— Carey Schwaber Armstrong, the former Zillow exec who co-founded real estate startup Tomo four years ago, has stepped down from the company.
“Leaving your startup doesn’t feel like something you should do. Especially when things are going well — and at Tomo, they really are,” Armstrong wrote in a LinkedIn post about her departure. “And yet, sometimes, it’s exactly what you should do.”
Armstrong said she’ll remain a board director of Tomo.
She helped launch Tomo in 2020 with Greg Schwartz, another former Zillow exec who remains CEO.
Tomo’s initial focus was on a tech-fueled mortgage and transaction platform targeted at both real estate agents and consumers. It recently expanded into home search. The company raised $40 million at a $640 million valuation in 2022 but laid off staff later that year amid a rocky real estate market.
— Michel Feaster, who co-founded and led Usermind for eight years before its acquisition to Qualtrics in 2021, joined San Francisco-based contract management startup Ironclad as chief product officer.
Seattle-based Usermind helped companies acquire, retain, and service customers. Experience management software giant Qualtrics bought the startup in 2021.
Feaster remained at Qualtrics until this past September. She previously held exec roles at Apptio, HP Software, and Mercury Interactive.
Feaster co-founded the startup eight years ago with Przemek Pardyak, who left the company in 2016 and is now a senior engineering manager at Google. Feaster previously worked at Apptio and HP Software.
Ironclad raised a $150 million Series E funding round in 2022.
— Tanuja Korlepra, a former Amazon and Microsoft product management leader who was most recently CTO at USAFacts, joined social impact software company Bonterra as its chief technology officer.
“I am truly motivated and inspired by Bonterra’s team, board, and stakeholders, and their commitment to driving meaningful change at scale, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be a part of this team,” Korlepra wrote on LinkedIn.
Korlepra spent two years at USAFacts, the Bellevue, Wash.-based nonpartisan civic data initiative founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
— Jeana Jorgensen returned to Microsoft as a corporate vice president within the company’s Worldwide Learning unit.
Jorgensen previously spent 19 years at the Redmond tech giant in various leadership roles. She joined Google in 2020 as a senior director for Google Cloud, and left the company in July 2023.
“Getting to work in Microsoft Learning right now, during this AI wave…really?! I’m all in,” Jorgensen wrote on LinkedIn.
— Seattle cybersecurity startup Oleria recently brought on three execs:
- Aaron Kornblum as head of legal. Kornblum previously worked at Microsoft for 14 years and was general counsel at Bungie.
- Didier Vandenbroeck as vice president of security and IT. Vandenbroeck was most recently a senior director at Salesforce and also worked at VMWare and Microsoft.
- Norv Leong as head of product marketing. Leong worked at StrongDM, NextLabs, and Actiance.
Former Salesforce leaders Jim Alkove and Jagadeesh Kunda founded Oleria two years ago. The company raised a $33.1 million Series A round in January.
— Shelby Walker joined Vancouver, Wash.-based biotech company Absci as chief legal officer. She previously was a senior vice president at Korro Bio; senior vice president of intellectual property for CRISPR Therapeutics; and general counsel for Ginkgo Bioworks.
Absci went public in 2021. The company reported a net loss of $22 million for its most recent quarter.
— Jeff Jones joined Seattle-based device management startup Esper as vice president of sales and partnerships. Jones previously worked for Xebia, Wyre, and Amazon Web Services. He also spent two decades at Microsoft.
— Blake Salazar joined Amazon Web Services to lead public relations efforts for telco and energy industries. He previously spent more than 13 years at AT&T.
— Ben Famous joined REI as director of external communications. He previously was a managing director at FGS Global and led communications efforts for Cava and Sweetgreen.
— Onur Bakiner was named director of the Seattle University Technology Ethics Initiative. Bakiner has been an associate professor at the school since 2020.
