The Washington Technology Industry Association, a nonprofit trade group, on Tuesday named Microsoft manager Kristen Forecki as its new board chair.
Forecki has already been on the board for five years, according to her LinkedIn page. She is replacing serial entrepreneur Dave Cotter, who will become chair emeritus for WTIA.
"I'm proud to be part of the team," Forecki said in a news release. "WTIA has become a benchmark for technology trade associations across the U.S. and Canada."
Forecki is senior director of experiences and devices strategy at Microsoft. She has worked at Microsoft for almost three years, according to her LinkedIn page. Forecki spent close to six years at Convoy before Microsoft. Before Convoy, she spent more than two years at Rover.
Related coverage
Cotter, meanwhile, advises founders, CEOs and venture capitalists through his firm D3 Advisors. Before that, he spent more than three years as chief product officer at Leafly. Previous companies he founded include MessageYes, a text messaging platform for e-commerce; SquareHub, a family-centered social media platform; and AdXpose, an advertising tech startup. Other stops in his career include Amazon, Microsoft and RealNetworks, according to his LinkedIn page.
WTIA was founded in 1984. It offers an apprenticeship program called Apprenti, and it does advocacy work for the tech industry. WTIA also has a for-profit arm called Portalus that offers medical, 401(k), insurance and consulting services to smaller tech companies. Forecki said in the release Portalus is expanding to serve trade associations across the country.
WTIA counts Microsoft, Amazon and Google among its more than 1,000 member organizations. It laid off 11 employees in January of last year, mostly in the Apprenti business unit.
