— Smartsheet’s leadership shakeup continues with the appointment of Stephanie Berner as its new chief customer officer. Berner comes to the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software giant from Atlassian, where she served as senior vice president. Berner has also held leadership roles in customer success at LinkedIn, Box and elsewhere.
Last week Smartsheet disclosed that long-time CEO Mark Mader is leaving his post while Sunny Gupta steps in as acting CEO. The company also recently named named Tony Giannino as director of security and compliance.
“[Berner’s] experience in the work management market, proven track record and deep understanding of the B2B SaaS customer journey will be key as we enter a new era of AI-driven innovation,” Gupta said in a statement.
— Gradial, a Seattle startup using AI agents to help marketing operations teams increase productivity, has added three new members to its senior leadership:
- Vikas Kamran joins as president. Kamran was founder and CEO of Revel for nearly 14 years. Infogain acquired Revel in 2020 and Kamran transitioned to chief digital officer for the company.
- Richard Rocca is vice president of sales and comes to the role from Adobe, where he worked for more than a decade.
- Chelsea Halliday is now head of marketing. Halliday has held marketing leadership roles for companies including Zillow Group, Vercel and MongoDB.
— Zeno Power, a Seattle startup developing nuclear-powered batteries, hired A.C. Charania as senior vice president of space business development. The company, which is co-located in Washington, D.C., announced $50 million of new funding in May.
Charania was most recently chief technologist at NASA and has 25 years of experience in aerospace innovation in the public and private sectors. At Zeno Power, Charania will lead the company’s pursuit of deals with NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial companies.
Charania was also with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, leaving the role of lunar campaign director.
— Longtime Seattle-area investor Brianna McDonald has joined the board of directors at the Angel Capital Association. This spring, McDonald became CEO of a new organization called Ecosystem Venture Group, which blends startup investment funds with services for entrepreneurs and investors.
— Phil Levin is stepping in as interim director of the University of Washington’s EarthLab, an institute that spans multiple colleges and departments. Levin is a conservation scientist, professor in the UW’s College of the Environment, and lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy of Washington.
“[T]he challenges we face are enormous. Climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental injustice — none of these have quick fixes. But I’ve never believed our job is to be optimistic. Our job is to be honest, brave, and imaginative,” Levin said in announcing his new role.
Levin succeeds Ben Packard, who served as the inaugural Harriet Bullitt Endowed executive director of EarthLab beginning in 2017. Packard had previous leadership roles at The Nature Conservancy and Starbucks.
— Lauren Olson, former director of fund management at the Seattle-based investment firm Breakwater Ventures, is now the fund operations manager at betaworks in New York. Betaworks this summer announced the close of a $66 million fund to invest in pre-seed and seed state startups. Olson previously worked for the SeaChange Fund and Madrona Venture Group.
— Will Daughterty, president and CEO of Seattle’s Pacific Science Center, joined the board of trustees for PCC Community Markets (PCC).
The long-time retail grocery cooperative has also hired Amy Chow as the co-op’s new chief financial officer. Chow was previously with the high-end kitchen and cookware store Sur La Table.
