— After executive stints at Nordstrom, Starbucks, and Nike, Courtney Kissler is now the CTO and senior vice president of technology at Seattle online retailer Zulily.
Kissler was most recently VP of Nike Global Technology and helped lead the athletic giant’s inventory and fulfillment systems. She was VP of Retail Technology for 18 months at Starbucks, and previously spent 14 years at Nordstrom where she held various tech-related leadership positions.
Kissler will now oversee operations for another retail giant in Zulily, which was acquired by QVC parent Qurate in 2015. Zulily saw revenues rise 4% last year to $1.6 billion and nearly broke even after taking a $1 billion loss in 2019.
Tech industry vets Darrell Cavens and Mark Vadon launched Zulily in 2009 and found success with a daily deals site selling products for moms and kids. The company has expanded its product selection over the past few years, including items from larger national brands. But the focus on the mother remains.
“What we do differently and innovatively is serve a segment of the market that sometimes gets overlooked: Moms,” Kissler said.
Online retailers such as Amazon have seen a surge in activity amid the pandemic as more customers turn to e-commerce. Kissler said Zulily is focused on using its data more effectively for personalization and predictive analytics.
Jeff Yurcisin, a former Amazon executive and Shopbop CEO, took over as CEO in 2018 after Cavens stepped down from the role.
— Phil Bogle, a longtime Seattleite who spent 11 years at Google, is now director of engineering at Kalshi, a San Francisco startup that runs a regulated exchange for trading directly on the outcomes of future events. Kalshi raised a $30 million Series A round last month.
“I am tremendously impressed by the Kalshi team,” Bogle said in a statement. “My goal is to help Kalshi achieve its full potential by combining the agility and focus of a startup with battle-tested engineering practice.”
Bogle previously co-founded Jobster and was an early employee at iLike and Avogadro. He also spent a year at Code.org as director of software engineering.
— Kelly Breslin Wright, a former longtime exec at Tableau Software, joined the board of Gong, a Silicon Valley AI sales startup. Gong raised $200 million in August at a $2.2 billion valuation.
Wright spent 12 years at Tableau. She is also a board member at Fastly, Lucid, and Even, and was a previous board member at Amperity. She described Gong as the “worldwide leader in the Revenue Intelligence category.”
“Gong is positively changing the world of sales,” she said in a statement. “Given my lifelong passion for sales, I’m thrilled and honored to join the board and help drive innovation and scale through this next stage of growth.”
— Boston-based Valo Health has hired longtime Amazon leader Nish Lathia as its first chief product officer.
Valo, which raised $190 million in January, builds tech for the drug discovery and development process.
Lathia spent 18 years at Amazon, overseeing various Amazon businesses across its AWS and e-commerce arms. He will lead the startup’s product management and engineering, program management, and UX.
— Tony Mestres, a former Microsoft vice president who has been president and CEO of the Seattle Foundation for seven years, will leave the position in May to become president of Truveta, the health data startup led by former Microsoft Windows chief Terry Myerson as CEO. Read more.
— Seattle-area identification security startup Auth0 hired Jameeka Green Aaron as its new chief information security officer.
Green Aaron is a veteran of Nike, Hurley, Lockheed Martin, and the U.S. Navy. She is based in Irvine, Calif.
“Her unmatched security expertise and dedication is an inspiration and invaluable asset to Auth0,” Auth0 CEO Eugenio Pace said in a statement.
Auth0 raised $120 million in July. The company is one of 10 unicorn startups valued at $1 billion or more based in the Seattle region.
— Seth Schiesel has joined Xbox as director of executive communications. Schiesel previously wrote for The New York Times and was a contributing editor at Protocol.
— Seval Oz, a self-driving tech leader who founded Aurima and was a former exec at Waymo, has joined the board of Redmond, Wash.-based company MicroVision.
“I am excited to bring my expertise and experience in autonomous vehicle technology and mobility to the company as it develops its automotive lidar technology and explores strategic alternatives,” Oz said in a statement.
MicroVision board member Bernee Strom stepped down from the board as part of the transition. MicroVision, which develops sensing and projection display tech, has seen shares surge over the past six months.
— Seattle-area startup Tectonic Audio Labs added Susan Cashen to its board. Cashen is a board director at T3 Micro and was previously senior vice president of marketing at Control4.
— Former Expedia Senior Director of Product Rick Eames joined Mobilize.net as chief product officer. Eames was previously SVP of user experience and design at GoDaddy and was a longtime manager at Microsoft.
Bellevue, Wash.-base Mobilize, lead by former Microsoft Corporate Vice President Tom Button, offers products that migrate legacy source code to web platforms and cloud providers such as Snowflake and Microsoft.
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Source: https://www.geekwire.com/2021/tech-moves-zulily-hires-nike-exec-new-cto-google-vet-phil-bogle-joins-kalshi-auth0-adds-ciso/
