— Biotech company Absci, which filed to go public last week, added Nikhil Goel as chief business officer and Sarah Korman as general counsel.
Goel was previously an investment banker working with biotech companies. Most recently, he was a director at Credit Suisse working on mergers and acquisitions. Goel is based in New York.
Korman was most recently general counsel and corporate secretary at San Diego biotech company NEUVOGEN. She was previously head of intellectual property for final drug products at Amgen. In addition to her J.D., Korman has a Ph.D. in materials science & engineering.
Based in Vancouver, Wash., Absci is developing technologies to accelerate the process of drug discovery. The company makes these technologies available to drug companies through its platform.
— Edifecs, a healthcare software maker based in Bellevue, Wash., announced that founder and CEO Sunny Singh will step down and be succeeded by Venkat Kavarthapu.
Singh will transition to be the chairman of the board for the 25-year old company. Kavarthapu has been at Edifecs for 12 years and most recently was vice president of products and services. Prior to Edifecs, Kavarthapu spent a decade at Wipro.
Edifecs expanded its executive team in May and landed a private equity investment from TA Associates and Francisco Partners last year.
— Business technology company Acumatica is opening a London office and has hired Deljit Singh as country manager for the UK and Ireland.
Singh was most recently at NetSuite where he led sales enablement programs for the EMEA region.
Following Acumatica’s acquisition by a global private equity fund EQT Partners last year, the Bellevue, Wash.-based company expanded its product offerings to include expense management software as it aims to take on business software giants such as Oracle and Microsoft.
— Video game studio veteran Colin Johanson returned to ArenaNet after almost five years at Amazon where he most recently led the Crucible team.
Crucible, Amazon’s first big budget video game, was discontinued soon after launching in May of last year.
Johanson previously worked at ArenaNet for more than a decade and was game director for the Guild Wars franchise. Back at ArenaNet, he will co-lead the Guild Wars 2 studio.
— Seattle e-commerce startup Replenium hired Marcia Webb as vice president of CPG Sales. Webb was previously vice president of retail intelligence for NielsenIQ for 25 years, and also worked at Kraft-General Foods.
Founded by former Amazon executives, Replenium sells an auto-replenishment software platform to retailers, which use the technology to boost their e-commerce efforts.
— Seattle health tech startup Optimize.health hired former Lyft General Manager Neha Ajmera as senior vice president of operations. Prior to Lyft, Ajmera worked at McKinsey & Company.
Founded in 2015 and formerly known as Pillsy, Optimize.health is developing a remote health monitoring system for medical practices and hospitals. Last year, the company raised $15.6 million and reported 400% YoY revenue growth as the COVID-19 pandemic drove increased interest in digital health solutions.
— Kirkland, Wash.-based Adaptiva added Sonia Martinez as chief marketing officer and Vern LeBlanc as senior director of information security.
Martinez was most recently VP of worldwide marketing at Changepoint. She previously led marketing teams at Skytap, K2 and Avaya. LeBlanc joins Adaptiva from TINYPulse where he was IT manager.
— Truveta VP of Product Management Jono Luk joined the executive council of iUrban Teen Seattle.
Founded by Deena Pierott, iUrban Teen is a STEM+Arts program for underrepresented teens currently operating in Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Northern California, South Florida and Houston. iUrban Teen was a finalist for the Geeks Give Back award at this year’s GeekWire Awards.
A Microsoft alum, Luk joined healthcare data startup Truveta earlier this year. The startup is led by former Microsoft executive Terry Myerson.
