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Cynthia Tee, CTO for Smartsheet. (Smartsheet Photo)
Cynthia Tee is now chief technology officer for Smartsheet. Tee was previously senior vice president of engineering at the Bellevue, Wash., company for nearly three years.
Tee worked at Microsoft for nearly 20 years, leaving as a partner group program manager with Windows in 2014. Her other roles include leadership positions at Nordstrom and Ada Developers Academy.
In January, the enterprise software giant again became a privately held company, completing its $8.4 billion acquisition by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners.
“A core focus of mine is designing trust and security into our platforms so customers can have confidence in Smartsheet,” Tee said of her new role.
Drew Laxton, CFO for Outreach. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Outreach announced Drew Laxton as its new chief financial officer, succeeding Melissa Fisher in the role. The move marks Laxton’s return to the Seattle company, where he was previously senior vice president of finance and analytics. Between the two roles he served as CFO at Extensiv.
Outreach, which helps companies streamline and automate their sales processes, has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs, most recently cutting 9% of its workforce in November. Last month the company added two leaders to its C-suite: Chief Revenue Officer Nadia Rashid and Chief Marketing Officer Holly Simmons.
William Cavanaugh, CEO of Concord Technologies. (LinkedIn Photo)
— William Cavanaugh is now CEO of Seattle’s Concord Technologies. He is taking the helm from Concord founder Chris Moore, who was CEO for more than 29 years and becomes chair of the company’s board of directors.
Cavanaugh became Concord’s president in September 2022.
Concord provides secure document exchange and processing for customers in highly regulated businesses such as healthcare.
— EdgeRunner welcomed Jay Yonamine as chief product officer. Yonamine is a co-founder of Gene Pool Technologies and was a product manager at Google in New York.
Jay Yonamine, chief product officer for EdgeRunner. (LinkedIn Photo)
Seattle startup EdgeRunner provides military and enterprise clients with technology that allows AI models to run on local devices. It came out of stealth in July and announced a $5.5 million seed funding round led by Four Rivers Group with participation from Madrona and others.
Tyler Xuan Saltsman, co-founder and CEO of EdgeRunner, was formerly at Stability and Amazon Web Services and served in the U.S. Army.
— Smarsh, a Portland, Ore., company that helps customers manage their business communications to identify regulatory and reputational risks, appointed David Brolsma as CFO. Brolsma came to Smarsh after a brief role at Zimperium. He was previously with WP Engine for more than nine years.
Recent hires for Seattle’s Gradial, from left: Lisa Hillmann, Cara Olson and Jason Michaels. (Gradial Photo)
— Gradial, a Seattle startup using generative AI to help marketing operations teams increase productivity, named three new hires:
Lisa Hillmann, who comes from Kaiser Permanente, as head of customer success.
Cara Olson, a past growth officer at Merkle, as a senior account executive.
Jason Michaels, former managing director at Accenture Song, as Gradial’s head of partnerships.
In February 2024 the company disclosed a $5.4 million seed round led by Madrona Venture Group. The startup is led by former managers from SpaceX and Microsoft.
— Aurion Biotech, which is working to cure blindness, named Donald Munoz as CFO. Munoz comes to the role from the oncology biotech company NuCana where he served as CFO for nine years.
Aurion filed for an IPO in January and is moving forward with those plans amid a pending lawsuit from an existing investor.
Last summer the company announced that it received special designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that should expedite development of its treatment for a common cornea disease. Aurion has offices in Seattle; Cambridge, Mass.; and Tokyo.
— Sanjeev Khanna is chief operating officer for Caddis Cloud Solutions, a Texas-based advisory firm in data center development and cloud capacity sourcing. Khanna, who will be based in Seattle, previously worked for Oracle, Microsoft and Intel.
— Will Daugherty, president and CEO of the nonprofit Pacific Science Center, joined the Technology Industry Alliance board of directors.
— K&L Gates welcomed Samuel Breeze as a partner in its intellectual property practice. He joins the global law firm’s Seattle office. Breeze was previously with Lee & Hayes and has focused on the protection of the industrial design of electronic devices, graphical user interfaces, sports equipment, apparel and related patents.
— The Washington Research Foundation named Frank Yin as investment associate. The foundation is a technology transfer and grant-making organization supporting universities and other institutions in the state.
