Tech
Tech Moves: Microsoft Research gets a new leader; Amazon head joins AI startup; JPMorgan exec departing
Igor Tsyganskiy is now executive vice president of Microsoft Research (MSR) as past president Peter Lee steps aside to become president of Microsoft Science, which spans physical, biological and medical fields.
“My new role is designed to reduce my management responsibilities and let me spend as much of my time as possible on technical work,” Lee said on LinkedIn. That will include an initial focus on advances in “AI-enabled virtual patients, populations and labs, and their power to transform biomedical research.”
Lee, who took the helm of MSR in September 2022, was previously a computer science professor at Carnegie Melon University for more than two decades. He thanked Tsyganskiy for “taking on the big job of leading Microsoft Research — I have no doubt that he’ll take the MSR labs up to new heights.”
Tsyganskiy will also continue serving as the tech giant’s global chief information security officer, a role he has held since 2023. In his own LinkedIn post, Tsyganskiy emphasized MSR’s role at the forefront of computing, pointing to advances in AI, deep systems work and scientific discovery that have fed into Microsoft products and academic publications.
The commitment to foundational research is essential to Microsoft’s success, he said, adding “as the pace of innovation accelerates it is equally important to continue driving breakthrough research, and translate these advances into real-world impact.”
— Mamtha Banerjee is leaving her role as leader of JPMorgan Chase’s Seattle Tech Center. Banerjee, a longtime Seattle tech industry leader, joined the financial services giant in 2022 and took the leadership role last June.
The Seattle Tech Center was established in 2018 to tap into the region’s tech talent pool and by last year had grown to 380 people.
Banerjee was previously at Expedia Group for seven years and serves as a mentor for the University of Washington’s Master of Science in Entrepreneurship program.
— Vivian Sun is leaving her role as head of automated driving at Amazon after more than two years with the company.
Sun, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., is now vice president of commercial and strategy for robotics company Genesis AI, which is based in Palo Alto and Paris.
A veteran startup builder with roots in AI, robotics and autonomous driving, Sun was featured by Automotive News as one of the “100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry.”
— Truveta‘s hiring run continues. The Seattle-area health data company named Sapna Prasad as its new VP of research insights. Prasad, who is based in Washington, D.C., joins from Clarify Health Solutions where she held leadership roles for more than six years.
The company recently announced more than a dozen new hires and in January named Dr. Johnathan Lancaster as its president and chief scientific officer.
— Bluesky CEO Jay Graber announced Monday that she’s stepping down from her position and moving to a new role as chief innovation officer of the decentralized social network. Read more.
— Jessica Nguyen is now president, chief strategy and legal officer for Sandstone, a New York-based company using AI to support legal work.
Nguyen is based in the Seattle area and and was previously deputy general counsel for AI innovation and trust at DocuSign for nearly two years. Prior to that, she was chief legal officer at Seattle’s Lexion, which was acquired by DocuSign for $165 million in 2024.
Her Pacific Northwest roots include working as the first in-house attorney for Payscale and Avalara, and she had a nearly four-year run at Microsoft on the Office 365 legal team.
— Julie Keef, who recently left Seattle’s Redfin as VP of product, has shared her next role. Keef has moved to another company in the real estate space, taking the title of head of consumer product management for New York’s Compass.
“Since my days in NYC, I’ve been admiring Compass from afar. The agents, brand, and bold strategy have always impressed me,” Keef said on LinkedIn.
— Nick Boone is now global head of demand and marketing operations at Scala, a Bellevue-based AI startup founded by Smartsheet CEO Rajeev Singh and former Accolade executive Ardie Sameti. The company last month raised $8.5 million in a seed round.
Boon worked at Accolade for more than eight years, serving as senior director of demand center and marketing operations until the company was acquired by Transcarent last year. He remained with the merged businesses for a brief time.
Scala is building an “operational intelligence platform” for contact centers — the massive customer service operations that companies across healthcare, travel, and financial services rely on to handle millions of interactions.
— ProbablyMonsters expanded its executive leadership team with two new hires and a promotion. The video game company is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, and has an office in Bellevue, Wash., where founder and CEO Harold Ryan is based.
- Jonathan Lander was named chief publishing officer. He was previously at Bethesda Softworks and ZeniMax Online Studios.
- David Reid joins as chief marketing officer and will be located in Bellevue. Reid is a longtime gaming exec who was the founder of Seattle-area startup MetaArcade and more recently ran his own consultancy.
- Mark Subotnick, who is based in Portland, is now chief product officer after previously serving as head of studios and partnerships. He’s been with the company for more than three years.
— Biotech startup Nautilus appointed its first sales hire, naming Amber Faust as vice president of sales as it ramps up commercial operations. Faust, who will work remotely, joins the Seattle company after working at biotech businesses including Seer, Olink, SomaScan and others.
“I’m excited to help scale Nautilus’ commercial progress by connecting researchers in pursuit of greater proteomics coverage, detail, and resolution with a platform that can meaningfully expand what’s possible in drug development and beyond,” Faust said in a statement.
Nautilus has built a proteome analysis platform that allows researchers to identify and quantify the thousands of proteins present in biological samples.
— Absci, a Vancouver, Wash.-based company that uses AI to develop drugs, named Dr. Ransi Somaratne as chief medical officer, joining from Vertex Pharmaceuticals where he served as senior VP of clinical development. Past roles include leadership positions at BioMarin Pharmaceutical and Amgen.
Absci Chief Innovation Officer Andreas Busch is retiring March 31 and will continue to co-chair the company’s scientific advisory board.
— Theo Angelis was appointed to the Washington State Supreme Court. The K&L Gates partner has 25 years of legal experience and has worked extensively in intellectual property and with emerging companies. Angelis is a past president of the Middle Eastern Legal Association of Washington and will be the first Justice of Middle Eastern descent on the state Supreme Court.
— Matt Rubright is now CEO of Jam, a startup that addresses bugs in software development. He was previously chief customer officer for the 6-year-old company, joining last April. His past employers include DataGrail, Candidate and Silicon Valley Bank.
Rubright, based in Seattle, succeeds Dani Grant, whom he said is stepping away to recover from a health issue. Grant’s “vision, leadership and tenacity are undeniable,” he added.
— Suchitra (Suchi) Mohan is founder of a Sammamish, Wash.-based startup called learntheropes.ai, which she describes as an “AI-native learning app designed to help organizations empower their people with the right learning content, tailored to their learning style, skill-level and their goals, reducing the overwhelm employees feel with a new task.”
Mohan is a serial entrepreneur and worked as a technology architect for Microsoft for nearly a decade in its Bangalore offices. She was most recently co-founder of the AI startup Oikyu.
— Theo Michel joined Seattle’s Bayou Energy as senior product engineer. Earlier in his career, Michel was with Micrsoft’s Xbox Live for more than 17 years. The clean energy startup recently named Yoon Loong Wong (Andrew) as chief of staff.
— Brian Marrs was promoted to general manager of energy markets for Microsoft, previously serving in a senior director role. He has been with the company for nearly nine years.