucia, who left the position in April before joining Microsoft Philanthropies as the director of digital skills and employability.
“We feel incredibly fortunate to have in Kimber such an inspiring, results-driven leader who is ready to spearhead the next phase of our organization’s growth,” Microsoft president and WSOS board chair Brad Smith said in a statement. “Throughout her career, Kimber has been a tireless advocate for educational equity with a deep commitment to removing barriers for students across our state.”
WSOS is a public-private partnership that gives out scholarships to low- and middle-income students who are pursuing degrees in STEM and healthcare. The organization has partnered with GeekWire to support STEM students in Washington state.
— Former F5 Networks CEO John McAdam joined the board of data analytics startup Quantexa. McAdam is also currently a board member at F5, Tableau Software, ExtraHop and Nutanix.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect Anuras’ title at Blokable.
