We track key hiring announcements and departures in the Austin Inno Beat newsletter, along with insights on how personnel moves may impact a startup’s future. Sign up for the Beat to get it each day in your inbox.
Now, here are the most important hires, promotions, departures and layoffs from Austin technology startups from November 2017. If I missed someone, let me know by emailing bwistrom@americaninno.com.
Q2 Holdings, a fintech banking solution for community banks, announced it brought on former FIS executive Christine Petersen as its chief revenue officer.
Walter Robb, the former Co-CEO of Whole Foods, invested in HeatGenie, an Austin startup that makes self-heating containers for soup, coffee and other beverages, and was added to its board of directors.
NSS Labs, a cybersecurity company, hired Satendar Bhatia as its chief revenue officer. Before coming to NSS Labs, Satendar held senior positions at Zimperium and CA Technologies. The fast-growing company also hired Dina Bruzek as its senior vice president of products. She previously led Cisco's Network Threat Defense group.
Mark Holleran is no longer CEO at Xplore Technologies, the local rugged tablet company. The ABJ reports Holleran stepped down on Halloween and was replaced by Tom Wilkinson, the company’s former CFO. Holleran had only recently taken over as CEO when longtime CEO Phil Sassower stepped down. Holleran had been with the company since 2003. The company, which makes heavy duty tablets for use in the field, was founded in 1996 and went public in 2012.
Forcepoint, the Austin cybersecurity company, announced that Allan Alford will be its new chief information security officer. Allford is coming from San Antonio-based Pearson. Prior to that he was CISO at Polycom, where he worked since 2002, according to his LinkedIn page.
ModSquad, the California-based digital marketing company, hired Kristyn DeRaffele as its vice president of people operations in its new operations center in Austin. She previously worked with Stella and Dot, a fashion tech company, and spent 14 years as vice president of human resources at The Sak in San Francisco.
Chuck Harris, president of Netspend, is stepping down to become executive director of Texas Exes, UT’s alumni association, the ABJ reported. Harris has been president of Netspend since 2010.
Kasita appointed Martyn Hoffman as its new CEO. The move was made a few months back but wasn't widely reported. Kasita Founder and former CEO Jeff Wilson has shifted to chairman of the board, and he continues to actively pitch the company around the globe.
infinite io, which makes network-based storage controllers, added John Morris, former CEO of Cleversafe, to its board of directors as an independent director. Morris was most recently vice president and general manager of IBM’s Object Storage Division, which acquired Cleversafe.
Lithium Technologies, a digital customer experience company based in San Francisco with offices in Austin, has hired Raju Malhotra as its new CTO. He previously was at Conversant. Before that, he was a founding team member of Bing at Microsoft.
