Nat Parker, CEO of transportation software firm Moovel North America, is stepping down to rejoin the startup world. Former chief strategy officer and general counsel Jose Valera is taking over for Parker.
Portland-based Moovel is part of a joint venture called Your Now between BMW and Daimler that also includes ReachNow, car2go and mytaxi. ReachNow, a car-sharing service, was abruptly shut down last month.
“The team has reached an inflection point and a hand-off opportunity and one that aligns with what I keep coming back to and what I love and what I am good at: starting something and building a team that can go against incredible odds,” Parker told the Portland Business Journal.
Parker founded mobile transit ticket startup GlobeSherpa in 2012, which was later acquired by RideScout, a Daimler company. His new venture is operating in stealth mode.
— Bradley Lamb signed on as head of conversion at Trupanion, a Seattle-based startup that sells medical insurance for pets. Lamb was most recently director of strategic partnerships for the Shop Your Way Rewards program at Sears. She also held leadership roles at Bloomberg, Yahoo and RealNetworks.
“I am thrilled to be part of a team that is passionate about helping the pets we all love receive the best veterinary care,” Lamb said in a statement. “Trupanion is a high-growth, pet-centric company and I’m excited that I get to work every day with so many dedicated and like-minded people while spearheading initiatives that will provide personalized experiences for pet owners and deliver conversion results.”
The company also announced the hiring of Jon Leafstedt as head of e-commerce and Mark Billows as head of content, both reporting to Lamb.
— James Redfern joined Seattle-based salary comparison site PayScale as chief financial officer. Redfern was formerly at HR tech company Workday, serving as vice president of corporate development, finance and strategy.
“When I first met with the PayScale team, I immediately recognized the positive culture and saw how the company cares for its employees,” Redfern said in a statement. “PayScale already has more than 8,000 customers and my ambition as CFO is to rapidly integrate into the management team and use my diverse prior experiences to help PayScale continue its growth and scale to the next level.”
PayScale closed a private equity investment in April that valued the company at $325 million.
— Kristen Hamilton joined the board of directors at Aduro, a tech company focused on employee benefits and wellness that is based in Redmond, Wash.
Hamilton was the CEO and co-founder of Seattle-based Koru, a predictive hiring startup that was sold to two other companies last year. She also serves an advisor to Madrona Venture Labs and is a fellow at Leaders in Tech.
“Aduro increases human performance of employees using a holistic, humanistic approach and supportive technology. I’m thrilled to be joining the board as my work at Koru and in education for the past decade has been focused on supporting people to reach their potential while improving the performance of companies,” Hamilton told GeekWire in an email.
— Bellevue, Wash.-based workflow automation company Nintex hired Michael Schultz as vice president of product, channel and field marketing. Schultz is a former Microsoft and DocuSign executive who most recently worked as vice president of marketing at Bugcrowd, a crowdsourced cybersecurity platform.
“I’m excited to join Nintex at such a pivotal time in the company’s evolution,” Schultz said in a statement. “The opportunity for process management and automation is massive, and Nintex is uniquely positioned to lead the market with the additions of robotic process automation and e-signatures to its industry-leading platform.”
Nintex also announced several promotions, including Alistair Cloke to vice president of customer success programs; Phil Luong to vice president of inside sales; Vahid Taslimi to vice president of product for forms, mobile and analytics; and Kristin Treat to vice president of corporate marketing.
— Marlon Descargar signed on as senior product manager at Placements.io, a Seattle-based startup that helps media companies with revenue management. Descargar was previously a senior project manager at Expedia, where he worked on Salesforce and order management for the media team.
“The speed and frequency of product releases at Placements.io was what initially piqued my interest — simply put, it’s the best I’ve seen in the industry,” Descargar said in a statement.
— Charlie Kindel took on the role of chief products and technology officer at SnapAV following the completion of its merger with Control4 Corporation. Kindel was the founder of the Amazon Alexa Smart Home business and served as senior vice president at Control4 prior to the merger.
“We know this to be true: the number of connected devices in the home will continue to increase,” Kindel said in a statement. “We’re focused on the vision of making end-customers rave about our fantastic products and the great living experiences our dealers create with those products.”
SnapAV splits its headquarters between Charlotte, N.C., and Salt Lake City, Utah. Control4 is based in Salt Lake City.
