— Hussein Mecklai has left the role of chief operating officer for Impinj. The Seattle-based RFID company disclosed his departure today in a new regulatory filing. Mecklain resigned on Tuesday, and the company did not name a replacement.
Mecklai joined Impinj in 2018, taking the title of COO in 2022. He was previously at Intel in the Portland, Ore., area for nearly six years.
Impinj launched in 2000 and manufacturers radio-frequency identification devices that are used by companies in various industries to track everything from apparel to medical supplies to food.
Jeff Dossett, chief revenue officer for Impinj, retired in February.
Impinj, which went public in 2016, reported revenue of $74.2 million in its first quarter, down slightly year-over-year.
— After 11 years, Christopher Niederman is leaving Amazon as managing director of AWS Industries and Solutions. In sharing the news on LinkedIn, he thanked the company’s “outstanding” leaders and expressed gratitude for what he learned from the experience.
Niederman said he is taking “much needed time off with my family for the first time in two decades” and will travel with his kids to Italy for a month before his youngest leaves for college.
But he has another job in the works — cryptically describing it as “a senior leadership role where I will continue to build, make an impact, and have fun in a huge way.”
— Asha Sharma, corporate vice president and head of product for Microsoft’s AI platform, joined the Home Depot board of directors.
“What truly drew me to this opportunity was getting to know the exceptional team behind the orange aprons,” Sharma said on LinkedIn, noting that the corporation’s “exceptional culture” is behind its success.
Sharma was previously COO at Instacart, a vice president of product at Meta, and COO at Seattle-based home services company Porch Group. She joined Microsoft last year.
— Mike Lavin has retired as head of global marketing for Amazon Prime Gaming after more than eight years with the company.
He set the date for his late father’s birthday, whom he said “introduced me to video games on an Atari, taught me to program games in BASIC on his Apple II, marketed the Intellivision console launch for Mattel … Looking back, it’s incredible how much of my journey followed a similar path.”
Lavin was previously at Microsoft for a decade where he was senior global product marketing manager for Xbox Live.
“I’m ready to focus on what matters most to me — family, new passions, and opportunities to give back in meaningful ways,” he said on LinkedIn. “I’m excited for what’s ahead.”
— Seattle fintech startup Weave.AI named Lisa Kalscheur as chief marketing officer. Weave.AI provides AI services to financial institutions and corporations to help them manage emerging risks, competitive shifts, complex regulations and new business opportunities.
Kalscheur will be promoting Weave.AI’s services to chief investment officers at global banks.
“Lisa will not only lead our strategic positioning and growth but also leverage her deep relationships with top financial institutions to accelerate our go-to-market,” said Nosa Omoigui, CEO and founder of Weave.AI, in a statement.
Kalscheur previously led marketing as CMO at Regal, Notarize, Kibo Commerce and Monetate.
— The Transparency Coalition added three people to its board of directors: Artemis Connection CEO Christy Johnson; Whitepages CEO Leigh McMillan; and Leafly CEO Yoko Miyashita. It also added Casey Mock, a senior policy advisor to NYU professor Jonathan Haidt, to its Transparency Coalition Action Fund board.
Veteran startup founders and technology leaders Rob Eleveld and Jai Jaisimha launched The Transparency Coalition last year. The nonprofit aims to promote more ethical and responsible development of AI by increasing transparency into how models are trained, and the data used to train them.
— Seattle’s Airloom AI hired Emily Danielson as its chief technologist and founding engineer, and William Price as a software engineer.
Ian McAllister launched the startup almost a year ago to build a video operations platform for businesses. The company is getting close to launching its first product, Airloom Video Search for business. McAllister was at Amazon for more than 12 years and has held leadership positions at Uber, Crowd Cow and elsewhere.
Danielson comes to the role from Griptape, a Seattle tech company that offers a platform for building AI products. Airloom is partnering with Griptape in engineering its video search product. Danielson was at Amazon for 11 years, most recently as software development manager for Amazon Web Services.
“Emily wrote the first lines of Airloom code at Griptape. I’ve been working with her closely for months and have known her for years, and can’t think of a better partner to build a company with,” McAllister wrote on Substack.
Price also joins Airloom from Griptape.
— Bryce Hein is now chief marketing officer for SpecterOps, a cybersecurity company focused on identity theft. Hein was previously CMO for Sysdig, and prior to that was CMO for Seattle’s ExtraHop.
SpecterOps is based in Virginia and has a corporate office in Seattle.
“Identity is the critical battleground for cybersecurity, and I’m honored to be working with some of the best minds in the industry,” Hein said on LinkedIn.
— Andrew Coté left his role as vice president of strategy and growth for Seattle startup Brinc Drones to become an SVP at Forterra, a Maryland-based defense and space manufacturing company. Coté spent four years at Brinc, which develops drones and related technologies for emergency response agencies.
Brinc last month announced $75 million in new funding and a strategic alliance with Motorola Solutions.
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