— Flexible warehousing company Flexe hired Amazon vet Lara Rogers as SVP and general manager.
Rogers spent the past decade at Amazon and was most recently director of business, product and technology for Amazon One, the tech giant’s palm-reading ID system.
Founded in 2013, Flexe closed out 2020 with a $70 million Series C round and has raised $144 million in total funding.
The company’s marketplace lets retailers purchase warehousing space on an on-demand basis, avoiding long-term warehouse leases.
— Longtime Microsoft executive Gavriella Schuster joined the board of cybersecurity company Open Systems. The 25-year veteran of Microsoft left in August to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
— Enterprise software startup Magnify announced Sajo Jacob as its CTO and a co-founder. He was most recently a general manager at Amazon where he spent eight years and previously a software architect at Microsoft.
The Seattle and Bend, Ore.-based company came out of stealth mode with $6 million in funding last month. Magnify’s tool optimizes onboarding and use of software using AI and machine learning.
— Fabric, a Seattle e-commerce startup, appointed Prakash Muppirala as EVP of platform solutions and customer success.
Muppirala was most recently CTO and president of digital innovation at retailer Restoration Hardware, now know as RH. He previously was an executive at Staples and spent almost a decade at eBay.
Fabric provides back-end infrastructure for online shopping, targeting mid-market brands.
— Scener, the Seattle-based startup that adds a social layer to the viewing of streaming television content, has named David Baron as CEO. The company also announced a new team of investors and advisors, including J.J. Abrams, the filmmaker and producer. Read the story.
— Fresh Chalk co-founder Liz Pearce is now VP of marketing at GoDaddy. Pearce co-founded Fresh Chalk, a service to find local professionals through friend recommendations, in 2019.
Prior to Fresh Chalk, Pearce was chief revenue officer at Streem and spent 10 years at project management platform Liquid Planner, including five years as CEO.
“I was inspired by the many small business owners I worked with over the last few years at Fresh Chalk,” Pearce told GeekWire in an email.
“I joined GoDaddy to serve entrepreneurs on a larger scale, while also leveraging my experience building and selling software.”
Her fellow co-founder Patrick O’Donnell, who also co-founded Urbanspoon and MightyAI, is now CEO of Fresh Chalk.
— Pay-equity startup Syndio added three new executives:
- Rekha Shenoy as chief product officer. She was most recently chief product and customer officer at Portland, Ore.-based Zapproved.
- Christine Hendrickson as VP of strategic initiatives. She is a lawyer and expert on pay equity and reporting laws.
- Carol Grant as VP of marketing. A Microsoft alum, Grant has worked as a consultant and is a former Zillow director of product marketing.
Syndio raised $50 million in September for its data-science powered software. The company currently has 114 employees, up from 80 two months ago.
— Apptio promoted Jeremy Ung to the newly established role of chief engineering officer. He joined the cloud-based IT management company in 2019 as VP of engineering.
Prior to joining Apptio, Ung was a senior manager of software development at Amazon Web Services and spent five years at Microsoft.
Apptio also promoted Toyan Espeut to chief customer officer earlier this year.
— Microsoft veteran Scott Rockfeld joined voice-enabled storytelling platform Novel Effect as chief marketing officer.
An angel investor and startup mentor, Rockfeld spent 18 years at Microsoft, most recently as a senior director of product management and marketing.
Founded in 2015, Novel Effect participated in the inaugural Alexa accelerator, appeared on Shark Tank and won a Webby award. The Seattle startup closed a $3 million Series A round in 2018.
— Seattle startup Educative added startup veterans Sarah Daniels as chief content officer and Cody Lamens as VP of sales. Educative raised $12 million for its coding development platform in May.
Daniels is the former CEO and co-founder of Blue Canoe, an app for learning to speak English, and chief marketing officer at Market Leader. In her new role, she will oversee Educative’s catalog of courses for software developers.
“It is going to be a very fun ride here, and I love helping developers grow their career and learn to build the next generation of technology,” Daniels said. She will remain an adviser to Blue Canoe.
Lamens joins Educative from Rosetta Stone where he was VP of global enterprise and education sales. He was previously head of sales at TINYPulse and director of sales at Ideoclick.
Karen Taylor is now CEO of Blue Canoe. She has been a board member at the company for the past five years.
— The Riveter co-founder Amy Nelson departed SaksWorks in October to return to The Riveter where she continues to serve on the board.
Nelson joined SaksWorks, a new co-working partnership between Saks Fifth Avenue-owner Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) and WeWork, as president in July. She told GeekWire that she left after launching the partnership and initial locations and was excited to return to The Riveter.
Founded in Seattle in 2017 as a female-focused co-working space provider, The Riveter pivoted to a digital community last year after shutting down its physical locations. The company is now remote-first with a team of four and growing again.
Nelson told GeekWire that The Riveter will go back to its roots by “focusing on women who consult, freelance or are launching their own business.” She cited a need for more resources, especially as she’s witnessed more women go independent during the pandemic.
Nelson relocated to Columbus, Ohio earlier this year.
— Entrepreneur and startup veteran Clay Robinson departed Salesforce to join international commerce platform Mamneta as chief experience officer.
Prior to Salesforce, the MightySE founder previously worked at Seattle-area companies Shiftboard, Apptio and Tellwise.
— Amazon veteran Stephen Curial joined Jungle Scout as CTO. The Austin, Texas-based company creates software for Amazon sellers.
Curial spent more than a decade at Amazon, most recently as director of software development for the Fulfilled by Amazon program. He will continue to be based in Seattle.
— Shape Therapeutics appointed David Huss as chief scientific officer and Lisa Taylor Ash as general counsel. Both are alum of Juno Therapeutics, where Shape Therapeutics CEO and co-founder Francois Vigneault was VP of research.
Huss joined Shape Therapeutics in 2018 and was most recently head of research. Taylor Ash joined the Seattle biotech company in 2019 as VP of legal.
This year, Shape Therapeutics raised $112 million and signed a deal worth up to $3 billion with pharma giant Roche. The company is developing RNA editing and gene therapy technologies
