— Life Science Washington announced Marc Cummings as its new CEO and president. He was most recently the trade association’s VP of public policy and external affairs. Former CEO Leslie Alexandre retired at the end of last year.
Cummings joined Life Science Washington in 2015 and was previously director of policy and external affairs for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He has served on the boards of the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) and the Washington Clean Technology Alliance (WCTA).
Life Science Washington also announced four new board members:
- University of Washington Bothell School of STEM Dean Leslie Cornick
- Wedbush Managing Director Kelly Lisbakken
- Seagen SVP of Global Value Access Cindy McDonald-Everett
- Madrona Venture Group Partner Chris Picardo
The Life Science Washington Institute (LSW Institute), an affiliate supporting entrepreneurs and startups, expanded its board as well:
- UW Co-Motion Assistant Director of Innovation Training Magali Eaton
- WRF Capital Managing Director Loretta Little
- WSU Director of Innovation and Private Sector Research Engagement Scott Maloney
- Absci founder and CEO Sean McClain
- Bioscience vet and consultant Katrina Rogers
- Phase Genomics COO Kayla Young
— Amazon Web Services vice president Raju Gulabani departed last month, as reported by The Information. Gulabani previously worked at Microsoft and Google. Other AWS execs including Charlie Bell and Teresa Carlson also departed over the past year. “After 12 years at AWS taking databases and analytics from a tiny startup to the biggest player in the cloud database space, I left Amazon last month. I am taking a break to focus on my personal passions,” Gulabani wrote on LinkedIn last week.
— Vizio CTO Bill Baxter retired at the end of 2021 after seven years with the consumer electronics company. The longtime Seattle tech executive served as CTO of BuddyTV and Cozi Group, spent more than a decade on the board of the Washington Technology Industry Association, and co-founded Bsquare.
— F5 appointed Microsoft Digital Transformation Group President James Phillips to its board of directors. His appointment expands the Seattle-based company’s board from ten to 11 members.
— PNNL Seattle Director Joseph Williams has been elected as vice chair of the Quantum for National Security Technical Advisory Committee, dedicated to growing the quantum industry in the U.S.
Williams will serve as vice chair in 2022 and chair of the committee in 2023. He joined PNNL in 2019 after serving as a tech policy advisor to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.
—Vancouver, B.C. legal tech startup Clio appointed Curt Sigfstead as its new CFO. He takes over from longtime CFO Rob Froment, who is retiring.
Sigfstead joins Clio from Toronto-based Clearco. He previously spent more than two decades at J.P. Morgan, most recently as head of West Coast technology investment banking. Sigfstead is based in San Francisco.
Clio closed its Series E funding round in April at a valuation of $1.6 billion. The 14-year old company doubled its executive team in November and is considering an eventual IPO, according to Bloomberg.
— Madrona Venture Group hired Amazon Web Services veteran Jon Turow as an investing partner.
Turow was most recently head of product for AWS’s computer vision service. Prior to AWS, he co-founded telecommunications startup knockknock and was a manager at Accenture.
— Seattle-based biotech NanoString announced former DiaSorin Molecular President John Gerace as its chief commercial officer. He will lead the company’s commercial team, taking over from NanoString SVP of Sales and Marketing Chad Brown, who is shifting into a part-time advisory role before retiring in 2023.
— Kole Krieger is now vice president of business development at Lumen Bioscience, a Seattle startup manufacturing proteins in algae. He was most recently VP of business development at Vancouver, Wash.-based Absci.
— Jen Haller joined pre-seed VC firm Ascend.vc as chief of staff, the Seattle fund’s first hire. Led by founding General Partner Kirby Winfield, Ascend.vc launched in 2019 and made more than 40 investments in the past two years.
Haller was most recently people operations manager at Attunely, an Ascend.vc portfolio company. She previously held operations roles at Urbanspoon and Axon. Haller was also the first to receive a shot in the first U.S. clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine; her experience was covered by GeekWire.
