— Vimeo appointed Lynn Girotto as chief marketing officer and Ashraf Alkarmi as chief product officer for the New York City video software company. Both will be based in the Seattle area.
Girotto was previously chief marketing officer at San Francisco-based customer data tracking startup Heap. She also held marketing roles at Amperity, Tableau, Getty Images, Starbucks and Microsoft.
Alkmari was previously general manager of Amazon streaming service Freevee (formerly IMDb TV), and at Facebook (now Meta), where he led product development for Facebook Watch. He also launched an enterprise-grade streaming service for AWS in an earlier position.
Girotto and Alkarmi are “powerhouses in their respective fields,” said Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud in a LinkedIn post. “They are also awesome humans, the kind you want to climb the highest mountain with.”
— Microsoft corporate vice president Sam George is retiring after 25 years with the tech giant. “I’ve achieved everything I set out to do and have enough to enjoy a simple life now,” he said in a LinkedIn post.
George was previously corporate vice president of Azure IoT for two years, and had other roles as a general manager, program manager and software developer.
George said he will take some time for family, friends, and woodworking. “When it is time to innovate again, I plan on finding a way of contributing to solving climate change,” he said.
— Absci hired Denise Dettore as chief people officer and Jack Gold as chief marketing officer. Both are newly-created positions for the Vancouver, Wash.-based biotech company.
Dettore was previously at BeiGene, where she was most recently co-global head of human resources, and has held human resources roles at Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Genentech. Gold was previously chief marketing officer at Zymergen; prior to that he served at Nike for 21 years, most recently as senior marketing director for Dick’s Sporting Goods.
— Amazon hired Sean Simpson as principal portfolio manager for its new $1 billion Industrial Innovation Fund, which backs companies developing customer fulfillment, logistics and supply chain technologies. Simpson’s previous roles include director at WIND Ventures and investment manager at GM Ventures.
— Recruiting startup SeekOut hired Claire Fang as its first chief product officer, six months after raising $115 million and joining the ranks of Seattle unicorns. Fang, trained as an electrical and computer engineer, was previously chief product officer at Qualtrics, and also has held product management roles at Facebook (now Meta) and Microsoft.
— Brian McClain will become interim chief financial officer of streaming audio pioneer RealNetworks, replacing Christine Chambers. Chambers will leave the position July 31 to pursue a new opportunity, according to a regulatory filing.
McClain, who was previously CFO of computer security company Pelco, is slated to serve until Nov. 5. McClain previously also held executive positions at LOUD Audio and aerospace company Centrix.
— Mark Cranney, a limited partner at GTMFund and a former operating partner at Andreessen Horowitz, has joined the board of directors at TEAL, a programmable IoT and private network services startup.
