— Smartsheet CFO Jennifer Ceran joined the board of Bellevue, Wash.-based identity management provider Auth0. Last month, Smartsheet announced Ceran will retire after transitioning to a successor. She was previously an executive at Box, eBay and Cisco.
“The opportunity to serve on Auth0’s Board represents a highlight in my career and one that I am very excited to dive into. Auth0’s success and future potential are undeniable,” said Ceran.
Auth0 also added three new executives to its 630-person team:
• Holly Files as SVP of customer success. Files was most recently a vice president at Portland, Ore.-based New Relic and previously an executive at Opus Agency and Puppet. She is currently a board advisor for Stackery.
• Cassio Sampaio as VP of product. Sampaio was a director of product in Apple’s cloud infrastructure group and previously held product management and marketing roles at Canadian companies Digital Ocean and Sandvine.
• Ken Oestreich as VP of product marketing. Previously featured in Tech Moves, Oestreich has held product marketing roles at WSO2, Citrix and EMC.
— Another heavily-funded Seattle-based startup, sales engagement software provider Outreach, announced plans to open a New York City office led by David Rubinstein. Rubenstein spent more than five years as regional vice president of marketing cloud sales for Salesforce.
“David brings with him his deep experience in technology, particularly in SaaS, as well as extensive experience building and growing a bustling sales team in the Northeast. We are planning to continue our investment in the region – bringing on more people to help support our growing base of more than 400 customers who are already there,” said Outreach COO Anna Baird in a post on LinkedIn.
Earlier this year, Outreach opened an office in London as part of an expansion in Europe.
RELATED: Outreach CEO Manny Medina on leading the Seattle unicorn startup through the COVID-19 crisis
— Former Microsoft exec and Xbox legend J Allard is joining Intellivision Entertainment as global managing director. Allard has been leading a Seattle-based startup called Project 529, a mobile registration database system that works to curb bicycle theft. He was lured back to gaming to work on the Intellivision Amico, a new game console with a retro look and feel first announced in 2018 and intended to make gaming a family friendly affair again.
—Sprint CMO Roger Solé left the wireless carrier weeks after the $26.5 billion merger with T-Mobile closed. Solé spent five years at Sprint and announced his departure on Twitter. The next day, WeWork announced Solé as the new chief marketing officer of the high profile company that has faced headwinds including the cancellation of its IPO last year.
— Former General Partner at Spark Capital Megan Quinn joined Niantic, Inc. as chief operating officer. Niantic, the maker of Pokémon Go and a Google spinout, is based in San Francisco, Calif., and has an engineering office in Bellevue, Wash.
Quinn was previously head of product at payment company Square and held various positions at Google, working on Google Maps and other location-based products. She currently serves on the board of Seattle-based pet-care startup Rover, which laid off 41% of its workforce.
— Madrona Venture Group’s Create33 team added Jere O’Leary as director of business partnerships and Jamie Engstrom as community manager. They join Executive Director Rebecca Lovell and Director Jaren Schwartz as the four-person team behind the center for entrepreneurs, offering a shared workspace, programming and other resources for building startups.
O’Leary most recently led marketing, sales and growth at startup Airlift, one of Create33’s members, and spent more than 12 years at Starbucks in business development. Engstrom joins Create33 from advertising agency BRKThru Digital where she was an account director.
—Microsoft alum Aaron Kornblum departed for the U.K. to join London-based games technology company Improbable as general counsel. Kornblum was most recently general counsel at Bellevue, Wash.-based video game developer Bungie. He spent 14 years at Microsoft where he held leadership roles in legal affairs, Windows and Xbox.
Improbable also has ties to the Seattle-area following its acquisition last year of games studio Midwinter Entertainment, based in Kirkland, Wash.
— Former Lighthouse CEO David Rostov joined Seattle biotech company CorneaGen as its chief financial officer. Rostov previously served as CFO at domain name registry Donuts, Inc., tax automation software company Avalara, search business InfoSpace, drugstore.com, and Nextel.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join CorneaGen and help lead them into the future of cornea care,” said Rostov.
CorneaGen raised a $37 million series B round last October led by Flying L Partners. At the time the company announced it would use the financing to acquire and develop corneal care products and technologies.
— Bellevue, Wash.-based Apptio named Abuna Demoz as vice president of engineering. Demoz most recently was a senior manager of software engineering at Google Cloud and previously a software development manager at Amazon Web Services.
— Australian video creation platform Clipchamp announced it will open its first U.S. office in Seattle and hired Microsoft alum Benjamin Gauthey as VP of global strategy and business development. The Seattle office will initially hire 10 employees.
Gauthey most recently was the global field lead for Amazon Web Services artificial intelligence and machine learning. Prior to joining Amazon in 2016, he spent a decade at Microsoft.
“Seattle has an amazing and diverse pool of talents with a vibrant tech community. We are looking forward to hiring from this impressive pool of talent and growing our global presence,” said Gauthey.
Clipchamp raised a $9 million Series A investment round led by Seattle-based venture capital firm Tola Capital in February. Total funding to date is just under $11 million.
— Seattle HR consultancy firm Reverb announced Vanessa Brewster Laughlin as an advisor. Brewster Laughlin is principal and founder at Banister Advisors, which offers services to help clients navigate health and life crises. She previously spent more than five years at strategy consulting firm Chamber Collective and more than six years at Starbucks as an analyst and product manager.
“Vanessa is passionate about entrepreneurship across industries and at all levels. She is committed to influencing sustainable, innovation-driven economic growth in our community in a way that deeply considers social and environmental justice at the same time. I could not think of a better advisor for me and our team,” Reverb CEO Mikaela Kiner said in an email to GeekWire.
— Boise, Id. software company Clearwater Analytics hired Warren Barkley as CTO. Barkley was most recently general manager of the machine learning group at Amazon Web Services. He previously spent more than 16 years at Microsoft, most recently as general manager for business artificial intelligence and was CTO of Calgary-based SMART Technologies which established a Seattle R&D office in January 2014.
— Concure Oncology, a Mercer Island, Wash.-based startup developing an early-stage breast cancer treatment, named its chairman Scott Armstrong as CEO. Armstrong was a longtime executive and CEO at Group Health Cooperative, which was acquired by Kaiser Permanente in 2017. He currently serves on the boards of Puget Sound Energy and Delta Dental of Washington.
“Navigating the waters of expansion as a mature start-up, requires dedication and a renewed vision, especially during a crisis that is affecting the health care industry and every type of business. I look forward to helping Concure remain focused as it builds its capacity to develop and deliver accessible forms of radiation treatment for women living with breast cancer, everywhere,” said Armstrong.
Concure Oncology raised $2.5 million earlier this year; total funding to date is more than $12 million.
