Aug 11, 2021

Miller Nash

Miller Nash has hired Don Scaramastra as a parter in its Seattle office. Scaramastra joins the litigation team, helping clients obtain insurance recoveries for large losses, address complex contract disputes, resolve disagreements over business acquisitions and manage antitrust claims. Most recently, he has assisted a number of businesses who faced losses and disruptions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Scaramastra is recognized for his pro bono practice, defending constitutional rights issues for underrepresented communities. Scaramastra received his bachelor's degree from the University of California Irvine before earning his law degree at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Miller Nash is an industry-focused law firm with offices in Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska

Alaska Wind Farm

Emerson, a global technology and engineering company, announced the completion of a digital transformation project to increase the reliability of clean energy generation at Golden Valley Electric Association's (GVEA) Eva Creek wind farm. As the largest electric utility serving northern Alaska, GVEA and its Eva Creek wind farm supply reliable, low-cost electricity to customers, while reducing fossil fuel usage. Emerson's sustainable grid solutions have increased the reliability of GVEA's wind turbines, contributing to a 65% reduction in operations and maintenance costs. Emerson is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

Statsig

Kirkland-based Statsig announced the general availability of the Statsig platform. Statsig also announced $10.4 million in Series A funding led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Madrona Venture Group and several individual investors including Aparna Chennapragada (CPO at Robinhood), Calvin French-Owen (co-founder of Segment), Dylan Field (CEO & co-founder at Figma), Fidji Simo (ex-Facebook and CEO at Instacart), Gokul Rajaram (product leader at DoorDash), Hadi Partovi (CEO and founder at Code.org), Jay Parikh (ex-VP at Facebook and co-CEO at Lacework), and Sriram Krishnan (ex-Twitter and General Partner at a16z). Founded in February 2021, the Statsig platform enables product developers to run rapid, high-quality product experiments and analyze how their users are responding to new features and functionality the same way product teams at Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb and Uber do today. Statsig's experiment analytics and decision-making tools such as Pulse, Experiments+, and AutoTune allow product teams to run hundreds of experiments every week and evaluate how their products are performing every day.

Aug 10, 2021

PAWS

Nguyen

PAWS has chosen Phil Nguyen as the new chief financial officer of the Lynnwood-based organization. Nguyen has 20 years of financial leadership experience including non-profits, biotechnology R&D, and information technology entities. She recently served as the CFO for Cardea, a national, women of color-led organization. At Cardea, Nguyen built infrastructure and established internal controls to deliver reliable financial information and led the strategic development and management of all accounting, financial and IT functions. Prior to Cardea, Nguyen served as the director of finance for Flying House Productions, Seattle Men's Chorus and Seattle Women's Chorus, where she developed seven-year financial performance and trends analysis. Prior to that, Nguyen was the owner of KPN Consulting Services.

Seattle-King County First Citizen

Danielson

Benjamin Danielson M.D., a pediatric physician and community volunteer, has been selected as the 2021 recipient of the Seattle-King County First Citizen Award. He is the former medical director of the Odessa Brown Children's Clinic. In announcing this year's recipient, event co-chair Cindy Silverstein said Danielson's extraordinary commitment to the health and well-being of children and families, especially low-income people of color, his leadership on social justice, and his lifelong commitment to community service made him an especially worthy honoree this year when healthcare and a national reckoning with racism are paramount. Danielson will be honored at a civic celebration presented by Seattle King County Realtors in partnership with John L. Scott Real Estate and Windermere Real Estate. The event is Oct. 28 at the Seattle Art Museum. Since 1939, the First Citizen Award has celebrated community leadership, volunteerism and public service.

Nautilus

Nautilus has hired Alan Chan as chief legal officer. Chan will lead all aspects of Nautilus' global legal strategy, including corporate governance and compliance, mergers and acquisitions, and intellectual property. The company also announced the appointment of Sarah Jones, formerly corporate controller, to principal accounting officer. Most recently, Chan was vice president of legal affairs and assistant corporate secretary for Arrow Electronics. Jones, who joined Nautilus in 2013, will be responsible for the quarterly report to the audit committee and play a larger role in overall risk management for the company in addition to her current responsibilities overseeing accounting, financial shared services, credit and collections, SEC reporting, stock management, and internal control. Nautilus is a global leader in digitally connected home fitness solutions, and is headquartered in Vancouver.

Aug 06, 2021

Banzai

Seattle-based Banzai promoted Ashley Levesque to vice president of marketing. When Banzai acquired webinar company Demio, it also added Levesque, who was Demio's director of marketing. After a few months, Banzai elevated Levesque to her new role. At Demio, Levesque started as an executive assistant, rising to senior executive. Banzai is a SaaS provider of engagement marketing solutions for virtual, in-person and hybrid events.

Windstar Cruises

Windstar Cruises hired Stijn Creupelandt, a 20-year veteran of the luxury cruise industry, as the small ship cruise line's vice president of hotel operations and product development. Creupelandt will be based in the company's new Miami headquarters and will work with newly promoted vice president of marine and technical operations Paul Barrett to manage all of the operations aboard Windstar's fleet of six yachts. Windstar announced earlier this year that the company will be moving its office from Seattle to Miami in June 2022, with some corporate positions moving to Denver and others operating remotely from the Seattle area. Creupelandt was most recently director of hotel services at Seabourn Cruise Line.

Hiya

Hiya announced Sarah Franklin, president and CMO at Salesforce, has joined its board of directors. Prior to becoming president and CMO, Franklin was executive vice president and general manager of Platform and AppExchange, where she led Salesforce's developer initiatives with a focus on democratizing technology. In her 13 years at Salesforce, Franklin has helped launch Trailhead, Salesforce's gamified online learning platform. Hiya also added Aaron Martin as chief financial officer and Bill McAleer as a board advisor. Martin brings experience in strategic growth, financial planning and analysis, and investor relations with several leading technology companies, including Yapta, which was acquired by Coupa Software in 2019. McAleer is managing director at Voyager Capital and brings a long track record of advising and investing in high growth startups. Hiya's Voice Performance Platform connects businesses with their customers, helps carriers secure their networks, and protects people from spam and fraud calls.

Hotel Andra

Curator Hotel & Resort Collection announced Hotel Andra, a luxury boutique property in downtown Seattle, has joined its collection of members. Hotel Andra is the second non-founding member hotel to join the collection following Inn at the Market, which joined in May. Hotel Andra's introduction to Curator coincides with its upcoming reopening following the completion of renovations, including replacement of all furnishings, HVAC systems and a modernization of the guest elevators. Curator is a collection of hand-selected small brands and independent lifestyle hotels and resorts worldwide, founded by Pebblebrook Hotel Trust and seven industry-leading hotel operators. Curator provides lifestyle hotels the power to compete together while allowing its members the freedom to retain what makes their hotels unique. Pebblebrook is a publicly traded real estate investment trust and one of the largest owners of urban and resort lifestyle hotels in the United States.