There weren't as many leadership shakeups in Boston tech in October as there were in September, but there were some notable ones, including the earlier-than-expected retirement GE Chairman Jeff Immelt and Zemcar's appointment of a former Obama administration official as its new CEO.
There were plenty of other personnel moves that happened last month, including Drift hiring an executive from HubSpot and edX naming a TripAdvisor executive as its president and COO. Other companies that made hires included Cybereason, Humatics and SessionM.
If you think I’m missing someone from the list, email me at dmartin@americaninno.com:
• 128 Technology hired Susan Graham Johnston as its president. She was formerly with the Linde Group, Oracle and Bain & Company.
• 55 Institutional Partners, an investment science and technology firm, appointed Dr. Leonid Kogan as its chief investment scientist. Kogan is the chair of the finance department at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
• Adjoint, a smart contracts startup based in Boston and London, hired Somil Goyal, a former associate partner at EY, as its COO.
• American Well hired former Samsung Health executive Harry Kim as its SVP of strategic partnerships. Prior to serving as Samsung Health's global business lead, he was in charge of HP's global health and life sciences strategy.
• Cengage hired Michael Pickrum as its EVP and CFO. Pickrum was most recently chief strategy officer at EverFi.
• Crimson Hexagon appointed three people to new C-level executive roles: Lou Jordano as CMO and SVP, Bud McGann as chief revenue officer and SVP of global sales and Dana Miller as chief customer officer, in addition to her current role of SVP of client services. Jordano was previously CMO at Attivio, and McGann was CRO at Tidemark Systems.
• Custora, a New York retail tech startup, added former Demandware CEO Tom Ebling to its board of directors.
• Cybereason hired Caroline Murphy as its director of partner marketing, according to her LinkedIn page. She was previously director of marketing at Intrepid Pursuits, which was acquired by Accenture this year.
• Definitive Healthcare hired Chris Nugent as its director of digital strategy. Previously, Nugent held marketing roles at Nuance Communications and Unitrends.
• DraftKings hired former CBS executive Ezra Kucharz for the newly created role of chief business officer. Kucharz, who was previously president of CBS Local Digital Media, will oversee business development, ad sales and corporate development.
• Drift hired Julie Hogan as its new VP of customer success and services. Most recently, Hogan was VP of customer success management and international services at HubSpot.
• EdX hired Adam Medros is the new president and COO. Previously, Medros was SVP of global product at TripAdvisor.
• GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt retired as chairman and left the board about three months ahead of schedule, The Boston Globe reported. He had been expected to step down at the end of the year. The new chairman is CEO John Flannery. The company also named Sue Siegel, CEO of GE Ventures, as its chief innovation officer for GE. In addition to her new role, Siegel will continue to lead GE Ventures. GE Transportation named Rafael Santana, president and CEO of GE Latin America, as its CEO, effective Nov. 1, according to Seeking Alpha. He will succeed Jamie Miller, who will become CFO of GE.
• HubSpot announced that Jill Ward is taking over the board seat from early HubSpot investor Larry Bohn of General Catalyst. Ward was most recently president and COO of Fleetmatics and had also served as an executive at Intuit and Fidelity.
• Humatics, which is working on ways to improve human-robot collaboration, made four leadership hires: Stephen Toebes as chief product officer, Michael Barbehenn as VP and principal software architect, Peter Secor as VP of product marketing, and Ray O’Mara as director of strategic programs. Toebes was previously SVP of product development and operations at Rethink Robotics, Barbehenn was previously at Amazon Robotics (Kiva Systems), Secor was previously at Statasys, and O'Mara was at Aurora Flight Sciences.
• Interactions, a Franklin-based provider of virtual assistant software, named Mark Quinlivan as its president. Most recently, Quinlivan was CEO and co-founder of Confer, which was acquired by Carbon Black last year.
• Kuebix, a freight intelligence software provider backed by Boston VC firm Pillar, made four leadership hires: Rich Forcier as CFO, Hetal Joshi as VP of worldwide services, Emanuel Kadziela as VP of engineering, and John McCammond as VP of business development. Forcier was previously CFO at DataXu, Joshi was previously at Cognizant, Kadziela was previously at Currensee and McCammond was previously at Fleetmatics.
• Kyruus hired John McLean as its CFO. Most recently, he held the same position at Best Doctors.
• LearnLaunch named Mark Miller as its new chairman, BBJ reported. Miller, who's taking over from Jean Hammond, is one of the edtech accelerator's co-founders.
• MassChallenge’s Director of Executive Affairs Ryan Walsh left the company to become HUBweek's director of special projects, according to his LinkedIn page.
• MOO, a London-based digital print and design company that has a Boston office, named Ed Goldfinger as its new CFO. Goldfinger was most recently CFO at Veracode, which was acquired by CA Technologies this year.
• nDash, a marketplace for hiring content creators, hired Applause vet Matt Solar as its VP of marketing and community.
• PatientPing hired Bradley Shaw, a Wayfair vet, as its director of engineering, according to his LinkedIn page. Shaw previously held the same role at Wayfair.
• Pepperlane, a Cambridge-based startup that we recently profiled, hired Kate Keough as COO starting in January. Most recently, Keough served as COO of Somerville-based Paint Nite.
• Piaggio Fast Forward hired Mitchell Weiss as CTO and Alexey Zaparovanny as a senior software engineer. Previously, Weiss was CTO at Seegrid Corp and Zaparovanny was at CyPhy Works.
• Salsify hired Steve McKenzie as its VP of sales. McKenzie previously held the same role at InsightSquared and served several senior and strategic roles at Mimecast before that.
• Sentenai, a data engineering automation platform, hired Kyle Seaman to work on products and partnerships. Seaman was previously director of farm technology at Freight Farms.
• SessionM, a marketing tech startup, hired Amelio Vázquez-Reina as VP of data science. He was most recently a principal data scientist and manager at DataXu.
• SyncThink, a startup that uses VR eye-tracking to test for concussions in athletes, added New Orleans Saints Tight End Coby Fleener to its athlete advisory board.
• The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship added Kit Hickey as a new entrepreneur-in-residence. While a student at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Hickey co-founded Ministry of Supply, a fashion and retail company that sells "performance professional" clothing.
• WEVO, a digital marketing and AI startup, hired Eli Daniel, a former executive at Spotify and Bridj, as its CTO.
• Zemcar, a rideshare startup that provides transportation options for families and their children, announced a few big leadership announcements. Juliette Kayyem, who served as a homeland security official in the Obama administration, became CEO, replacing founder Bilal Khan, who now serves as board chairman and head of product and technology. Shahid Azim, an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard, was hired as president and COO. The company also added Care.com co-founder Donna Levin and Google vet Laura DeBonis as advisors.
