— Mobile marketplace OfferUp hired former Splunk VP of Engineering Melissa Binde as its new CTO.
Binde previously held senior engineering roles at Google, Nordstrom and Persistent Systems. She was also a software developer at Amazon soon after it went public. She oversaw Splunk’s cloud engineering business while CTO at the software giant.
“Adding a seasoned leader in the technology space like Melissa to our growing team at OfferUp is exactly what we need to take our business to the next level,” said Todd Dunlap, OfferUp CEO.
Binde succeeds Ameesh Paleja who served as OfferUp’s CTO for two years. He is now a VP of engineering at Google.
Dunlap was appointed CEO of the Bellevue, Wash.-based startup in June. Last year, the company reached 56 million users following its acquisition of rival marketplace Letgo.
— Longtime Amazon data center leader Joe Minarik departed the tech giant after more than 16 years to join Dallas-based DataBank as chief operating officer.
Minarik joined Amazon in 2005, prior to the launch of Amazon Web Services, and was most recently the head of global data center supply.
— Former Amazon General Manager Anthony Penta is now a managing director at Goldman Sachs. He previously spent more than 13 years at Microsoft.
Penta will also be head of decision science and decision platform for Marcus, which he described as “a startup inside Goldman Sachs” in a post on LinkedIn.
— Microsoft recruited semiconductor designer Mike Filippo away from Apple, according to a Bloomberg report. He will reportedly work on processors for Microsoft’s Azure business.
Prior to Apple, Filippo was a lead CPU architect at ARM and Intel. He was a CPU designer at Advanced Micro Devices, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Microsoft currently sources its server-chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Bloomberg reports Microsoft is accelerating efforts to make its own chips for its cloud computing services and, possibly, its line of Surface devices.
— Zoe Hillenmeyer, former head of business development for Amazon Web Services’ AI service, is now chief commercial officer at SoftBank-backed Peak, a startup applying AI to commercial decision-making.
Hillenmeyer previously worked on the Watson team at IBM. She is based in Seattle and the company’s first-ever chief commercial officer.
Peak, co-headquartered in Manchester, England and Jaipur, India, closed a $75 million Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in August.
— Microsoft alum Quinn Ye joined digital writing assistant Grammarly as head of data science. He was most recently director of data science for ads at Google.
At Microsoft, Ye held data science roles on the Bing Search and Xbox teams. He also was a director at eBay.
In November, San Francisco-based Grammarly raised more than $200 million at a $13 billion valuation.
— Fred Hutch announced Jeffrey Leak as VP and chief data officer. He joins the Seattle cancer research center from Johns Hopkins. Read GeekWire’s recent interview with the biostatistician and data science educator.
— A week after appointing a new CEO, Tagboard added four new executives:
- Linka Baumgardt as chief strategy officer. Most recently head of marketing at food company Agni, Baumgardt previously led strategic initiatives for cannabis lifestyle companies Tilray and Leafly.
- Kirk Dickinson as chief financial officer. He was previously CFO at React Mobile and Allrecipes.
- Sergey Lvov as VP of engineering. Lvov was most recently director of engineering at AppliedVR and previously led software development for NFL Media.
- Amanda Konarek as VP of acquisition. She was previously the principal at her own recruiting firm, AK Talent Partners.
“As we kick off 2022, we are not only growing at phenomenal rate, we’re also continuing to attract the best talent to help bring our cloud production platform to more storytellers globally,” said Nathan Peterson, newly appointed Tagboard CEO.
