Rachita Sundar, the former senior vice president of finance at HubSpot and senior finance director at Microsoft, has been appointed as the chief financial officer of Qualtrics. Sundar will be based in Seattle and believes that Qualtrics, as an experience management company, is at the forefront of technological shifts. Qualtrics, which helps companies collect and analyze data through surveys, went public in 2021 but became private again in 2022. Sundar’s appointment comes after the company laid off more than 1,000 employees in October 2023.
Kunal Anand, who previously served as the chief technology officer at F5, is now the chief innovation officer at the company. He will be leading F5’s product organization with expertise in cloud, security, networking, SaaS, and AI. Anand’s appointment comes after F5 reported fourth fiscal quarter earnings with revenue of $747 million and confirmed layoffs that impacted less than 2% of the workforce. Cooper Werner has also been named as the new CFO for F5.
Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s former chief marketing officer, has joined the board of directors for Lumen Technologies, a telecom company. Capossela brings over 30 years of experience at Microsoft to his new role and is excited about the potential of AI to drive business strategies. Lumen, led by CEO Kate Johnson, was formed through the merger of CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications and is now positioned as a key player in networking needs in the industry.
Former executives from sustainable trucking company First Mode have launched Sol Zero Group, a Seattle-based venture focused on supporting companies that solve important problems using systems thinking and human creativity. Sol Zero Group is led by Chris Voorhees and Rae Adams, with two other former First Mode leaders heading separate companies under the Sol Zero umbrella. Melanie Roberts, previously a senior advisor at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, has taken on the role of executive director at the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
Seattle’s Valant has hired Rick Katz as its chief financial officer. Valant provides electronic health records and billing services to behavioral health providers. Katz, with over 25 years of experience in finance and corporate development, will oversee corporate initiatives such as mergers, acquisitions, and investment opportunities. Additionally, Eric Ries, the author of “The Lean Startup” and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, has joined Graham & Walker, a Seattle-based firm investing in women-founded tech companies, as an advisor. Michael Olson, who has held leadership roles at Linktree, Twitch, LinkedIn, and Microsoft, is now the chief operating officer of Tala, a fintech startup based in Santa Monica, California. Olson will be responsible for overseeing global operations and will be based in Portland, Oregon.
