Seattle-based pay equity startup Syndio has announced a significant expansion of its leadership team with seven new executive
appointments. According to CEO Maria Colacurcio, the company’s current growth trajectory demands both innovation and speed, and these new leaders bring demonstrated expertise in transforming innovative enterprise solutions into market-leading brands.
Multiple new executives come from BetterUp, a professional coaching and training platform. Erik Darby joins as president, bringing experience from co-founding Motive Software, a Bay Area startup that utilized AI to analyze employee and customer experience before BetterUp acquired it in 2021. Devin Luquist assumes the role of senior vice president of product, bringing technology and leadership expertise from various companies including BetterUp.
The leadership expansion continues with Erin McClintock as SVP of marketing, who arrives from Workhuman after previously working at BetterUp. Elizabeth Temples joins as SVP of revenue from the revenue platform Clari, also with BetterUp experience. Shonna Waters, an organizational psychologist and Georgetown University adjunct professor, takes the position of SVP of executive engagement and insights, coming from BetterUp as well.
Manuj Bahl joins as VP and head of architecture from Talent.com, with prior experience at several Seattle-area technology companies including Microsoft, OfferUp, Apptivate.IO, and RealNetworks. Meredith Conroy completes the new executive roster as VP of account management, joining from Clari.
In other personnel news, Rajeev Rajan has joined Stripe as business lead for the payment company’s Revenue and Financial Automation division, where he’ll manage product and engineering. Expressing his admiration for Stripe’s engineering excellence and developer experience focus, Rajan brings extensive experience from a 22-year career at Microsoft, where he started as a software design engineer in 1994 and eventually became corporate VP for Office 365. He
subsequently served as VP of engineering at Meta, leading the Pacific Northwest engineering hub, and most recently worked as chief technology officer at Atlassian before departing last month during company layoffs.
Nick Cecil has been elevated to chief technology officer at avante, a Seattle startup offering software that reduces HR administrative burden and provides employees with an AI-powered benefits assistant. CEO Rohan D’Souza highlighted Cecil’s unique combination of customer obsession and technical expertise. Cecil joined avante in 2023 as founding head of engineering, bringing leadership experience from Salesforce, Tableau Software, and Yapta.
Hélène Bouffard has departed Amazon after more than 17 years, most recently serving as HR director for the company’s Artificial General Intelligence division. Describing her time there as “the privilege of a lifetime,” Bouffard has now become chief people officer at Circana, a Chicago-based market research and data analytics firm, where she’ll work on aligning employee jobs and skills with the company’s AI-driven initiatives.
Chris Atkins has resigned from Amazon after 15 years, departing from his position as director of Worldwide Operations Sustainability. In this role, Atkins worked to align Amazon’s fulfillment and
transportation operations with climate objectives. Calling his Amazon tenure “truly transformative,” Atkins noted his journey from night shift frontline manager on the ship dock to leading operations sustainability for the world’s largest logistics organization. Before Amazon, he served as an operations manager in the U.S. Army following his West Point graduation. He plans to announce his next position after taking several weeks off.
Jake Oster, Amazon director of energy, environment and sustainability policy, has resigned after nearly a decade with the company. Joining in 2017, Oster’s tenure included leading policy for AWS while based in Belgium. Prior to Amazon, he worked at Seattle’s EnergySavvy, a startup helping utilities manage customer relationships that was acquired in 2019.
Carol MacKinlay has been appointed chief people officer for Tanium, a Kirkland, Washington-based cybersecurity company. Based in Carmel, California, MacKinlay joins from Pebl after a two-year stint, bringing over 20 years of experience in human resources leadership roles at companies including Binance, UserTesting, and Matterport.
Eric Emans now serves as chief financial officer for Insurity, a Connecticut startup providing software for insurance carriers and brokers. Emans arrives from Bellevue, Washington-based workflow automation company Nintex, where he served as CFO for four years, with previous CFO positions at Lighthouse and A Place for Mom.
Paper Crane Factory, a Seattle creative branding agency exclusively serving startups, has named Stephanie Rogers as head of communications and public relations. Rogers will oversee the agency’s new East Coast expansion and operations, joining from DataRobot with over 15 years of communications and PR experience.
Barbara Schmid is departing Starbucks after nearly 22 years, leaving her role as Global Coffee and Cocoa Sustainability program manager. In her departure announcement, she expressed particular gratitude to coffee and cocoa producers, calling them the reason behind her work.