The City of Seattle has welcomed Lisa Qian into a newly created position as its inaugural AI Officer. This leadership role has been established to help Seattle leverage artificial intelligence’s transformative capabilities while maintaining the city’s ethical standards and commitment to responsible technology deployment, according to the Seattle Information Technology Department’s LinkedIn announcement.
Seattle aims to position itself as a major player in the AI sector, highlighting contributions from tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, alongside emerging startups and smaller enterprises, as well as the University of Washington. The city launched “AI House” in March, a pioneering initiative that represents the first municipal hub in the nation designed to connect entrepreneurs, investors, students and community members to advance AI development.
Qian brings extensive experience in data science leadership to her new role. Most recently, she held a senior manager position in data science at LinkedIn. Her professional background also includes leadership roles at Convoy, a Seattle-based logistics company, and Airbnb. As a Seattle resident, Qian expressed enthusiasm about bringing her expertise in building responsible data science and AI systems to work that directly serves the local community.
In other significant personnel news, Microsoft has brought aboard Julia Beizer, a veteran media executive, to work on its AI news initiatives. Beizer currently serves as chief operating officer at Bloomberg Media and will transition to Microsoft where she’ll report to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, according to reports from Adweek.
At Microsoft, Beizer will focus on products such as Copilot Daily, the company’s AI-powered news summary service, and the Publisher Content Marketplace, which compensates publishers for content utilized by AI systems. This development comes against the backdrop of ongoing legal challenges, including a lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft two years ago, alleging unauthorized use of copyrighted content for AI training purposes.
During her eight-year tenure at Bloomberg, Beizer played a crucial role in driving subscriber growth through her focus on marketing strategies, user experience optimization and customer insight development. Before joining Bloomberg, she held positions at HuffPost and spent more than ten years at The Washington Post.
Seattle-based DexCare has announced Rakshay Jain as its new chief product officer. The company’s software platform assists healthcare providers in managing system capacity and scheduling patient appointments. DexCare originated from Providence healthcare network’s digital innovation division before becoming an independent entity in 2021.
Jain cited DexCare’s approach as a key factor in his decision to join the company, noting that the team focuses on connecting existing systems rather than replacing them, while creating navigational intelligence to guide patient access to care across multiple entry points. Prior to this appointment, Jain worked at Innovaccer, a Bay Area healthcare data management software company. He will work remotely from California in his new position.
After nearly nine years as a managing partner at Point72 Ventures, Sri Chandrasekar is taking a career break. The Bellevue, Washington-based executive appears to have stepped down from board positions at four startups spread across the United States and London, while maintaining his involvement with two others. Chandrasekar expressed gratitude to his team and portfolio companies on LinkedIn, noting that working with portfolio companies made the demanding schedule worthwhile. Before his tenure at Point72, he served as senior vice president at In-Q-Tel in Menlo Park, California.
Brian Fleming is departing from Sucker Punch, the Bellevue-based game studio he co-founded 28 years ago. Fleming announced his intention to “shake up the snow-globe” and will remain with the company, which is part of PlayStation Studios, through April to facilitate the leadership transition. Jason Connell and Adrian Bentley will assume the roles of co-studio heads effective January 1.