While the national attention seems focused on the big-name tech moves from coastal hubs to places like Austin and Miami, the North Texas tech and startup scene saw its fair share of personnel moves before closing out the year.
And though unemployment numbers and tech job openings have fluctuated over the months, a report from LinkedIn shows DFW has been a hub for workers looking to relocate, with 1.35 people moving into the region for every person that moved out between April and October. This month continued that growth trend, with nearly 20 new hires in the local scene, many of with are in executive or other leadership roles.
However, despite vaccines for COVID-19 beginning to hit the region, the pandemic still weighs on the region, causing a number of layoffs.
To help keep up with who is coming and going from the Metroplex, we’ve rounded up the top hires and departures in North Texas from December.
Pro tip: You can read daily updates on hirings, departures, funding, M&A and VC activity in our newsletter The Beat.
Hirings
Former senior VP of corporate development at Plano-based NTT DATA Services John McCabe has joined San Antonio tech giant Rackspace Technology as its new chief relationship officer. His move to the company follows Zarina Lam Stanford's c-suite hire as its new chief communications and marketing officer in September.
Anthony Naglieri, chief of staff and head of communications at Fort Worth-based maker of germ-freezing waste bins Petal, has been named a director for the Maryland Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. While Petal relocated to DFW earlier this year, Naglieri is still based on the East Coast.
Texas-based AI software and services startup Hypergiant announced it added former Wipro CEO Abidali Neemuchwala to its executive advisory board. He joins other advisors, including Bill Nye, Lance W. Lord, Sangeeta Mudnal and Tom Meredith. In addition to serving on Hypergiant's advisory board, Neemuchwala also serves on the boards of Virtusa, the Texas Economic Development Corporation and the World Affairs Council of DFW.
Garland-based Weathermatic, a smart landscaping and water-conservation tech provider, announced promoting Lex Mason as its new president. He joined the company in 2015, most recently serving as executive VP of U.S. sales. Lex Mason takes over the position from his father, Mike Mason.
Irving-based InfoLob, an Oracle solutions partner, announced hiring Brent Seaman as its new cloud practice leader. In addition to his role at InfoLob, Seaman also serves as the president of business consulting firm Frontline Logic. He has also previously served as VP of cloud solutions at Mythics and VP of marketing and product innovation at TEAM Informatics.
FC Dallas has tapped Alan “AlanAvi” Avila to represent the eMLS esports competition team, The Dallas Morning News reports. Avila also serves as a content creator for Frisco-based Complexity Gaming. Avila previously held the FC Dallas eMLS position in 2018 and 2019. He takes over for Ihab “i9ibbs” Abualneel, who represented FC Dallas for the 2020 season.
Ruben Martin, the owner and CEO of Plano-based VTOL unmanned aircraft systems Martin UAV, has been re-elected chairman of nonprofit Mercy Ships International’s board of directors. Martin has served as director of the nonprofit, which focuses on providing health care services in underdeveloped countries, for the past 10 years. He has served as chairman since 2018. In addition to his role at Mercy Ships and Martin UAV, Martin also serves as the CEO of Martin Midstream GP and general partner at Martin Midstream Partners and Martin Resource Management Corporation.
Argyle-based BPS Oil & Gas, a division of chemical solutions-focused holding company BPS Technology, has hired Daniel Rey as its new president. Before his new role, Rey served as senior VP of downstream operations for Nalco Champion. At BPS Oil & Gas, Rey will oversee growth initiatives for its supramolecular host chemistry NRGMax.
Rick Haddock has joined the board of the Collin County Business Alliance. In addition to his membership on the board, Haddock also serves as the VP of network management at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas.
Karen Katz has been elected as the newest chair of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science’s board of directors for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Katz takes over for former chair Mac McFarland, who has held the last two years. Katz is best known locally as the former CEO of the Neiman Marcus Group.
