Seattle tech executive Liz Pearce has joined Portland, Ore.-based augmented reality startup Streem as its chief revenue officer, her first role after stepping down as Liquid Planner’s CEO in November.
Pearce was an early contractor and employee at Liquid Planner, which makes project management software, and went on to serve as the company’s VP of sales and marketing, COO and then CEO. Her departure was a surprise to many in the industry.
With her new role at Streem, Pearce again joins an up-and-coming startup working in a unique space. Streem uses augmented reality and live streaming technology to help home service professionals, like plumbers, with a variety of tasks.
“My activism in the Northwest tech community affords me a great view of the rich pipeline of promising ventures and innovation,” Pearce said. “Streem is emerging as a stand-out by applying AR in a practical way that solves real-world problems for both businesses and consumers.”
Streem raised a $1.7 million seed round in December and another $2 million in March. It has also launched a mobile app for home service professionals. The app can be used for tasks like remotely diagnosing and quoting a customer’s fix or providing workers tech support on complicated jobs.
— Seattle venture firm Madrona Venture Group has appointed longtime Silicon Valley tech executive Betsy Sutter as a strategic director, where she will advise the firm and its portfolio companies. Her addition was announced in a blog post by Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter.
Sutter has served as the chief people officer of VMWare, a Dell EMC subsidiary that provides cloud and platform visualization services, for more than 17 years. In her new role with Madrona, Sutter will advise and mentor entrepreneurs and senior executives in Madrona’s portfolio as well as give the firm input on key strategic decisions.
“A key element to successfully building the next generation of best-in-class companies is to, at the start, set the key culture and value tenants that will enable innovation,” Suter said in a statement. “I am delighted to be part of Madrona’s incredible team, and I look forward to sharing my passion for helping companies develop strategies that empower their people, build communities, and ultimately thrive and scale.”
— OpenMarket, a developer of mobile messaging tools for public-facing brands, tapped former VP Jonathan Morgan to lead the company as its new CEO and general manager.
Morgan has been with OpenMarket for more than seven years. He first joined as a country manager for the company’s Australian operations and went on to serve as VP of corporate development and VP of global operations.
“In the ‘Customer Age,’ it’s not enough to say a business is ‘consumer-centric,’ it must adopt a new mind set and approach which is entirely ‘customer first,'” Morgan said in a press release. “At OpenMarket, we believe the future of customer experience is around empathy. Those companies that capitalize on empathetic interactions, at those moments that matter, will drive the best loyalty among their consumers.”
— Zipwhip, a startup that provides text messaging services from desktops and over the web, announced the addition of technology marketing vet Scott Heimes as the company’s new CMO.
Heimes was most recently the CMO of email-based customer communication platform SendGrid. He previously held the same title at ecommerce company Digital River and online health resource WebMD and formerly led marketing for United Health Group and Target.
“The way companies communicate with their customers is changing, and Zipwhip is poised to make texting just as natural between consumers and businesses as it is between family and friends,” Heimes said in a press release. “I look forward to strengthening our competitive positioning as the premier business texting provider and helping the company scale and grow.”
— Idaho-based cloud networks solutions provider Cradlepoint added two new executives: Jim Hilbert joins the company as its chief revenue officer and Donna Johnson as the VP of product and solution marketing.
Hilbert was most recently the CRO of WAN connectivity company Aryaka Networks. He has previously held executive roles overseeing revenue and sales at companies including EMC, IBM, Cloud Harbor and FireHost.
Johnson joins Cradlepoint from digital workspace technology company Citrix, where she was the director of product marketing. She formerly held roles including VP of engineering at cloud automation company Dorado Software and senior director of product at WAN technology company Talari Networks.
— The Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center Research and Development, a collaborative manufacturing innovation group, appointed Larry (Craig) Campbell as its first executive director.
Campbell joins the company from law group The Victory Group, where he has served as the president and a legal counsel for more than 23 years. He also spent three years as a senior policy advisor to the governor’s office during the tenure of former Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski.
“As the first Boeing initiated manufacturing R&D Center in the U.S., OMIC R&D presents an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate the growth of manufacturing research in Oregon, the region and beyond,” Campbell said in a press release.
The group’s partners include three Oregon state colleges and several private companies, including Boeing and the Mitsubishi Materials Company. Its research and development division’s goal is to develop advanced metals manufacturing technologies. It also has a workforce training division.
