— Dr. Johnathan Lancaster — an oncologist, cancer genomics expert and former exec at Regeneron — has joined Seattle-area health data company Truveta as its new president and chief scientific officer.
Lancaster, who spent the past six years at publicly traded biotech giant Regeneron, called his new job “the most meaningful leadership opportunity of my career.”
“It’s a chance to help shape what this team has built into an enduring company — one that can become the definitive intelligence platform at the intersection of science, health systems, and AI,” he wrote in a blog post.
Truveta reached unicorn status last year after raising $320 million. The company’s technology aggregates medical record data in order to reveal connections between treatments and health outcomes. It is led by CEO Terry Myerson, a former Microsoft executive vice president.
— Data protection and ransomware recovery company Veeam Software announced three leadership changes to its team. The Kirkland, Wash.-based company relocated its headquarters last year from Columbus, Ohio.
- Brandt Urban has been promoted to chief business development officer. Urban has been with Veeam for three years and previously served as senior vice president of worldwide cloud sales. Past roles include more than a decade with Microsoft where he focused on the business applications division.
- Tony Colon has taken the newly created role of chief customer officer. Colon has held customer-oriented leadership roles at companies including Cisco, Salesforce and ServiceNow.
- Michael Rau is now VP of worldwide partners. He joins Veeam from F5, where he worked more than a decade and most recently held multiple senior VP roles addressing technology alliances, cloud services and corporate development. Prior to F5 he was at Cisco.
— Fortive named Amee Desjourdy as chief people officer of the Everett, Wash.-based industrial giant. The company has 10 operating brands in healthcare and industrial safety and productivity.
Desjourdy joins from Hitachi and has worked for three decades in human resources. Other past employers include Brightcove, Quantrix and others.
CEO Olumide Soroye welcomed Desjourdy in a LinkedIn post, saying that “she combines her vast experience with fervent courage to innovate; she has been a pioneer in implementing real-world innovative HR solutions including AI-powered digital agents.”
— Mike Fridgen, a Seattle startup vet who previously led Madrona Venture Labs is working on a new AI consumer travel company. “If you’ve ever wanted to work on a product at the intersection of AI, design, and human experience — and travel means something to you too — I’d love to connect,” Fridgen wrote on LinkedIn.
Fridgen’s resume includes multiple travel-related stops, including at Expedia and Alaska Airlines. He was also an exec at Farecast, a Seattel travel startup acquired by Microsoft, and was CEO of Decide, a Seattle-based online shopping and comparison service that eBay acquired in 2013.
Fridgen was the managing director of Madrona Venture Labs, the startup studio associated with Madrona Venture Group, for more than nine years. Madrona Venture Labs closed last year. Fridgen then moved to pet care company Rover as chief operating officer. He remains a part-time Madrona venture partner.
— Art Litvinau is now chief product and technology officer of Heard, a Seattle-based startup that supports mental health professionals with financial software and services.
“Heard takes on the financial complexity of running therapy & wellness practices, freeing clinicians to focus on their clients. I’m excited to bring AI and automation for Heard workflows as we shape what’s next,” Litvinau said on LinkedIn.
Litvinau is a serial tech entrepreneur who most recently helped launch Foundations, a startup community hub. He also created Runner, a startup targeting real estate market workflow, and co-founded and was CTO of the data platform company Craft.co.
— Sharath Katipally is now head of enterprise AI at the employee training and development company Cornerstone OnDemand. Katipally, based in the Seattle area, joins the company from JPMorganChase and was previously head of data and sciences at Amazon, leaving the tech giant in 2021.
“Having spent years helping global organizations turn data into decisions and navigate large-scale change, I’ve seen firsthand that learning, skills, and talent readiness are often the primary constraints and yet the greatest accelerators of AI’s impact,” Katipally said on LinkedIn.
— Michael Frank has been promoted from VP to senior VP of engineering and design at McKinstry, a Seattle-based construction and energy services company that operates nationwide.
