— After more than 33 years at Microsoft, Mazhar Mohammed has left to become vice president of AWS Streaming and Messaging at Amazon.
Mohammed joined Microsoft as a software design engineer on Windows NT straight out of a master’s degree program. Over the decades, he also worked on messaging, mobile services and partner experience for cloud services. He most recently served as corporate VP for the commerce and fraud protection platform.
His LinkedIn post was short and to the point. Mohammed said he was “happy to share” the news, and the post featured a photo of an Amazon box with the message “Alexa, play ‘New Beginnings.’”
— Microsoft has named Chad Thompson as CVP of Agent Cloud, a group within the company developing technology that allows businesses to deploy AI agents and put them to work across their organizations.
“My view: enterprise is where AI pays off. Not in demos, but in measurable results. Lower costs, faster cycle times, better decisions, and work that gets done without someone pushing it along,” Thompson wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Thompson joins from Alteryx. He previously spent six years at Amazon, departing as general manager of Amazon Glow. Other past employers include Smartsheet, Exasol and Adobe.
— Gail Carpenter has been named as VP and chief financial officer of Global Entertainment and Advertising at Amazon. She was most recently CFO of Worldwide Stores Finance and has been with the company for 11 years.
— Seattle biotech startup Lila Bio has appointed Kimberly Ma as chief development officer. The company spun out of Nobel laureate David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington and is using AI to design new proteins that can treat cancer with targeted radiation therapy. Last year it announced a collaboration with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly to develop therapies for solid tumors.
Ma has 20 years of experience in oncology drug development, most recently as a leader at Abdera Therapeutics. She also worked at RayzeBio, where she led the clinical operations team and supported the company’s IPO and its $4.1 billion acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2024.
— The not-for-profit credit union BECU has named Geoffrey Fonga as VP of AI transformation. The member-owned organization is based in Tukwila, Wash.
“For years, I helped organizations adopt and scale AI as an advisor and a vendor,” Fonga said. “Now I get to do the harder, more rewarding part: leading that transformation from the inside.”
Fonga joins from DataRobot. He previously held leadership roles at McKinsey & Company and Wells Fargo.
— Andre Woodson Jr. has taken a new role at Amazon as manager of U.S. state and local policy communications and external affairs. Woodson was previously a regional field communications manager and has been with the company for more than 12 years.
— Hanna Grene has left Microsoft, where she served as global go-to-market and innovation leader for energy, to join Xcel Energy. She will lead the company’s newly established Enterprise Growth and Commercialization group, effective Nov. 16.
— Seattle-based RevealDx,which is developing AI technology for detecting potentially cancerous lung nodules, has made two leadership appointments:
- Dr. Ryan Brevard has joined as medical director. He previously served as a medical advisor to RevealDx and helped the company achieve FDA clearance. Brevard has more than 23 years of experience in critical care and emergency medicine.
- David Austin has been named VP of sales. Austin has nearly 30 years of experience, with expertise in diagnostic imaging, radiology and medical technology commercialization.
— Enterprise software company LogicGate has named two new leaders to the business, which is headquartered in Chicago and has multiple C-suite executives based at its Bellevue, Wash., office. Steve Smith has joined as managing director of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Amanda Meglemre as general counsel.
— Former Cisco and Microsoft security executive Edna Conway was appointed to the advisory council for Known, a Bellevue, Wash.-based tech company building accountability infrastructure for AI agents. Conway was with Cisco for 20 years before joining Microsoft in 2020 as VP and chief security and risk officer for Azure infrastructure.
— Avalanche Energy, a Seattle-based startup building fusion devices, has named Chris Riegel as head of talent acquisition. He joins from HiringKit, an HR company that Riegel co-founded. Former employers include Amazon and Unity Technologies.
In addition to chasing fusion, Avalanche is leading a team tackling DARPA’s nuclear battery challenge and launching FusionWERX, a commercial-scale testing facility for fusion technologies in Eastern Washington.
— Julie Averill, former chief information officer at lululemon and REI, has joined the UW Foundation Board, which helps raise philanthropic support for the university.
— Technology Alliance has appointed Jen Oleson, a senior director at Seattle-based consulting firm Slalom, to its board. Oleson will serve on the organization’s Research Capacity Committee.
— Ben Helsel has left Premera Blue Cross to join Kaiser Permanente, where he’ll serve as VP and general manager of commercial markets in Washington.
