— Rebecca Lovell was named chief working officer of Better Seattle Companions, a public-private sector initiative that seeks to draw funding, corporations and high quality jobs within the Seattle space.
Lovell was beforehand CEO of Denali Founder Consulting and government director of Create33, a useful resource heart and membership group for expertise startups. She additionally spent practically 5 years on the Metropolis of Seattle’s Workplace of Financial Growth, and was government director of the Northwest Entrepreneur Community and Startup’s chief enterprise officer.
Lovell begins the job March 20.
“Her confirmed skill in guiding and implementing organizational methods throughout enterprise, authorities and civic sectors will additional advance our area’s financial improvement efforts to construct a extra resilient and inclusive financial system,” Better Seattle Companions CEO Brian Surratt stated in a press release.
— Microsoft appointed Sandra (Sandi) Peterson, working accomplice at funding agency Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, as lead impartial director. Peterson succeeds John Thompson, who has served as lead impartial director or board chair since 2012.
Peterson has served on the Microsoft board of administrators since 2015. She was beforehand was group worldwide chair at Johnson & Johnson and chairman and CEO of Bayer Crop Science.
The Microsoft board additionally reelected CEO Satya Nadella as chairman.
— Mike Rea will step down as government director of E8 Angels, which invests in clear tech corporations.
Rea will develop into chief working officer of a brand new Seattle-based enterprise launching quickly known as Daylight Advisors, an expert improvement platform for wealth advisors and others who help the philanthropy and social affect of their shoppers.
Rea served E8 for 4 years and was beforehand a program officer on the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis and president and CEO of Tourism Cares, a non-profit that helps sustainable tourism and volunteer applications. E8, which invested virtually $9 million in 2022 in early-stage startups, is in search of a brand new government director. Rea steps down on the finish of April.
— Karn Manhas stepped down as CEO of Terramera, a Vancouver, B.C.-based agriculture firm that he based in 2010. Nate Kelly is now CEO of Terramera and its soil well being subsidiary Miraterra.
Kelly was beforehand common supervisor at Seattle-based pc and electronics manufacturing firm Glowforge and was CEO of Adero, a startup in the identical sector. He’s additionally a veteran of Fb, Sonos, Tesla Motors, HP, Sony Ericsson and Microsoft.
Presently ranked No. 72 on the Startup 200, our listing of prime Pacific Northwest startups, Terramera markets alternate options to artificial pesticides. Manhas stays with the corporate as government chair.
— Jimmie Lee, a Seattle-based expertise vet who beforehand led safety groups at Microsoft and Meta, joined San Francisco go-to-market startup XFactor.io as chief expertise officer. The corporate raised a $10 million pre-seed spherical in December led by Lightspeed Enterprise Companions. Lee additionally beforehand labored at Boeing.