Oct 23, 2020

Northwest Kidney Centers

Rivara

Northwest Kidney Centers named Dr. Matthew Rivara as the new medical director of its Broadway dialysis clinic in Seattle. Rivara is a board-certified physician at the Kidney and Hypertension clinics at Harborview Medical Center, a University of Washington assistant professor of nephrology, and an investigator at the Kidney Research Institute. Northwest Kidney Centers operates 20 dialysis clinics in King, Pierce, Snohomish and Clallam counties. It was founded in Seattle in 1962.

Liberty Bank

Connor

Liberty Bank, which recently changed its name from Liberty Bay Bank, named Forterra President and CEO Michelle Connor to its board of directors. Connor has served Forterra, a real estate nonprofit dedicated to securing and preserving land in the Pacific Northwest, for 25 years. She has participated in the International Women's Forum, Skagit Environmental Endowment Commission, USDA National Urban and Community Forest Advisory Council, and the Urban Land Institute. Liberty Bank is headquartered in Poulsbo, and has an office in Bellevue.

Banner Bank

Banner Bank president and CEO Mark Grescovich announced the creation of the Banner Bank Small Business Opportunity Fund to help address social and racial injustice by helping minority-owned small businesses affected by COVID-19. Launched with an initial $1.5 million investment, the fund will assist underserved businesses with annual revenues of $1 million or less that are owned by Black, Indigenous and people of color, as well as businesses located in economically disadvantaged rural and urban communities. Banner is partnering with three community development financial institutions by making a $500,000 investment each in Rural Community Assistance, Craft3 and Lendistry. These groups will identify and administer financial assistance in the form of low-cost loans, grants and credit enhancements, generally up to $10,000, to each qualifying business.

Oct 22, 2020

Coinme

Coinme, a Seattle cryptocurrency exchange company, announced three new hires to its executive leadership team. Joining the firm are Eddie Ponce as chief compliance officer, Nathan Rozendaal as vice president of product and Julie Ingle as vice president of marketing. Ponce has over two decades of experience in developing and implementing compliance programs, with previous roles at Emergent Technologies, MoneyGram International, Western Union and First Data. Rozendaal has more than 20 years of experience, previously serving as the director of product at Rosetta Stone and vice president of product at Napster. Ingle has over 15 years of experience in the fintech industry, most recently serving as vice president of marketing at Abra, a global cryptocurrency investing platform. In 2014 Coinme became the first state-licensed bitcoin ATM company in the United States. Its partnership with Coinstar allows customers to purchase bitcoin with cash at more than 4,700 locations.

Pacific Northwest Ballet

Pacific Northwest Ballet announced the receipt of a million-dollar gift from the Friday Foundation. With this gift —designated to the Pacific Northwest Ballet Foundation — PNB has created a new endowment, the Jane Lang Davis New Works Fund. Annual income from the invested fund will provide support for one new ballet each season, and PNB's New Works initiative, including workshops for emerging artists. PNB established the Pacific Northwest Ballet Foundation in 1998 to receive endowment gifts and bequests. The first dance artist to benefit from this gift will be choreographer Penny Saunders, whose debut work for PNB will be financed in part by the new fund, with additional support from Seattle dance philanthropist Glenn Kawasaki. The as-yet-untitled ballet will have its world premiere Nov. 12 during PNB's 2020-2021 digital season. Jane Lang Davis was instrumental in the formation of Pacific Northwest Ballet as a founding member of the organization.

Lewis & Clark Bank

Lewis & Clark Bank announced expansion into Washington state with a loan production office opening January 2021 in Vancouver. This is the fourth location for the bank and the first in Washington. Lewis & Clark Bank currently has Oregon branches in Astoria, Seaside, and Oregon City. The new office provides commercial lending services led by Dan Clark, senior vice president/regional manager, and Sharif Burdzik, vice president commercial relationship manager.

Accelalpha

Accelalpha, a Bellevue-based consulting firm, has been named by Fortune and Great Place to Work as one of the 2020 Best Small and Medium Workplaces. The rankings are based on confidential survey feedback representing more than 189,000 employees throughout the United States. Great Place to Work, a global people analytics and company culture research firm, evaluated more than 60 elements of employees' experience on the job. Accelalpha also earned the designation as a Great Place to Work-Certified Company in 2020.

Oct 21, 2020

ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo announced it has won three Comparably Awards for company culture excellence. In considering nearly 60,000 companies for its Best Places to Work Awards, Comparably ranked ZoomInfo in the top 25 on the 2020 Happiest Employees list for large companies. ZoomInfo was also named to the large company lists for Best Compensation and Best Perks & Benefits. A workplace culture and compensation monitoring site, Comparably evaluates companies based on ratings anonymously provided by employees about their workplace during a 12-month period.

Panopto

Seattle-based Panopto, a video management system provider for higher education, announced that all eight Ivy League schools are now using Panopto for secure video library management. Panopto enables universities to use secure video for all types of academic courses. Universities around the world use Panopto for flipped learning, traditional lecture capture, and Zoom class recordings. Panopto was founded by technology entrepreneurs and software experts at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science.