— Former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has been appointed the Edward V. Fritzky endowed chair in leadership at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business for the 2021-2022 academic year.
For the past 20 years, the faculty position has brought leaders from the sports and business world to the school to interact with students and faculty.
Jewell was the CEO of REI from 2005 until 2013 when she joined the Obama Administration. She currently serves on the board of directors for Costco, Symetra Financial, Green Diamond Resource Company and recently was interim CEO of The Nature Conservancy.
— Longtime Amazon exec Jeff Blackburn is returning to the Seattle tech giant, just a few months after he departed and spent five weeks at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Read the story.
— The Riveter founder and CEO Amy Nelson is moving back to her hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Nelson told GeekWire she wanted to be closer to her family.
Nelson will remain at The Riveter and said there is more to come about the 4-year old company’s next steps. The Seattle startup pivoted from women-oriented co-working spaces to an all-digital community. Prior to disruption from the pandemic, The Riveter had nine co-working locations, raised $22 million in funding and won Startup of the Year honors at the 2019 GeekWire Awards.
In addition to navigating The Riveter’s future, Nelson and her husband have been disputing the FBI’s seizure of their bank accounts in an Amazon Web Services lawsuit.
— Former Boeing VP of Commercial Marketing Randy Tinseth joined the advisory board of UK startup Faradair. Redmond, Wash.-based MagniX landed a deal last year to provide the electric motors for Faradair’s proposed fleet of 300 aircraft. Tinseth retired from Boeing in 2020 after almost 40 years.
— Former Airbnb executive Vinayak Hegde joined private jet company Wheels Up as chief marketplace officer.
Hegde was most recently president and COO of New York-based prescription startup Blink Health. He was previously CMO of Airbnb’s global home business and chief marketing and revenue officer at Groupon. Based in the Seattle area, he also spent 12 years at Amazon.
— BC startup ThoughtExchange appointed Andrew Oh as its new chief financial officer. Oh was most recently vice president of finance at InvestX Capital. He previously served as interim COO and director of finance at dating app Plenty of Fish.
— Portland-based Jama Software hired former IBM Senior Product Manager Richard Watson as VP, practice leader. He is based in the United Kingdom. Jama Software provides a product development platform and its customers include Boeing, Siemens, Medtronic and Nvidia. Marc Osofsky joined the company last year as its new CEO.
— Cloud-based IT management company Apptio promoted Allison Breeding to chief marketing officer and Missy Waggoner to chief people officer. Breeding joined Apptio last year as EVP of marketing. Waggoner has been at Apptio since 2016, advancing from a lead recruiter to VP of people.
— Healthcare software company Edifecs expanded its leadership team with four executive hires:
- Chief Financial Officer Dan Madden
- General Counsel Lisa Anastos
- Senior VP of Engineering Sundar Shenbagam
- Associate VP of Product Marketing Scott Davis
Based in Bellevue, Wash., Edifecs was founded in 1996 by CEO Sunny Singh. The company landed cash from private equity firms last year.
— Hillsboro, Ore.-based Mobile Technologies, Inc. (MTI), which provides display technology for retailers, expanded its leadership team by promoting five executives:
- Jill Cochran is now associate vice president of global sales operations. She joined MTI in 2013.
- Rod Horner has been promoted to associate vice president of sourcing, integration and test. He joined MTI in 2015 as a senior engineering director.
- Shannon Litten is now associate vice president of customer solutions. She also joined MTI in 2015.
- Scot Maurath joined MTI last year and is now senior director of customer experience.
- Brian Thorpe has been promoted to vice president of global services. He was hired in September as senior director of solutions.
MTI is led by former AT&T executive Mary Jesse, who was appointed CEO last year.
— Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate appointed Ann Jarris and Marc Burdick to its medical team for this year’s Titanic survey expedition. Jarris is co-founder and CEO of Discovery Health MD, which serves the commercial maritime industry. Burdick is the chief of emergency services and medical director of the Swedish Ballard Emergency Department. He also has maritime medicine experience.
