— Longtime Microsoft leader Eric Boyd announced today that he has joined Anthropic to lead its infrastructure team.
“I’ve been privileged to have a front row seat to the explosion of LLMs, and the team at Anthropic is truly special,” Boyd said on LinkedIn. “The combination of the absolute leading models with a culture that is committed to their mission is inspiring and I can’t wait to lean in to help.”
Boyd left Microsoft after nearly 17 years, GeekWire reported last week. He originally joined the Redmond, Wash., company as a manager leading BingAds development, then became president of the AI Platform in 2015. A few years later, CEO Satya Nadella tapped him to lead the Azure AI team.
— Nathan Peterson is stepping down as CEO of Tagboard, a Redmond, Wash., company that helps sports, news, entertainment and other brands produce live broadcasts. Peterson joined Tagboard in 2017 as senior vice president of revenue and partnerships, ascending the ranks until becoming CEO four years ago. He succeeded founder Josh Decker.
The company called out Peterson’s accomplishments in a LinkedIn post: “Over more than a decade, he built a product category, grew a team of people who care deeply about the craft of live production and forged relationships across sports, news, and entertainment that put Tagboard on the biggest screens in the world.”
Peterson shared his own thoughts on LinkedIn, writing: “Many came and went as we built, added, subtracted, reflected, fought & grinded our asses off to meet the multiple shifts that the media industry has tossed everyone’s way.” He did not indicate his next move, saying he was taking the opportunity “to pursue a lifelong dream.”
— Marty Roberts will take over as Tagboard‘s CEO, having previously served as the startup’s chief operating officer since 2024. He previously co-founded and led Wicket Labs, a Seattle-area startup that provided audience data to online video providers and was acquired in 2022.
“[Roberts] has founded. He has scaled. He has led teams through the hard work of turning a product vision into a lasting business. That experience is now fully focused on Tagboard and the clients we serve,” the company said on LinkedIn.
— Ryan Desjardins was promoted to vice president of technology at Expedia Group. Dejardins has been with the Seattle travel company for more than 13 years and is based in Austin.
“I’m thankful for my amazing teams who I get to work with every day – your hard work, creativity, and dedication to our travelers make this possible,” Desjardins said on LinkedIn.
Expedia earlier this year highlighted its efforts to build more AI capabilities directly into its products and said it was working to ensure its brands appear prominently in generative AI searches and function effectively with agentic browsers.
— Ian Vensel is now general manager for 9Zero Seattle, a hub supporting Pacific Northwest climate tech entrepreneurs. Vensel was previously with Empire Strategists for more than eight years, leaving the role of business development manager.
—Walid Abu-Hadba is now CEO of Precisely, a data management company in Burlington, Mass. Earlier in his career, Abu-Hadba spent more than 21 years at Microsoft, leaving in 2013 as corporate VP, where he led the company’s developer business across sales, technical evangelism and marketing.
— Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network named Jeremy Hurd as its new executive director, effective April 20. Hurd succeeds Mike Webb, who is retiring from the Kent, Wash., organization. The network is an emergency radio system used for 911 dispatches and other communications by fire departments, law enforcement agencies, emergency medical services and other public service agencies.
Hurd previously served as senior communications and remote sensing manager at Marine Spill Response Corporation, where he had a 21-year tenure.
