We report on hiring announcements and executive departures in the Austin Inno Beat newsletter, along with insights on how these 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 top hires, promotions, departures and layoffs from Austin technology startups from June 2018.
Hypergiant, an AI startup that has offices in Austin, Dallas and Houston, is adding new talent to its team. C.K. Sample III, former chief product officer and CTO at YouEarnedIt, is joining Hypergiant as its chief technology officer in the Hypergiant Space Age Solutions Division. He’ll lead AI development across a broad array of projects for big name clients. Prior to YouEarnedIt, Sample was executive vice president of technology and development at Chaotic Moon Studios where Hypergiant’s co-founders, Ben Lamm, Will Womble and John Fremont all worked until shortly after Accenture acquired it.
Food+City, a nonprofit magazine and events startup focused on food supply chain innovations, announced Joy Nathan will be its first executive director. Nathan has led Joy’s Girls and held several positions at Shalom Austin, according to her LinkedIn page.
Rackspace, a San Antonio cloud services company, hired Mark Bunting as its new chief marketing officer. Bunting is former CEO of SkyTV.
3 Day Startup, an Austin nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs, announced Alexis Taylor has become its new CEO. She replaces Cam Houser, who is becoming founder and chief innovation officer following 8 years as CEO. Taylor joined 3 Day Startup in 2013 and launched its first program at Creighton University and leading expansion into Australia, Southern Africa and the Middle East.
Austin-based Vista Equity Partners, one of the world’s top software PE firms, appointed Read Simmons as president of Vista Consulting Group, where he’ll lead consulting, talent management and other acceleration for Vista’s 50-plus portfolio companies. Simmons was previously the director of Bain & Company‘s private equity practice.
FloSports, an Austin-based sports broadcasting and content startup, announced today it has hired Lindsey Ross as director of rights acquisition. Ross was most recently manager of programming and acquisitions at ESPN, and, prior to that, she was director of communications at the Atlantic Coast Conference. The move is a big deal for FloSports, which has sought to win marketshare from ESPN. Before hiring Ross, the company laid off an undisclosed number of employees, per the Media ATX Newsletter.
Convey, a cloud-based shipping platform, announced that it has added four key players to its team and has moved into a new headquarters in the historic Hannig Building downtown. The startup hired Kirsten Newbold-Knipp as its VP and CMO. She was most recently research VP at Gartner, and, before that, she has worked at Hubspot, Solarwinds and BigCommerce. Convey hired Michael Miller as VP of channels and alliances. Miller previously worked at Dell for more than a decade. Kellie O’Malley was hired as director of people operations and experience. O’Malley previously held senior HR roles at BlackLocus, Vast, Dell and Trilogy. John Lebowitz was added as a senior advisor. Lebowitz has held several roles at Stryker, as well as Dell.
Austin mobile education and certification startup Aceable has made four new hires. It added Eric Sifert as chief revenue officer and Ben Opps as VP of marketing. They both previously worked at A Place for Mom, a senior care company that was acquired last year. Aceable added Derrick Mar as VP of engineering and Emily Lawrence as VP of content. Mar was previously CIO at Travelport. Lawrence is the former SVP of content and production at Craftsy.
The University of Texas hired Chris Sedore as its VP and chief information officer. He starts Aug. 1 and will be in charge of the school’s IT efforts. He was previously president and CEO of the New York State Education and Research Network. Before that, he was CIO at Syracuse University. He will replace Mike Cunningham who has been interim CIO since Brad Englert retired last year.
Civitas Learning, the Austin-based education management platform, announced today that the company has hired Jenny Fuller as its vice president of people operations. She joins Civitas from HR and recruiting consulting company It’s All About Talent, where she served as President. As VP of people operations, Jenny will support employee development and boost the recruitment and retention of talent.
Firefly Aerospace, an Austin-based developer of orbital launch vehicles for the satellite market, announced today that it has hired Leslie Kovacs as its vice president of business development. Kovacs comes with nearly 30 years of space launch industry experience, having most recently served at United Launch Alliance as the director of executive branch affairs.
Tethr, an AI-powered platform for big businesses that gathers insights from audio calls, has added Matt Dixon as chief product and research officer and Dean Cruse as VP of marketing. Dixon was previously a senior partner and global head of sales force effectiveness solutions at Korn Ferry Hay Group. Cruse was previously VP of sales and marketing for Union Metrics.
E2Open, a supply chain software maker, named Jarett Janik as its CFO. He was previously CFO at Forterro, a resource planning software company. He has also been CFO at Allegro. E2open was acquired by Insight Venture Partners in 2015 for about $273 million.
Board Appointments
RVShare, a marketplace for renting RVs based in Austin and Akron, Ohio, announced it HomeAway co-founders Brian Sharples and Carl Shepherd, and the former chief marketing officer of Southwest Airlines, Kevin Krone, to its board of directors. The additions are somewhat of a natural fit given that RVShare’s CEO is Jon Gray, one of HomeAway’s earliest employees.
ALTR announced several members of its board of advisors. Those include Mike Maples, Sr., a former executive at IBM and Microsoft; Fred Burton, former deputy chief of counterterrorism at the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service; Michael Hermus, former CTO of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; John Swainson,former CEO at CA; and Scott Able, co-founder of Spiceworks.
Vytalyx, a blockchain-based health care platform, said it has added Asad Mahmood as a strategic advisor. Mahmood is an IBM engineer working on blockchain and Watson AI projects, as well as a cryptocurrency investor and advisor.
Tiff’s Treats, an Austin warm cookie delivery company, has used celebrity endorsements to sweeten its brand in the past, including an ad played during University of Texas football games staring celebrated Longhorns Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Ricky Williams. Now, Tiff’s Treats is expanding its celebrity reach by adding former tennis star Andy Roddick and model Brooklyn Decker as shareholders and brand ambassadors, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Terms of the deal with Roddick and Decker, who are married and live in Austin, were not disclosed. They’ll be attending events and doing other promotional activity with the company, including a SXSW event next March.
Hostway, an Austin-based hybrid multi-cloud hosting provider, announced it has hired Patrick Emerson as SVP of worldwide sales. He came from Austin-based Zenoss, where he was VP of sales and ran worldwide sales.
GoFish Cam, an Austin startup with a waterproof camera to capture fishing activity, added Andrew Eye to its advisory board. Eye is CEO of Closedloop.ai and is a GoFish Cam investor. GoFish Cam is raising new money through SeedInvest, the online crowdfunding platform that allows investment from accredited and non-accredited investors. Learn more about the company from our 2017 feature.
Eventus Systems, an Austin-base software company that helps banks and brokerages with regulations in capital markets, appointed three new people to its board. They are Kim Taylor, former president of clearing and post-trade services at CME Group; Fred Hatfield, former commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and D. Keith Ross Jr., executive chairman of PDQ Enterprises.
