Chris Chen. (Axone Pictures)
Law enforcement technology company Axon has added former HTC Vive President Chris Chen as Vice President of Immersive Technology. In his new role, Chen will be responsible for Axon’s Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality training platforms.
At HTC Vive, Chin served as Vice President and General Manager of Vive Studios, which has published VR content. He resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Axon maintains a large technical presence in Seattle. The company says its mission is to help reduce police use of force by providing transparency, technology and tools that can replace deadly weapons.
Former NASA systems engineer Nitin Arora has left Blue Origin to join SpaceX, according to a LinkedIn post.
Arora has spent more than two years at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, most recently as part of the space company’s Human Landing System creation team.
The move follows Blue Origin’s unsuccessful appeal and an ongoing lawsuit over NASA’s decision to award SpaceX to Elon Musk a $2.9 billion contract to return astronauts to the Moon.
Seattle-based home services technology company Porch Group has added two new members to the board of directors: Rachel Lamm, co-founder and managing partner of Imagination Capital, and Maurice Tulloch, former CEO of Aviva Group plc. Read the story.
Lisa Nelson. (Microsoft Pictures)
– Lisa Nelson, former CEO of M12 has been appointed to the Astra Space board of directors. California-based Astra Space is a five-year space company that went public last month through its merger with SPAC led by communications pioneer Craig McCaw.
“Space technology will power the next trillion dollar economy,” Nelson said in a statement. “I am delighted to partner with Astra’s global board and management team to pave the way for the next frontier of innovation and economic growth.
Nelson is also currently on the board of directors of Kuelap and DNA Seattle. She is an advisor to Brooks, Movac and Flying Fish Partners and to early-stage technology companies.
Former Caravan CFO Brian Crainer recently joined Handshake College’s recruitment platform as CFO.
Convoy President and COO Mark Okström is now the interim CFO. The former CEO of Expedia, who joined trucking startup Convoy a year ago, was previously the chief financial officer of the Seattle-based travel giant.
Prior to joining Convoy in 2018, Kreiner was CEO of Cal Net Technology Group and Managing Partner at Olympic Valley Capital.
New Ethera is led by Mark Worthington, General Counsel, and Rachel Lynnington, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Product Development Strategy. (photo ether)
Athira Pharma has recently appointed Rachel Lenington as Chief Technology Officer and Head of Product Development Strategy and Mark Worthington as General Counsel. The Bothell, Washington-based biotech company also said it was developing clinical trials after allegations of image manipulation in articles written by its CEO. Read the story.
Chris B. (resize image)
– Scottsdale, Arizona startup Lissen has appointed Chris P., former Senior Director of Product Development at Zillow, as its CTO. Bee was previously an engineer and product manager at Uber, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Founded in 2020, Leeson currently has 20 employees in Seattle and plans to double the area’s workforce by the end of 2021. The company’s platform connects homeowners with home improvement, maintenance, and repair professionals.
– Jeff Ibe, chief financial officer of the Washington Research Foundation, retired after 19 years at the private foundation. Former WRF CEO Ron Howell also retired in April after 29 years.
Eby was replaced by Morgan Hellar who initially joined the WRF in 2004 as a licensing officer for the organization’s patent pool. Prior to her promotion, she was working as a controller for WRF.
Sati Bahadur. (working photo)
Freelance platform Upwork has appointed former Amazon CEO Saty Bahadur as its chief technology officer. Bahadur spent a decade at Microsoft, most recently as Director of Engineering.
At Amazon, Bahadur has dealt with fraud and abuse around the world and previously led the artificial intelligence group Alexa.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Upwork was born out of the merger of Elance and oDesk.
Shilba Chowdhury. (Photo de panda)
Shilpa Chowdhury has joined artificial intelligence startup Panda as a client manager. He most recently served as Director of Customer Success, Service and Support at Algorithmia, which DataRobot acquired last month.
Seattle startup Panda uses natural language processing for its account management software.
Coming from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), Panda came out of stealth last year and was co-founded by Aaron Goldfeder and Yue Ning. Panda previously raised $3.3 million led by PSL Ventures.
– San Francisco-based life insurance startup Ethos has hired three veterans of the Zillow Group, two of them in Seattle:
Nick Fetzer As Vice President of Sales. Phaser spent more than a decade at Zillow, most recently leading mortgage sales and strategies.
Keri McGee As Partnerships Marketing Manager. McGee most recently served as Vice President of Marketing for Tom Ferry Real Estate Training, and was previously Senior Director of Vendor and Event Marketing at Zillow.
Rob Brozzler Jr. Vice President and General Manager of Partnerships. Based in San Francisco, Brusler Jr. has spent eight years with Zillow, most recently as Senior Director of Mortgage Analysis and Business Operations.
Last month, Ethos raised $100 million from SoftBank’s Vision 2 fund.
Boffin Pichai. (Photo from Rebel Foods)
Seattle-based Rebellyous Foods has announced that Beyond Meat veteran Puvin Pichai will join the startup as director of equipment research and development.
Bashir holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and has led research and development teams at Beyond Meat and Novus International. Founded in 2017, Rebellyous Foods launched three new vegan products earlier this year.
Portland-based Sparrow Pharmaceuticals has appointed Frank Ciezervik as chief medical officer and Jamie Macpherson as vice president for regulatory and quality affairs.
Czerwiec was until recently the medical director at Goldfinch Bio and spent two decades at Otsuka Pharmaceutical. Macpherson joins Sparrow after working for Akcea Therapeutics and was previously Director of Global Regulatory Affairs at Alexion Pharmaceuticals.
Marks has appointed Seattle-based Ryan Polley as Director of Operations. Polly was previously the director of product and strategy at the publicly traded company that sells “conversational intelligence” software. He spent some time at Kargo Global and Rubicon Project before joining Marchex in 2020.
“Certified gamer. Problem solver. Internet enthusiast. Twitter scholar. Infuriatingly humble alcohol geek. Tv guru.”
