— Dave Cotter, a longtime Seattle tech leader who sold a startup to Nordstrom and most recently led product at Leafly, launched a new advisory firm called D3 Advisors.
“After 30+ years in the operational trenches, I’m now focusing on advising and consulting with startup founders, CEOs, and VC’s, helping them turn great ideas into great companies,” Cotter wrote in a blog post.
Cotter was chief product officer at Seattle-based cannabis data and marketplace company Leafly for more than three years before departing in January 2023. He previously co-founded an e-commerce message startup called MessageYes that was acquired by Nordstrom in 2018.
Cotter also has exec experience at Amazon, Zulily, SquareHub, and RealNetworks. He’s currently board chair at the Washington Technology Industry Association, and serves on the board of the Technology Alliance.
— Johanna Faries, former GM of Call of Duty at Activision, was named president of Blizzard Entertainment. The new role comes as Microsoft just announced a 9% layoff affecting nearly 2,000 employees in its gaming division, three months after the tech giant completed its $69 billion acquisition of Blizzard parent company Activision Blizzard. Faries replaces longtime Microsoft gaming exec Mike Ybarra, who left this month.
— Marie Donoghue, who previously helped lead Amazon’s sports content initiatives, is now chief business and growth officer at sports betting giant DraftKings.
— Kirt Debique was named chief architect at Seattle cybersecurity startup Oleria, which just announced a $33 million investment round. Debique is a former longtime Microsoft leader and also co-founded a startup called SyncFloor which aimed to provide licensed commercial music to businesses and creators.
— Sanjay Puri, a Seattle startup vet who previously led the 9Mile Labs accelerator and was a product exec at Avalara, is now vice president of product marketing at Bellevue, Wash.-based contract management giant Icertis.
— Computer vision startup Plainsight Technologies announced former Microsoft and Google engineering leader Kit Merker as CEO and said it plans to establish its headquarters in the Seattle area. Plainsight launched in 2007 and serves customers in various industries including manufacturing, food service, real estate, and more.
— Nexus Search Partners, a Charlotte, N.C.-based executive search firm, named Seattle tech vet Sean Kelley as a senior partner. Kelley previously was a program director for Microsoft’s military affairs program and was a talent acquisition director at Amazon.
— Seattle lumber marketplace Yesler named former Weyerhaeuser exec Adrian Blocker to its board.
— Seattle startup Taqtile, which develops augmented reality software for workers, added Scout Ventures Founder Brad Harrison as a board observer.
— Regan Sheehy was named an executive vice president at Seattle public relations firm Fearey. She previously spent nearly 14 years at Microsoft, most recently heading up communications for Minecraft.
— Seattle startup NLM Photonics hired former Cray and Microsoft exec Vijay Raghavan as its new CFO. NLM develops hybrid electro-optic modulation technology, which is meant to open the way for semiconductors that can handle more data with less power.
— Seattle-based tech-focused law firm Focal promoted Elizabeth Breakstone to partner. Breakstone joined Focal in 2022 after stints with Fortem IP, Smartsheet, Avalara, and Perkins Coie.
— Robert Payne was promoted to vice president of economic development and Jack Pedlow was promoted to economic development project manager at Greater Seattle Partners, the public-private sector initiative that seeks to attract investment, companies and quality jobs to the Seattle area.
— Steven F. Ziegler, a longtime immune response researcher at Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle, was named a 2024 Distinguished Fellow by the American Association of Immunologists.
— Seattle commercial real estate firm Kidder Mathews named industry vet Linda Fairchild as a senior vice president overseeing its asset services division for Seattle’s Eastside submarket.
