Gretchen Eischen. (Icertis Photo)

— Icertis hired longtime SAP executive Gretchen Eischen as its new chief marketing officer. She was most recently global vice president and head of marketing for SAP’s procurement solutions and is based in Pennsylvania.

Seth Nesbitt, who has been CMO since 2016, has been appointed as the global head of purpose, values and culture. In the newly created leadership role, he will be responsible for building and expanding Icertis’ company culture.

The Bellevue, Wash.-based contract management startup was valued at $2.8 billion earlier this year after raising a new $80 million investment round. Icertis employs 1,400 people worldwide, including about 200 in the Seattle area.

— Apollo Global Management Co-Lead Partner David Sambur resigned from the board of Expedia Group.

He joined the Seattle-based travel company’s board a year ago following a $1 billion investment by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Silver Lake. According to an SEC filing, Apollo will not be entitled to nominate a replacement.

Silver Lake Co-CEO Greg Mondre, who also joined the board at that time, remains a board member. The 13-person board currently includes Open AI CEO Sam Altman, Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton and former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi who was named CEO of Uber in 2017. Expedia Group’s Chairman and Senior Executive is Barry Diller.

After enduring a brutal year for the travel industry worldwide, Expedia Group is preparing for “post-pandemic” opportunities with a refresh of the flagship Expedia brand and by selling off its Egencia corporate travel business.

Vishal Ghotge. (Remitly Photo)

— Seattle digital remittance startup Remitly appointed Vishal Ghotge as executive vice president of North America. He will be responsible for the product vision and roadmap for the region and will report to Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer.

“As an immigrant myself, Remitly’s mission to make financial services more accessible for underserved communities deeply resonates with me,” said Ghotge.

Ghotge was most recently chief product officer at PayScale, a compensation and data technology company also based in Seattle. He previously served as an executive at Groupon and worked at Microsoft for more than a decade.

Chetna Mahajan (ZoomInfo Photo)

— Vancouver, Wash.-based ZoomInfo hired Chetna Mahajan as chief information officer. She was most recently VP of business systems and analytics at Conga, a San Mateo, Calif.-based SaaS company.

ZoomInfo uses machine learning to help customers drive sales and marketing programs and went public last year.

Jagadeesh Kunda, a former Microsoft and AWS product management leader, has been appointed chief product officer at Colorado startup JumpCloud. He was most recently VP of product management at Salesforce and is based in the Seattle area.

JumpCloud is a cloud-based platform that allows companies to connect workers with various IT resources through JumpCloud’s directory.

— SurveyMonkey President Tom Hale joined the board of Bellevue, Wash.-based RocketReach. Founded in 2016, RocketReach provides clients with other professionals’ contact and company information for sales, marketing and recruiting efforts.

— Former DreamBox Learning SVP of Marketing Jamie Gier has joined New York-based Ceros, a design platform for marketers and designers, as chief marketing officer. Based in the Seattle area, Gier was previously CMO at SCI Solutions and VP of corporate marketing at Edifecs.

— Portland-based Sparrow Pharmaceuticals named Robert Jacks its president and CEO after closing a $50 million Series A financing round led by healthcare investment firm OrbiMed. Jacks is a previous entreprenuer-in-residence at OrbiMed and former president and CEO of Indalo Therapuetics.

Sparrow Pharmaceuticals is developing a treatment that reduces the severe side effects of steroids which are frequently used to treat autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. The biopharmaceutical company will use the funding to initiate Phase 2 clinical trials and development of its oral treatment. RiverVest Venture Partners and U.S. Venture Partners also participated in the funding round.

— Wireless power startup Ossia added Jim Cottrell as senior director of regulatory compliance. Cottrell was a longtime manager at Hewlett Packard including managing regulatory certifications and wireless compliance activities.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company received FCC certifications last year for its technology and also landed an investment from Toyota Group subsidiary Toyoda Gosei.

Brian McGowan. (GSP Photo)

— Greater Seattle Partners, a regional trade and investment organization, announced CEO Brian McGowan‘s departure and Chris Mefford as interim CEO.

McGowan joined Greater Seattle Partners as founding CEO in 2018 from Atlanta. He is returning to Georgia and joining Centennial Yards, a mixed-used development in Atlanta, as president.

Mefford is the president and CEO of Community Attributes Inc., a data and strategic planning consultancy specializing in economic development. The public-private partnership plans to launch a search for its next CEO.

— Entrepreneur and former Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) board member Villette Nolon is now president and executive director of the Bellevue Police Foundation. 

Founded in 2007, the Bellevue Police Foundation raises funds to provide the Bellevue Police Department with training and equipment. Nolon previously founded and was CEO of HomeSavvi, a home remodeling platform. She was most recently CEO of Imagine Housing, an affordable housing nonprofit.

 Seattle-based health care provider First Choice Health announced Troy Williams as vice president of health systems partnerships. He was previously an executive at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and GE Healthcare.

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