Leadership Fort Worth, a leadership development nonprofit, named Jennifer Treviño as its new executive director. In addition to her work with Leadership Fort Worth, Treviño also serves as the chief development officer for Girls Inc. of Tarrant County. She is also a former Fort Worth City Council candidate and former chief of staff at the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth. Treviño takes over the executive director role from Harriet Harral, who retired from the organization in June.
With more in venture capital looking to make the ecosystem more diverse and equitable, Dallas early-stage VC firm RevTech Ventures is teaming up with local consulting firm Equity At Work to launch a new fund aimed at women-led startups retail space, aptly called the RevTech Equity for Women Fund. The size of the fund was not disclosed. Heading the fund is Rachel West, director of business development at RevTech and one of NTX Inno’s 2020 25 Under 25, David Matthews, managing director at RevTech, and Michelle Bogan, Equity At Work founder and CEO.
Argyle-based BPS Technology, a holding company that has recently launched agriculture-focused startups Farm Shield and PureAcre, announced expanding its senior management team with the appointment of Baron Lukas as its new president and hiring Cindy Peters as its new VP of operations. Lukas joined BPS in 2019, serving as its chief governance officer. Peters joins the company from her previous role as an executive recruiter for Sanford Rose Associates.
Dallas-based Berkshire Biomedical, a virtual care- and prescription management-focused digital health company, announced naming Dr. Geoffrey Ling to its corporate advisory board. In addition to serving as co-leader of The BrainHealth Project at UT Dallas’ Center for Brain Health, Ling also serves as the CEO of On Demand Pharmaceuticals. He also previously served as the founding director for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Biological Technologies Office.
Raj Iyer, an innovator with North Texas ties, has been selected as the new chief information officer for information technology reform for the Office of the Secretary of the Army, where he will oversee policies and programs related to IT, data management, cybersecurity and cloud management, among other things. Before beginning his work with the Army, Iyer served as a systems engineer intern at Hurst-based FlightSafety International and as a research associate for UT Arlington’s Automation and Robotics Research Institute while working on his Ph.D. in electrical engineering there. He also previously served as the CTO and VP of product development for Arlington-based Imagecom.
Seeing its business grow amid the pandemic, Irving-based FelixHealthcare.ai, a company using AI and machine learning to help optimize health care organizations, announced naming Gourav Thakkar as its new director of data science. Thakkar most recently served as an enterprise architect at startup Evive Health.
Dallas-based research and experiential technology company Beacon Technologies, a subsidiary of Mass Luminosity created in 2020, has hired Julie Fenton as its new senior VP of brand experience. She most recently served as a marketing consultant for AMC Networks. In her new role, which she will perform from Rhode Island, Fenton will oversee the 2021 launch of Beacon Technologies’ first product, a video conferencing platform aptly named Beacon. The service will offer encrypted chats, along with features like 3D audio.
Layoffs
While Halliburton isn’t necessarily a tech company, it does employ a number of tech workers locally. And this month, the company announced layoffs at its Halliburton Energy Services Inc. facility in Carrollton. The hundreds of permanent layoffs will include workers in its technology, business development, finance, HR, and product service lines. This past year, Halliburton has laid off about 5K employees, much of that related to the pandemic.
Tom Thumbs and Albertsons stores across North Texas are moving their e-commerce operations to third-party providers, in a move that will cut 97 driver jobs in the region. According to The Dallas Morning News, the permanent layoffs will begin in February. There’s no word yet on which providers the stores will use. However, both are shoppable on Instacart already. Laid-off workers will have the option to apply for other positions in stores and distribution centers, and shopping for e-commerce at the stores will still be done in-house. The announcement comes as the company saw its online sales jump 243 percent in the quarter ending in September.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, The Esports Observer reports that the Esports Stadium Arlington has laid off all but two employees. In addition, stadium president Jonathon Oudthone stated he was leaving on Twitter. While declining to give details, Oudthone wrote, “Just know that the Stadium’s voice moving forward is not the voice of the people who sacrificed blood, sweat and tears building it."
