Microsoft quantum lead joins IonQ; The founder of Heptio is now CTO at Stacklok
— The former Microsoft quantum lead Jeff Henshaw you have joined IonQ as senior vice president of quantum compute products.
Henshaw said on LinkedIn that he has advised “a number of quantum companies, from early-stage to industry leaders,” and cited IonQ’s fast-growing plans and “functional engineering-based” business path as the Maryland-based company is pulling.
Henshaw spent most of his career at Microsoft, working there from 1989 to 2022 with a two-year hiatus in the mid-2000s to serve as CTO of music technology business DeepRockDrive. At Microsoft he started on Internet Explorer and Xbox programs before eventually leading the development of Microsoft’s Quantum Development Kit. Henshaw also owns the Seattle Seawolves rugby team.
– Joe Beda is now the CTO of Stacklocka Seattle startup that builds AI assistants, agents and models. Beda and Stacklok co-founder and CEO Craig McLuckie previously partnered to launch Heptio, a cloud tech company acquired by VMWare for $550 million in 2018.
After Beda’s acquisition, he served as a senior engineer at VMWare for more than three years and left the workforce in 2022.
Earlier in their careers, Beda and McLuckie worked together at Google where they helped create Kubernetes, an open container system that simplifies the way developers deploy software.
Beda shared his thoughts on joining Stacklok in a LinkedIn post, saying he was eager to connect AI “in a safe way, with the rest of our world.”
“It took me a long time to come out of ‘partial retirement,'” he added. I was recovering from burnout and learning how to slow down. But this was too good an opportunity for me to pass up.”
– Harshit Shah is now the CTO of LVT (LiveView Technologies). Shah was CTO of both Kyruus Health and mental health startup Spring Health and previously served as head of engineering at Amazon Web Services. He also brings over a decade of Microsoft experience, where he was the PM group manager for products including Bing Search SaaS services and Microsoft Edge.
“Harshit has already dived deeply into our mission, using his expertise in GenAI and machine learning to help LVT build the future of edge intelligence,” the Utah-based physical security company said on LinkedIn.
– Named Pacific Science Center Kevin Malgesini as the next CEO and president. He succeeds Will Ntombiwho is leaving after more than a decade leading a Seattle science education nonprofit.
Malgesini joins Seattle Children’s Theater, where she has worked for more than eight years and is currently executive director. He was previously director of development at Town Hall Seattle and led significant fundraising campaigns for both institutions.
“Kevin is the right person to carry our mission of rekindling curiosity and driving the love of discovery forward,” said Jembaa Mai, chairman of PacSci’s board of directors. Mai added that the board is “very grateful to Will Daugherty for the incredible foundation he has built.”
PacSci has been navigating major financial challenges, including student cutbacks during the Covid era and the long-delayed development and maintenance of facilities built for the 1962 World’s Fair. Under Daugherty’s leadership, the organization agreed to sell off some of its properties and sharpened its focus on experiential innovation.
Prior to leading PacSci, Daugherty held senior positions at Amazon, Expedia and AT&T. He was featured as a GeekWire Working Geek in 2019.
The leadership change will take place on June 1.
– Stefan Karischwho led AmazonThe Air Science & Tech organization as the executive director for the past five years, is leaving the company at the end of April. In a LinkedIn post, he called the role a “privilege” and credited his colleagues for making “all the difference.”
Karisch joined Amazon from Boeing, working in the Seattle area as a senior engineer for digital solutions and analytics for the global aerospace services division. He did not share his next move.
– John Doyleglobal CTO for healthcare and life sciences at Microsofthe has joined the board Helio Genomics. A California-based healthcare company is developing a blood-based tool for early cancer detection.
– Kevin Varadian he is now chief revenue officer avante. The Seattle-based software startup helps companies reduce the administrative workload of HR and provide employees with an AI assistant for benefits guidance.
“Making benefits sense requires real two-way communication and the ability to handle raw, unstructured benefits data,” Varadian said on LinkedIn. “Until recently, the basic technology didn’t exist.”
Varadian, based in New York City, was CRO at HiredScore until it was acquired by Workday in 2024, after which he became head of marketing for Workday’s HiredScore AI. He has also held leadership roles at LinkedIn, WeWork and CoachHub.
