Apr 13, 2021

Tech Moves: Ex-Amazon leader Jeff Wilke joins Scale AI as advisor to CEO; Skilljar and Auth0 hire execs; T-Mobile board shuffle April 13, 2021 at 12:35 pm Share Tech Moves covers notable hires, promotions and personnel changes in the Pacific NW tech community. Submissions: tips@geekwire.com Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, at the 2017 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong) — Jeff Wilke , the former CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, has joined Scale AI as advisor to the CEO. Founded in 2016, the San Francisco startup helps companies develop and manage their AI and machine learning systems. Customers include Toyota, Samsung, the DoD, PayPal, and Etsy. It announced Wilke’s new role along with a $325 million Series E investment round co-led by Dragoneer, Greenoaks Capital, and Tiger Global. Wilke retired earlier this year after more than two decades at the Seattle tech giant. He led its consumer business through a period of unprecedented growth — stretching well beyond its origins in e-commerce and books to become a universal shopping destination. Wilke was long considered a leading candidate to succeed Jeff Bezos as CEO; Amazon Web Services chief Andy Jassy will replace Bezos later this year. Wilke is an active angel investor in startups such as Pacaso; Fernish; Dolly; SparkToro; Convoy; and others. Skilljar VP of Marketing Michael Freeman (left) and CRO Kathy Lord. (Skilljar Photos) — Seattle startup Skilljar hired Michael Freeman as vice president of marketing and Kathy Lord as chief revenue officer. Freeman, based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., was previously CMO at Certent and was a marketing exec at Workday, Adaptive Insights, and Highfive. Lord, based in San Francisco, was a longtime exec at Sage Intacct and is a limited partner at Operator Collective. B Skilljar raised a $33 million round in October. The startup provides the back-end technology and software that lets companies build cloud-based training and onboarding programs for both their own employees and for end users. It has more than 300 customers, including Smartsheet, Tableau, Cisco, Zendesk, and others. Its business has accelerated due to the pandemic and the shift to online learning Lucy McGrath. (Auth0 Photo) — Seattle-area identification startup Auth0 hired its first vice president of privacy: Lucy McGrath , an international data privacy lawyer. McGrath, based in London, previously worked at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Promontory Financial Group, NBCUniversal, and Salesforce. She will lead the global data privacy programs for Auth0, which recently announced a $6.5 billion pending acquisition to Okta. — T-Mobile nominated finance exec Bavan Holloway to its board. Holloway was previously vice president of corporate audit for Boeing and a partner at KPMG. She is currently on the board of TPI Composites and YWCA Seattle/King/Snohomish. Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile also said Lawrence Guffey will not seek re-election and that Stephen Kappes resigned from the board effective April 6. Message from the Underwriter TalentReach is one of Seattle’s top recruiting firms, specializing in engineering and sales recruitment for tech companies. Our team has unmatched industry experience and is a pioneer of Recruiting-as-a-Service. We invest in relationships with both candidates and employers to build better teams. Talent is your company’s most valuable asset. Invest in the best. Learn more here.