— Steven VanRoekel, a longtime former Microsoft leader and U.S. chief information officer under President Obama, is now CEO of Earth Species Project (ESP). The non-profit research lab is using artificial intelligence to better understand animal communication in creatures from carrion crows to beluga whales.
VanRoekel, who is based in Bend, Ore., said his career has focused on driving impact at scale, and that ESP is poised for a big breakthroughs.
AI can “unlock the mysteries of our planet, especially around animal communication,” he said in an ESP blog. “Once we begin unlocking that mystery, we could see shifts on the scale of Copernican or Galilean moments in history: new science, new understanding, and perhaps most importantly, new relationships with our planet.”
— Krzysztof Duleba joined LinkedIn’s Bellevue, Wash., office as a distinguished engineer in its infrastructure program. Duleba has spent his career at Google, working there for 18 years in roles across search, ads, maps, AI and cloud. In separate posts on LinkedIn, Duleba shared his career journey.
“Eighteen years ago, a kid from rural Poland walked into Google with no idea what he was getting into. He walked out a very different engineer, a father of three, and — he hopes — a better person,” Duleba wrote in announcing his Google departure.
And regarding his new role: “LinkedIn is in the middle of a major infrastructure transformation, and the timing matters. I consider getting reliability economics right during this window, before agentic development fully hits, the difference between drowning in the AI wave and catching it.”
— London-based Dennis Stansbury is resigning from Amazon after more than 18 years. He has held a variety of leadership roles in European offices, most recently serving as a principal product manager for Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios in the United Kingdom.
“I started in Seattle in March 2008, shortly after Kindle launched but before Prime Video or Alexa were likely even ideas,” Stansbury said on LinkedIn, adding that he’s going “to take some time off and put more thought into what’s next.”
— After nearly 14 years at Amazon, Miranda Chen is leaving her role as a director and technical advisor for leaders in worldwide corporate and business development. Chen, who is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, did not indicate her next move.
“I first started working for Amazon at A9, a Bay Area subsidiary, where we could review the key metrics for our entire offsite advertising business in a single weekly meeting,” she said on LinkedIn. “Now we have Amazon offices worldwide and Amazon Ads is a meaningfully large business.”
— Scott Lawson, Amazon director of Global Real Estate and Facilities (GREF) design and construction, is leaving his role. Seattle-based Lawson has been with Amazon for nearly nine years. He was previously with Clark Construction Group working on developments nationwide. Lawson hinted on LinkedIn that information on his “next chapter” would be coming soon.
— Danielle Decatur is vice president of community engagement and communications for Cloverleaf Infrastructure, a startup based in Seattle and Houston that’s coordinating between landowners and power providers to offer ready-to-build sites tailored for data centers.
“I’ll be dedicated to enabling data center infrastructure that works for and directly benefits communities,” Decatur said on LinkedIn. The sector is facing pushback over concerns about energy prices and environmental impacts of the facilities.
Decatur was previously at Microsoft for more than 14 years, working most recently as director of energy and sustainability. Cloverleaf co-founder Brian Janous is Microsoft’s former vice president of energy. Earlier in her career, Decatur served with the U.S. Air Force and with FEMA.
— Augmodo named Bradford Snow as chief technology officer. The Seattle startup is developing wearable tech for retail store employees and Snow will focus on Augmodo’s technical vision and innovation strategy.
Snow joined the company from Axon, which sells taser devices and body cameras. His career also includes leadership roles at multiple tech giants where he worked on a variety of virtual reality technologies such as AR and VR devices at Meta; Amazon’s Alexa AI and health and wellness wearable tech; and HoloLens initiatives at Microsoft.
— Abhishek Mathur is now chief technology and product officer for ServiceTitan, a California software giant building an agentic operating system to serve trades such as plumbing, electrical and roofing by automating workflows and supporting technicians in the field.
“This sector remains one of the largest untapped opportunities for technology to drive meaningful impact,” Mathur said on LinkedIn.
Mathur, who is based in the Seattle area, has held engineering leadership roles at Meta and was at Microsoft for more than 11 years. He was most recently at Figma as senior VP of engineering.
— Anush Kumar is now founder and CEO of Intelligent Systems, a Bellevue, Wash.-based startup that aims to “transform operational workflows” with AI tools.
“We’re on a mission to help enterprises stop piloting and start producing,” Kumar said in a LinkedIn post that includes links to five articles explaining the team’s approach.
Kumar was previously head of product for agentic automation at Atlassian. Other past roles include VP of technology at Expedia Group, senior VP of product at Zendesk, and director roles at Oracle and Avanade. His first tech role was lead product manager at Microsoft.
— Chris Cappello joined Provn as vice president of marketing. Cappello has worked in multiple marketing roles for companies including WE Communications, Marina Maher Communications and M-Squared. He and Provn CEO Nikesh Parekh both worked earlier in their careers at HouseValues, which rebranded as Market Leader.
Provn, a new Seattle startup, wants companies to scrap the traditional resume and replace it with portfolios of real work and challenge-based assessments.
— Fred Hutch Cancer Center appointed two new leaders. Dr. Mazyar Shadman and Vyshak Venur were named as deputy chief medical officers, effective April 1. Shadman will serve as deputy CMO for classical hematology, hematologic malignancies, transplant and immunotherapy, while Venur will serve as deputy CMO for solid tumor and acute care services.
And two Fred Hutch researchers received endowed chairs: Dr. Soheil Meshinchi, a global leader in treatments for acute myeloid leukemia, was awarded the Dylan Burke Endowed Chair in Immunotherapy; and Holly Harris received the inaugural Bus Family Endowed Chair in recognition for her work in prevention, early detection and precision oncology for uterine, ovarian and breast cancers.
— Seattle’s Marianne Bichsel, former VP of external affairs at Comcast, has launched Engaged Public Affairs, a PR and policy firm advising “leaders at the intersection of government, public trust, and corporate responsibility.” Bichsel’s co-founders are Julie Anderson, who has served in city and Washington state government, and Natasha Jones, a longtime leader in King County government.
— Theodora, a Seattle-area wine recommendation app, appointed Lindsey Singhavi as its founding marketing lead.
— In case you missed it, GeekWire took deeper dives into these recent notable tech moves (in no particular order, except maybe the first item):
- Taylor Soper named director of Seattle’s AI House after remarkable run at GeekWire
- Allen Institute for AI CEO Ali Farhadi steps down as nonprofit navigates shifting AI landscape
- USAFacts taps former DataKind CEO Lauren Woodman as new president
- Microsoft EVP Rajesh Jha retiring after 35 years in latest exit from senior leadership team
- Atlassian layoffs impact 63 workers in Washington as CTO steps down
Read the full article here
