Boston's business elite have been busy this past week. Catch up on who's going where below:
Update 2/14: Current President of MITX Debi Kleiman is stepping down from the position to head the Boston office of Havas Media North America, or Arnold Worldwide. Kleiman will take on the role of executive vice president at Havas after serving as MITX's leader for around three years where she managed the organization's 7,500-member marketing and tech sector association. MITX is currently on the look out for a direct hire for the role of President. See the job description here.
Techstars grad and automatic software deployment startup Codeship welcomed Sigma Prime Ventures investor John Simon to its board of directors. Sigma Prime is one the firms that participated in the company’s $2.6 million Series A round this week. Codeship plans to put the newfound funding towards bulking up its marketing and sales team in its Boston headquarters. The company will keep the majority of its engineering talent in the founders’ hometown of Vienna, Austria.
E-commerce giant Wayfair promoted James Savarese to COO this week. Prior to joining the top ranks of the company, Savarese served as senior vice president of operations at the firm, which we learned is well on its way to an IPO in the first half of 2014. Wayfair Co-founder and CEO Niraj Shah also told us that the company will roll out a new brand in the coming weeks, too, so keep your eyes peeled. Said Shah of Savarese’s promotion:
As COO, he will provide the operational vision and leadership to ensure that we remain at the forefront of our industry in delivering an exceptional ecommerce experience.
In the company’s release of fourth quarter financial data, Manchester, New Hampshire-based Dyn revealed it went on a major hiring spree in Q4 of 2013, bringing on 50 new employees.
Word got out this week that Burlington, Mass.-based VMTurbo will relocate its headquarters to the heart of Boston come this April. The company currently employs 80 from its Burlington offices, with an additional 51 working out of the firm’s New York City labs. The new space at 500 Boylston Street has plenty of room for the company to grow, which is exactly what VMTurbo plans on doing in the next year – the firm hopes to double its workforce, with a particular focus on hiring in sales and marketing, said a spokesperson.
All in all, we’re thrilled that Boston’s innovation community is playing its part in contributing to the 209,000 direct jobs created within Massachusetts’ tech sector.
