— Andrea Chartock is now the head of Washington’s Office of Economic Development and Competitiveness, a division of the state Department of Commerce.

Chartock spent more than 21 years with international development company DAI, working on United States Agency for International Development (USAID) initiatives in countries including Liberia and Moldova. Her most recent efforts focused on economic growth in Ukraine before USAID was defunded this year.

Commerce Director Joe Nguyễn said that Chartock “has the experience and dedication needed to elevate our existing business community and foster growth in innovative ways.”

The department earlier this year scaled back a key economic development program amid the state budget crunch. The department currently manages more than $8 billion across 485 programs, Nguyễn said in April.

— Julie Brill, Microsoft’s former chief privacy officer, has joined the board of directors of the enterprise software company Ethyca.

“Ethyca’s approach puts privacy, security, and policy at the heart of enterprise data infrastructure. I’m excited to help guide the company as it works with global organizations to scale AI responsibly,” Brill said in a statement.

Brill left Microsoft in July after more than eight years. Her title included corporate vice president for Global Privacy, Safety, and Regulatory Affairs. Brill is also serving as an expert in residence at Harvard University. She previously shared plans to open a consultancy this fall.

— Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella named Rolf Harms, a corporate vice president at the tech giant, as an advisor on AI economics to work with the company’s top leaders. Business Insider obtained a November memo from Nadella to Microsoft executives announcing Harms’ expanded role.

Harms has been with Microsoft for nearly two decades and penned a foundational whitepaper in 2010 addressing the economics of cloud computing.

“We need to rapidly rethink the new economics of AI across the company — just as we once did with the cloud,” Nadella wrote, according to BI. “This platform shift is all about building a new AI factory and family of Copilots and agents that drive diffusion and usage across the full stack.”

— Seattle Reign FC and Seattle Sounders FC announced Sean Coury as chief financial officer. Coury joins the soccer clubs from Bezos Academy, where he served as CFO of the educational nonprofit launched by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He previously worked in financial roles at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Apptio, where he helped the Bellevue, Wash., company go public.

The Reign and the Sounders last month hired Ro Vega as chief marketing officer.

— Francois Ajenstat is leaving his position as chief product officer at the software company Amplitude. Ajenstat was previously CPO at Seattle’s Tableau Software, where he spent 13 years, followed by a brief run at Salesforce that ended in 2023. Earlier in his career, Ajenstat was with Microsoft for a decade, holding titles including technical evangelist, product manager and senor director of environmental sustainability.

— The University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design (IPD) has multiple leadership changes.

UW biochemistry professor Neil King is now IPD’s deputy director as Lance Stewart, former interim executive director, retires from the organization. King was previously an associate professor at IPD, and Nobel Laureate David Baker will stay in his role as director.

“When I joined the IPD in 2013, it was clear that helping to build the IPD would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to contribute and observe firsthand the development of a whole new industry based on computationally designed proteins,” Stewart said on LinkedIn.

The IPD made three additional hires:

• Jenny Cronin is now director of translational research, joining IPD from AI2 Incubator, a Seattle-based startup organization. Cronin is also a venture partner with Pack Ventures, a fund that backs startups with UW connections.
• Roseanne Hampton Reich is assistant director of administration. Her past roles include positions at lululemon, UW’s Division of Nephrology, Seattle Children’s and others.
• Justin English is director of strategic development, previously working as an assistant professor at the University of Utah. English holds a PhD in pharmacology. 

— Alex Pettit is returning to Oregon to serve as the state’s digital transformation projects director. Pettit has previously held top technology roles for Oregon, Texas and Oklahoma, and was most recently Colorado’s chief technology officer for nearly six years.

“This next chapter allows me to bring hard-won experience from the field and apply it to familiar soil. I’m honored to once again contribute to Oregon’s technology future — helping modernize legacy platforms, evolve our enterprise architecture, and prepare for the demands ahead,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

— Brian Bishop is CEO of Portland, Ore.-based Skip Technology, a startup building long-duration, grid-scale batteries. Bishop takes over for Brennan Gantner, who co-founded the hydrogen bromine battery company seven years ago.

