— Seattle-based venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group announced Ishani Ummat as an associate. Ummat was most recently based in San Francisco as a senior associate consultant at Bain and Company.
At Madrona, she will work with the investment team to evaluate prospective investments, identify new trends, and develop investment themes with a particular focus on verticals including fintech and healthcare.
“I believe in the power of young entrepreneurs with bold ideas to change the world. Perhaps I’m a biased native, but I think the Pacific Northwest is one of the best places to start,” said Ummat, who graduated from the University of Washington.
— Art Min has left Vulcan Inc., the holding company created by the late Seattle billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Min joined Vulcan three years ago as vice president of impact to lead both philanthropy and product for a unique organization with ventures in arts and entertainment, real estate, science, sports and more. He previously was a vice president at EMC.
In a LinkedIn post he said, “It’s been a privilege to lead a team that tackled climate change, illegal fishing, coral conservation, illegal wildlife trade, the opioids crisis, and immersive virtual reality. We’ve launched some impactful products along the way. However, with Paul’s passing and Vulcan’s new philanthropic strategy, I’m moving on.”
Min also announced he will be launching a startup focused on climate change.
“Thanks [Vulcan CEO] @billhilf and @VulcanInc for a once in a lifetime opportunity to help make the world a better place,” Min wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Vulcan hired Jason Hunke as vice president of communications and marketing. Hunke previously spent 11 years at Vulcan as senior director of marketing and public relations, leaving in 2007 to join Edelman. Most recently, Hunke was the director of executive and employee communications at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“As Vulcan, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and related organizations across our network build on Paul’s vision to make and leave the world a better place for generations to come, we knew Jason brought an important skill-set in global communications and philanthropy, along with a proven history working directly with the Allen family and Vulcan as an organization. We are happy to have him back,” Vulcan said in a statement.
— Almost two months after leaving Create33, Micah Baldwin has figured out “what’s next.” The startup founder and advisor joined Grasshopper Bank to support early stage founders, specifically on the west coast.
The digital bank, based in New York City, offers commercial banking products for startups and venture funds. Baldwin will be based in Seattle.
“What excites me about Grasshopper is its focus on providing opportunity and access to founders, especially those that have been underestimated or overlooked,” Baldwin told GeekWire. “I’ve always dedicated myself to be that access point and am glad to double down on supporting founders and investors with Grasshopper’s team and technology.”
— SousZen, which aims to digitize “back of house” processes for commercial kitchens, named Josh Groves as its new chief technology officer. Groves previously served as CTO at Austin, Tex.-based Smarter Sorting and Traverse City, Mich.-based Oilgear. The Seattle restaurant tech startup came out of stealth mode this past October and is backed by PepsiCo and “invention network” Xinova.
— Portland business leader Genevieve LeMarchal joined venture capital fund Aventurine as a partner. The Santa Barbara-Calif.-based firm is focused on funding inventors and scientists to scale intellectual property on the west coast. LeMarchal will be based in Portland.
“I am thrilled to join the team at Aventurine and feel so privileged and grateful to work with brilliant people to empower inventors, researchers and entrepreneurs creating things that can truly help the world,” LeMarchal told GeekWire. “It was always a dream of mine to be able to work on funding innovation and taking companies to market that would truly matter for the world and make a difference for society.”
— Seattle cloud startup Pulumi hired Lee-Ming Zen as vice president of engineering and Kevin Kotecki as vice president of sales. Pulumi recently launched its flagship product, Pulumi 1.0, which aims to help customers operate more seamlessly across multiple cloud platforms.
Zen previously spent five years at Amazon Web Services and more recently was an entrepreneur-in-residence at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Kotecki joins Pulumi from data management startup Igneous Systems. He previously held sales roles at Tableau and Isilon Systems.
“We are excited to leverage their deep expertise with cloud and enterprise to deliver new cloud superpowers to engineering organizations worldwide,” said Joe Duffy, founder and CEO of Pulumi.
— Boeing announced Susan Doniz will join the aerospace company in May as chief information officer. Doniz will be responsible for Boeing’s information technology, security, data and analytics. She most recent served as CIO at Australian airline Qantas. Based in Chicago, Doniz will succeed interim CIO Vishwa Uddanwadiker and report directly to Boeing President and CEO David Calhoun.
— FIRST Washington President Erin McCallum announced she will step down in May after leading the nonprofit for seven years. FIRST Washington organizes STEM and robotics programs for grades K-12 across Washington state, including the popular FIRST LEGO League robotics competitions.
In an email to the FIRST Washington community, McCallum cited entering a new chapter as she and her husband become “empty nesters.” The board of directors has retained Interim CEO and consultant Kathleen Lendvay during the transition and is beginning its search for a permanent replacement.
— Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida (UCF), was named to Blue Origin’s science advisory board. Prior to UCF, Metzger spent almost 30 years at NASA.
Announced in May last year, the board is working with the Jeff Bezos-backed space venture on the Blue Moon lunar lander project. Metzger will advise on lunar landing design, payload types and landing site selection.
—Seattle-based Summit Law Group added four new partners to its litigation and labor/employment practices and now employs 74 people in the Pacific Northwest. New to the firm are Seth Berntsen, Diana Siri Breaux, Hathaway Burden and David Smith.
— Kymeta Corp., the antenna company backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, named David Geiling vice president of sales, Asia Pacific. The Redmond, Wash.-based startup plans to grow across multiple markets in the region, including India. Geiling has past experience leading sales in the region for satellite technology companies Eutelsat and Intelsat.
— INTECO, a Vancouver, B.C.-based payment fraud prevention platform, announced John O’Hara has joined its board as an independent director. O’Hara is the co-founder and CEO of Taskize, which provides technology for the financial services industry.
He previously held roles at RBS, BP and Bank of America and spent more than 16 years at JP Morgan. While at JP Morgan, O’Hara developed the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) technology used by Microsoft, Amazon and IBM.
