While Covid-19 has altered hiring plans for many, the state’s top technology companies and startups continue to bring on personnel during the pandemic.
We track the major player personnel moves in our daily newsletter, the Beat. Below, we’ve listed the top Colorado technology and startup hires reported in April:
Boulder-based telecom giant Zayo is making moves on its executive team. Zayo announced key leadership appointments, including Andrés Irlando as president, Marty Snella as chief of operations, Brian Lillie as chief product and technology officer and Mike Mooney as chief legal officer.
A few weeks after it raised $100M, Denver's Velocity Global announced that Sarah Fern was named its new chief people officer. Fern will lead the people strategy for Velocity Global’s growing remote-first team of 300 in 16 countries that is expected to double over the next 18 months.
Denver's Voyager Space Holdings announced that Jim Bridenstine will join the company's advisory board as chairman. The former NASA administrator will join a group of industry experts as Voyager tries to create a vertically integrated, publicly traded space company.
B3 Insight, a Denver-based water data company, has hired David Hicks as its new executive VP of business development. Prior to B3, Hicks most recently as senior VP and partner at IHS Markit, leading the company's global upstream energy sector.
Aaron Clark, founder and CEO of Justice Reskill and Equity Solutions, has joined Colorado-based VC firm Matchstick Ventures as an advisor. Clark, a 2020 Inno on Fire blazer winner, has spearheaded Colorado's startup diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, leading the Colorado Coalition for BIPOC Support, a group of 14 white Colorado tech leaders who have committed to broaden access and improve equity in Colorado.
Denver aerospace unicorn Boom Supersonic announced that Barb Bidan has joined as the company's first chief people officer. Bidan has held senior HR leadership roles with several top technology and consumer brand names including Peloton, BlackBerry, Yahoo, Indeed.com and InVision.
The executive hires continue at promising Boulder quantum computing startup ColdQuanta. The company announced it appointed Paul Lipman to the position of chief commercial officer. Prior to ColdQuanta, Lipman served as CEO of BullGuard, an AI-enabled cybersecurity company that was acquired by NortonLifeLock. Lipman's appointment follows a series of recent executive hires including CFO Rushton McGarr and ex-Zayo CEO Dan Caruso, who was named executive chairman and interim CEO.
More than a year after its $165M acquisition, Denver technology education company Galvanize has brought on a new top executive. The company announced that it has appointed Ricky Hamilton as the new chief executive officer, as he takes over for former CEO Harsh Patel. Patel, who stepped into the role in April 2019, is “raising a newborn and advising and investing in space, fintech, education and healthcare companies I believe in,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to being named CEO, Hamilton served as executive VP of revenue operations and as chief of staff to Patel. And, before Galvanize, Hamilton worked at global management company McKinsey & Company.
Denver’s CereHealth, a data analytics technology company for the medical industry, announced the addition of James Chomas as the company's CEO. John Kelley, who has served as CereHealth's CEO since 2009, will transition to the role of executive director and continue serving as chair of the board. Prior to joining CereHealth, Chomas founded drug delivery company Surefire Medical in 2009 and led the company through commercialization while raising $55M in venture capital.
Denver's Red Canary, a provider of SaaS-based security operations solutions, announced the hires of two new executives to accelerate the company's global go-to-market operations. John Turner and Rick Caccia, both most recently with Google Cloud, will lead sales and marketing as chief revenue officer and chief marketing officer, respectively. These hires come two months after Red Canary raised an $81M Series C round.
Denver-based Social Venture Partners has welcomed Dave Koken back to the Mile High City as its director of partner engagement. Most recently, Koken has been securing micro-loans for entrepreneurs in the Asia-Pacific through kiva.org and is a co-founder of Lokal, an ecotourism venture. Additionally, Koken co-founded Denver clean energy accessibility company Rise Community Solar. SVP is a nonprofit that provides pro bono consulting and impact investing to other nonprofits and social ventures in the Denver area.
