— Seattle startup Cloudentity appointed CloudCoreo co-founder Jason Needham as its new CEO and a member of the board. Needham was most recently senior director of multi-cloud security at VMware, which acquired CloudCoreo in 2018.
Prior to founding cloud management startup CloudCoreo, where he was chief marketing officer, Needham co-founded Union Bay Networks, which was acquired by Apple in 2014 and established the Silicon Valley giant’s presence in Seattle.
Needham is also a veteran of F5 Networks where he spent more than 12 years, most recently as VP of product management and marketing. He is an investor and startup advisor.
He succeeds Jasen Meece who stepped down as CEO in August and is now a principal at EY. Cloudentity closed a $13 million Series A investment round last year to expand its identify and authorization technology.
— Leafly named Suresh Krishnaswamy as CFO. He was previously at NextLevel Business Consulting and a CFO at energy startup Drift. Krishnaswamy has experience working with various major investment banks. He joins Leafly as the Seattle online cannabis marketplace prepares to go public via a SPAC deal.
— Microsoft CVP Chris Suh, who is CFO of its cloud and AI division, joined the board of Atlanta digital advertising platform Cardlytics. A 25-year veteran of Microsoft, Suh will also join the audit committee of publicly traded Cardlytics.
— Trevor Bedford and Frederick Matsen IV from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and David Veesler from the University of Washington are among the 2021 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigators.
HHMI is a private biomedical research institute and its Investigators program supports more than 250 researchers in the U.S. New investigators receive approximately $9 million each over a seven-year term.
There are currently 13 other investigators in the Pacific Northwest at UW, Fred Hutch, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and the University of Oregon.
Bedford was recently named one of this year’s 25 MacArthur Fellows.
— Redmond, Wash.-based Pushpay appointed Sumita Pandit as an independent director and John Connolly as a non-executive director on its board.
Pandit is currently chief operating officer at payments platform dLocal. Connolly is a senior advisor to Sixth Street, Pushpay’s largest shareholder.
Pushpay provides digital tools for faith-based and non-profit organizations. The company acquired streaming video startup Resi Media last month and the leadership team recently went through several changes.
— Tableau alum Amy Barone joined recruiting startup SeekOut as VP of marketing. She was most recently head of global events and field marketing for Slack.
Prior to Slack, she was chief strategy officer at event marketing platform Splash. She spent more than a decade at Tableau, most recently as senior director of marketing events and customer engagement programs.
Based in Bellevue, Wash., SeekOut raised $65 million Series B round earlier this year. Its “Talent360” software is used by six of the world’s top 10 most valuable companies. The startup has almost doubled its headcount since closing the Series B round, according to LinkedIn data.
— Former Zillow Senior Principal Economist Skylar Olsen is now principal economist at Tomo, a real estate fintech startup founded by ex-Zillow leaders.
In her new role, Olsen is in charge of data initiatives and research about current housing and mortgage markets, including her first report on mortgage affordability and years-to-save figures.
Tomo launched in Seattle, Dallas and Houston earlier this year following a giant $70 million seed round.
— Seattle management consulting firm NextLevel has been acquired by E78 Partners, which provides professional services for investors. NextLevel Founder and CEO Chuck Gottschalk will join as executive managing director of E78 Partner’s executive services business.
All of NextLevel’s employees will join E78 Partners including:
- Lisa Clarke as senior managing director.
- Doug Adler as managing director
- Eddie Pasatiempo as managing director.
During a transition period, NextLevel will continue to operate under its own brand and leadership. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
