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Michael Sherman, SVP of Zillow Rentals, and Cynthia Taylor, Zillow VP of agent software and advertising. (Zillow Photos)
— Seattle’s Zillow Group promoted two leaders to senior vice president positions.
Michael Sherman is now SVP of Zillow Rentals. Sherman joined Zillow in 2012 and has led the real estate platform’s rental unit since 2017.
Earlier this month, Zillow shared that it will become the exclusive provider of multifamily rental listings on Redfin and its owned rental sites, Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com. The company is paying Redfin $100 million to secure the exclusive agreement.
“The rental market is a significant and growing opportunity for Zillow. More than three times as many households moved into a new rental than purchased a home in 2024,” the company said in announcing Sherman’s promotion.
Cynthia Taylor has taken the title of SVP of agent software and advertising. Taylor has been with the company for more than a decade. She previously led Zillow’s product and business operations within its industry and agent-facing areas.
— Ali Dasdan, chief technology officer of ZoomInfo Technologies, is resigning from his role at the publicly traded company to “pursue a new opportunity,” according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Dasdan expects to leave ZoomInfo next month. He joined the Vancouver, Wash., software development company in 2023. He was previously at Atlassian.
— Aziz Benmalek, a long-time leader at Microsoft, is now CEO and board director of Aeris, a Chicago company facilitating device connectivity via cellular networks. Benmalek left Microsoft in 2018 after 22 years at the Redmond, Wash., tech giant. His title was vice president of worldwide cloud services and hosting. He more recently held leadership roles at ConnectWise, Sage and Splunk.
Keith Kirk, left, Swiftly CFO and Anthony Viglietti, Swiftly COO. (LinkedIn Photos)
— Swiftly, a grocery retail tech startup based in Seattle, welcomed two new hires to its C-suite.
Keith Kirk is now Swiftly’s chief financial officer. Kirk was previously at Instacart, and other past employers include Postmates, OpenTable, Sitecore and others.
Anthony Viglietti joins as chief operating officer. Past roles for Viglietti include serving as president of theSkimm, and jobs at Univision Communications, Viacom and elsewhere.
In 2022, Swiftly raised $100 million in funding, tipping it into unicorn status with a valuation above $1 billion.
Eric Dresselhuys, left, past CEO of ESS, and Kelly Goodman, ESS vice president of legal and interim CEO. (ESS Photos)
— Eric Dresselhuys has resigned as CEO and member of the board of directors for the Oregon battery company ESS. He led the long-duration energy storage company for four years.
Kelly Goodman, current vice president of legal, is serving as interim CEO and will be supported by company CFO Tony Rabb and Ben Heng, EVP of engineering.
“I am deeply honored to have served ESS the past several years, am proud of what we accomplished and the team we have built and remain confident that ESS can further extend its leadership in the LDES industry,” Dresselhuys said in a statement.
ESS launched in 2011 and went public in 2020. Its stock price rose to nearly $300/share in 2021 but is now trading at around $5/share.
Steve Mullin, president of Washington Roundtable. (LinkedIn Photo)
— After nearly three decades at Washington Roundtable, Steve Mullin is leaving the role of president later this year. The nonprofit organization collaborates with the state’s business leaders to advocate for public policy.
“Under [Mullin’s] leadership, the Roundtable has championed major infrastructure investments, sustainable state fiscal policies, and initiatives to significantly improve education outcomes for Washington students,” the organization said in announcing his upcoming departure.
Mullin previously worked in staff and consulting roles for elected leaders including U.S. senators Dan Evans and Slade Gorton and Gov. John Spellman.
The Roundtable is working with a global executive search firm to find a successor.
Julie Sandler, managing director at Pioneer Square Labs, will serve as chair of Washington Roundtable this year.
Erika Shaffer, senior director of communications at Terray Therapeutics. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Erika Shaffer will be senior director of strategic communications for Terray Therapeutics beginning in March. For more than 12 years Shaffer was director of strategic communications for Madrona Venture Group, Washington’s largest venture capital firm. California-based Terray, a biotech company developing small molecule therapeutics, is one of Madrona’s portfolio companies.
“It is hard leave my beloved colleagues,” Shaffer wrote on LinkedIn. “But throughout the last five years, as Madrona has ramped up it’s work in AI+Biology, I have felt an incredible calling to do more in that area.”
Shaffer will remain in Seattle.
Harshitha Amit, founder of HA Arts. (LinkedIn Photo)
— Engineering leader Harshitha Amit launched a Seattle-area startup called HA Arts.
“HA Arts is pioneering its role in fine art — not as a replacement for human creativity but as a tool to enhance accessibility, personalization, and artistic collaboration,” Amit told GeekWire. “We believe this represents a new evolution in commissioned artwork, where AI assists in storytelling while human artists preserve the soul of the craft.”
Amit was previously head of engineering for the digital payment platform Stripe for close to three years. She earlier spent 12 years at Microsoft where she most recently worked on machine learning efforts within Azure.
— Health insurance provider Regence announced the expansion of three sales leadership roles in Washington and Oregon.
Stacy Crim is now vice president of the Washington market. Crim was previously VP of small business in the state. The new role adds leadership of account management.
Stephanie Walker, who has served as VP of key accounts in Washington, is now VP for the state’s Health Care Authority (HCA) and public sector. The new title includes oversight of all public-sector accounts.
Tracy Olsen, director of new sales in Oregon, has added sales in Washington to his role. Olsen has been with Regence for more than 12 years.
— SingleFile Technologies welcomed Mindy Lauck as chief product officer. Lauck has held multiple CEO roles and is founder of sparkleblue, which provides strategic guidance for startups. Singlefile, which launched six years ago out of Pioneer Square Labs, shared news this week that it raised $9 million.
— Trovares, a startup analyzing data in a graph format, has rebranded as Rocketgraph and announced Brock Alston as its new CEO. Alston is based in Redwood City, Calif., and comes to the role from Alpha Consulting Services.
The company launched in Seattle in 2015 and was led by Jim Rottsolk, who is now board chairman. Rottsolk was the former CEO at Cray, the Seattle supercomputer company acquired by Hewlett Packard in 2019.
— Oregon Entrepreneurs Network announced Yalda Moshiri as program director of Angel Oregon, which works with early-stage entrepreneurs across the state. Moshiri was co-founder and CEO of SaF, a personal concierge startup based in Portland that helped people avoid the wait for tables at popular venues.
