Hootsuite founder returns as interim CEO; Scoutt adds CFO; the new role of the former CEO of Edifecs – GeekWire
– Ryan Holmes he earns again Hootsuitea Vancouver, BC-based social media management platform. Hootsuite’s focus will be “getting deeper into the businesses we serve, expanding what we can do with data and insights, and investing in AI to help our customers and ourselves move faster and work smarter,” Holmes said on LinkedIn.
Holmes founded Hootsuite in 2009 and served as CEO until 2020, when he transitioned to a board position. He is now the interim CEO, taking over Irina Novoselsky.
Novoselsky became CEO three years ago. In a LinkedIn post, he thanked his team and highlighted their accomplishments, including returning the company to profitability, building a new business sales engine, and acquiring Talkwalker.
– Scoutta Seattle-based startup that wants to reshape the way advertisers optimize their returns on ad campaigns, named Madhu Jagannathan as chief financial officer. The startup announced a $12 million Series A funding round in December.
Jagannathan has served as CFO of several startups, including WorkWhile, Lob, Inrix, ChefSteps and others. He was a manager of Microsoft’s finance group earlier in his career, working with the global services division and other divisions.
“I have been incredibly impressed with Madhu’s ability to grow organizations and manage enterprise-class finance teams,” said Eduardo Indacochea, CEO of Scoutt, adding that his vision “will be critical” to the company’s next phase of growth.
– Venkat Kavarthapu is the CEO of symplra Houston-based company that uses AI to improve hospital and health system operations. Kavarthapu joins from Cotiviti, where he served as senior VP. He was previously CEO of Bellevue, Wash.-based Edifecs, a health care payment company that Cotiviti acquired last year.
“After 25+ years in healthcare technology, I’ve seen many changes, but one thing that hasn’t kept pace: healthcare jobs are still too complex, and caregivers still carry too much responsibility,” Kavarthapu said on LinkedIn. Symplr, he added, uses AI to address these challenges.
– Seattle-based Liminary so called Kevin O’Donnell on the startup’s founding team as head of the growth division. He and Liminary founder and CEO Sarah Andrabi joined Dropbox, where O’Donnell served as VP of international growth.
O’Donnell founded Global10x, which provides go-to-market consulting and digital strategy for SaaS companies. His other previous roles include more than 15 years at Microsoft and VP of product at Nitro.
Liminary is building AI-native storage and memory technology that automatically remembers content from a variety of sources on demand. “I joined Liminary because Sarah and I believe that the next generation of AI must be robust and provide accurate, reliable information while maintaining a human perspective,” O’Donnell said in a statement.
– Seattle OrcasMajor League Cricket team, named after Sean Cary as CEO, effective April 20. Cary has 25 years of sports leadership experience including roles in cricket, tennis, Australian Rules Football and the sporting goods industry. Early in his career, Cary played cricket for Western Australia.
The Seattle Orcas began play in 2023. Its owners include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and current and former Microsoft executives and technology entrepreneurs Soma Somasegar, Sanjay Parthasarathy, Samir Bodas and Ashok Krishnamurthi.
– UserTestinga Bellevue, Wash.-based company that connects businesses with a global network of user experience research testers, called Ryan Roland as its chief financial officer. He joins UserTesting from healthcare technology company Overjet and has held CFO and CEO roles at several San Francisco Bay Area companies.
“There is a real opportunity to help organizations make better decisions by bringing a customer context into the way they build and operate,” Roland said in a statement.
UserTesting also named Neal Gottsacker as CTO earlier this month.
– A long-time communications leader Patrick Knorr has retired, relinquishing his most recent role as an executive at Amazing Business Solutions. Prior to Astound, Knorr was EVP of business solutions for Wave Broadband, a Kirkland, Wash., company that Astound acquired in 2018.
In a LinkedIn post chronicling his career, Knorr noted that during his time at Wave the company did more than a dozen things and with Astound the group became “a national commercial brand serving major markets coast to coast.”
– General Fusiona Vancouver, BC-based fusion company, named Wendy Kei on its board of directors. Kei is the chairman of the board of Ontario Power Generation, among other board positions.
