— Sea.citi, an organization that works to connect tech sector employees with civic life, announced three new board members:
- Zillow Government Relations and Public Affairs Manager Anna Boone.
- Janice Dearlove, a 20-year Amazon veteran and the company’s director of global employee engagement for Amazon in the community.
- WhyLabs co-founder and COO Maria Karaivanova, formerly a principal at Madrona Venture Group and a sea.citi founding advisor.
Launched in 2018 and spearheaded by some of the biggest tech companies in the Seattle region, sea.citi focuses on issues such as housing affordability, climate change, transportation infrastructure and digital equity. Sea.citi’s 15 member companies represent more than 85,000 local workers.
Its first initiative focused on supporting South Seattle schools. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization focused on aggregating information about the local tech community’s response to the pandemic and hosted virtual events about opportunities for equitable recovery.
Sea.citi also facilitated a public-private partnership between its members and Seattle Public Schools following the rapid shift to remote learning. This included the eight-week Family Tech Support Center program, funded by a Tableau Foundation grant, which assisted families with IT challenges and sought to maximize the impact of Amazon’s donation of 9,000 laptops to families. The Tableau Foundation grant is also funding a continued partnership with Seattle Public Schools, including the hire of a Digital Equity Manager for the district.
— Augmented reality platform Magic Leap added longtime Microsoft manager Tracey Trewin as chief product officer. At Microsoft, Trewin worked on new business and consumer products and helped scale products such as Windows and Xbox.
She follows former Microsoft leader Peggy Johnson, who became Magic Leap’s CEO in August.
“Her expertise of harmonizing hardware and software development in partnership with enterprise customers, and their engineering teams, will be a key component in our next phase of growth,” Johnson said of Trewin in a statement.
Last year, heavily-funded Magic Leap closed its Seattle office amid layoffs and was sued by the landlord for unpaid rent. Magic Leap is headquartered in Plantation, Fla.
— Former Microsoft and Smartsheet executive Peter Boit has left Bellevue, Wash.-based contract management startup Icertis where he was chief alliance officer. The company confirmed Boit’s departure and said he left to pursue other interests.
Boit joined Icertis in 2016 from Smartsheet, where he was EVP of sales. A longtime enterprise sales executive, he spent 15 years at Microsoft, most recently as vice president of worldwide enterprise partners.
— Seattle-based Adaptive Biotechnologies appointed Leslie Trigg and Katey Owen to its board of directors.
Trigg is currently CEO of Outset Medical, which went public in 2020. Owen is the director of neglected tropical diseases at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She previously helped develop vaccines at Merck and prior to working in the pharmaceutical industry, researched influenza.
Adaptive Biotechnologies’ fourth quarter revenue was up 25% from a year ago. it recently launched a T-cells test for COVID-19.
— World Trade Center Seattle Director Emily Cantrell will join trade and investment organization Greater Seattle Partners as VP of operations and strategy in April. She has led the Port of Seattle-owned World Trade Center Seattle since 2017.
The moves continues Cantrell’s path of working for organizations dedicated to driving economic growth, but also appears to put her ambitions for elected office on pause.
“And to those who were waiting for my launch for Seattle City Council last week – thank you for all of your support… it’s safe to say those plans are now on hold,” Cantrell said in a post on LinkedIn.
Prior to the World Trade Center, Cantrell held roles at the annual Seafair festival and Visit Seattle. She was previously a news producer.
— Kelly Breslin Wright, a former longtime exec at Tableau Software, joined the board of Plum Acquisition Corp I, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that just went public. Plum is led by former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns.
— Amazon-owned Audible appointed Leigh Zarelli as chief product officer and the newest member of its executive team. She was most recently SVP of global digital for hospitality giant Marriott International and previously held executive roles at AOL and Disney.