Bishop has more than 30 years of engineering, manufacturing and management experience in a variety of electronics-focused businesses. He was previously with Salt Creek Capital, which acquires and recapitalizes small companies.

— Kelly Goetsch has taken a new title at e-commerce logistics startup Pipe17, moving from chief operating officer to president. The Seattle startup announced a $17.5 million Series A round earlier this year.

Goetsch has also helped lead the creation of the first open standard to unify how commerce systems communicate, including AI-powered selling channels and payments, logistics and fulfillment. The effort was overseen by the nonprofit Commerce Operations Foundation, which released the initial standard this week.

— Tom Mara, executive director of SIFF, has left the nonprofit following the decision not to renew his contract, the Seattle Times reported. Mara previously ran the popular Seattle radio station KEXP, then joined SIFF in 2022.

The following year Mara announced the organization’s purchase of the historic Cinerama, a movie theater previously owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen that ceased operations during the pandemic. The acquisition was celebrated by many, but the venue has struggled financially.

— Julie Van Ullen is now president and chief revenue officer for iSpot, a Bellevue, Wash., company that measures the impact of advertising campaigns on TV and video streaming. Van Ullen serves on the board of directors for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a trade group. She joins iSpot from Rakuten Rewards, a leading e-commerce loyalty company.

“Julie is a dynamic leader with a proven track record of building high-growth teams and fostering trusted relationships with customers across the media and advertising ecosystem,” iSpot founder and CEO Sean Muller said in a statement.

iSpot ranks No. 6 on the GeekWire 200, our list of the top privately held startups in the Pacific Northwest.

— MoxiWorks named Ashley Fidler as chief product officer of the Seattle-based real estate platform. Fidler joins the company from Pure Property Management and was a Microsoft program manager earlier in her career.

“Ashley brings an incredible depth of experience in building category-defining platforms that marry cutting-edge AI with real-world business impact,” said Michael Messig, MoxiWorks’ CTO, in a statement.

MoxiWorks last month appointed a new chief marketer, and in May sold its back-office accounting product in order to focus on sales and marketing.

— Seattle Sounders FC and Seattle Reign FC hired Ro Vega as chief marketing officer for the two soccer clubs. Vega has worked in brand management for nearly two decades, including positions with Beats by Dr. Dre and Nike, where he focused on soccer products in North America. He joins the Seattle teams from The Trade Desk, a digital advertising company.

— F5 CEO and President François Locoh-Donou is taking the additional role of chair of the board of directors in March 2026. The company shared the news in an SEC filing. Locoh-Donou is succeeding Alan Higginson, who disclosed in August that he is retiring after nearly 30 years as an F5 board member and 20 years as board chair.

— Trupanion, the longtime Seattle-based pet insurance provider, named Bradley Powell as a member of its board of directors. Powell was previously chief financial officer of the global logistics company Expeditors International of Washington. He was also CFO of Eden Bioscience, a publicly traded biotech company.

— Gurobi Optimization, a Beaverton, Ore.-based company offering mathematical problem solving technology, named Oliver Bastert as chief technology officer. Bastert, who will work remotely from Munich, Germany, joins the company from the analytics and credit-scoring company FICO where he was vice president of product management.

— Bill Platt, former leader of Amazon Web Services’ agentic AI division, joined San Francisco-based Alchemy as chief operating officer. Platt’s mandate is “to weave AI agents deeply into blockchain infrastructure,” according to the company. Platt was with AWS for nearly 12 years over two stints, most recently based in the Boston area.

— Seattle Metro Chamber named Mara Samudrala as director of communications and marketing for the region’s leading business association. Samudrala comes to the role from the Greater Phoenix Chamber.

— Halley Knigge has done a Seattle co-op swap. The former communications and inclusion lead for REI Co-op is now VP of communications at BECU, a financial cooperative. Her past experience includes a media leadership role at Alaska Airlines.

— Casium, a Seattle-based immigration tech startup, named Kaustubh (Kaust) Yadav as product designer. Yadav has experience in creative direction, copywriting and product design, working on campaigns for companies and brands including Amazon, AmEx, BMW, Citi and Pepsi.