Seattle Tech Moves: Big Exits, Bold Startups, and Career Pivots Shaking the Scene

HP Veteran Elizabeth Scallon Exits After Four Years of Deep Tech Leadership

Elizabeth Scallon, a longtime architect of Seattle’s startup ecosystem, has stepped away from her role as director of technical and business incubation and strategy at HP. During her nearly four-year tenure, Scallon led deep dives into bleeding-edge fields—microfluidics, chip cooling, edge systems, security silicon, collaboration platforms, biometrics, authentication, and computer vision. She spearheaded the journey from raw idea to prototype to customer-ready product, fueling new ventures across HP’s sprawling innovation portfolio.

Scallon’s career spans leadership at Amazon, WeWork, and five years directing the University of Washington’s CoMotion Labs. She also co-founded Find Ventures, an investment firm built on the principle of equitable access to capital. While she hasn’t disclosed her next move, her track record suggests whatever comes next will be high-impact.

Chris Blandy Retires from AWS After 35 Years in Media & Tech

After more than four years as global leader of strategy and business development for media and entertainment at Amazon Web Services, Chris Blandy has retired. Based in Santa Monica, Blandy’s career includes executive leadership roles at Walt Disney, Fox, and Hulu, making him a heavyweight in media-tech convergence.

On LinkedIn, Blandy said he’s stepping back from full-time work to focus on investments, advisory roles, and—most importantly—”getting more involved in parenting.” His exit marks the end of a 35-year run at the intersection of technology and storytelling.

Milkana Brace Joins AI-Native Startup SageOx as Co-Founder

Milkana Brace, former executive vice president of consumer product at Remitly, has joined SageOx as co-founder and chief product officer. The Seattle-based early-stage startup is building tools for AI-native teams, where humans and coding agents collaborate in real time.

Brace left Remitly in April 2025 for a sabbatical after founding and leading Jargon, and holding leadership roles at Expedia and Groupon. But her break was short-lived. “Out of nowhere,” Brace said on LinkedIn, Ajit Banerjee reached out and asked her to “build something with him.” Within 30 days of returning, the team pivoted the entire company and shipped a working product—an impressive feat that underscores the speed and intensity of today’s AI startup race.

Courtney Blodgett Exits Edo to Launch Climate Solutions Consultancy

Courtney Blodgett, co-founder and former director of strategy at Edo, has left the Seattle-based energy software company after helping grow it from concept to a platform delivering demand flexibility and customer support to utilities and over 7,000 buildings nationwide.

Blodgett is now principal and founder of Cordelette Consulting, focusing on the “next chapter of building climate solutions that work.” Edo, launched six years ago, enables commercial buildings to feed energy back to the grid during peak demand—an increasingly critical capability as the energy transition accelerates.

Truveta Bolsters Leadership Team with Senior Hires

Truveta, the Seattle-area health data company, has announced a wave of senior leadership hires:

• John Seeger, senior vice president of evidence services
• Kia Edwards, senior product marketing manager
• Stef’n Ellis, senior product designer
• Alayna Myrick, senior clinical data scientist
• Upendra Chennadi, senior security engineer

The company also recently named Dr. Johnathan Lancaster as president and chief scientific officer, signaling a push toward deeper clinical integration and scientific leadership.

Bayou Energy Names Yoon Loong Wong as Chief of Staff

Bayou Energy, a Seattle-based sustainable tech startup, has appointed Yoon Loong Wong (Andrew) as chief of staff. The company’s technology pulls customer data from U.S. utilities to provide real-time and historical energy consumption insights.

Wong brings a blend of strategy, operations, and startup experience. He was an early employee at a clean energy startup where he built the sales strategy and operations function from the ground up and helped launch an $8M EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) marketplace. His past roles include positions at Lumen Energy and Google, where he was a strategy and operations manager for go-to-market.

Brian Hansford Joins National Cybersecurity Alliance as SVP of Marketing

Brian Hansford has been named senior vice president of marketing at the National Cybersecurity Alliance, a Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to cybersecurity education and safety for individuals and businesses.

Hansford joins from Pontara, a generative engine optimization platform for marketers, where he was founder and chief growth officer. His extensive background also includes leadership roles at LiveRamp, Icertis, and MediaPRO.

Scott Schliebner Takes COO Role at P1 Trials

Scott Schliebner has been appointed chief operating officer at P1 Trials, a startup that describes itself as “a network of world-class, community-based oncology investigative sites capable of performing complex Phase 1 clinical trials.”

Schliebner’s career includes over a decade as senior vice president of scientific affairs and therapeutic expertise at PRA Health Sciences, as well as leadership roles at Cancer Research and Biostatistics, MedSource, and Seattle Genetics. In recent years, he has held multiple advisory and consulting roles.

Rob Moore Exits Remitly After Four Years

Rob Moore has left his role as vice president of order-to-cash transformation at Remitly after more than four years. He is now a financial professional at None, a California-based wellness and fitness services company. Moore’s past employers include Nordstrom and Deloitte.

On LinkedIn, Moore reflected on his time at Remitly: “What an adventure, and on to the next. It was my honor to fight alongside the ‘good guys’ at Remitly day in and day out, on behalf of our resilient and inspiring customers.”

Moore’s departure comes shortly after Matt Oppenheimer, Remitly’s co-founder and CEO, announced he is stepping down after nearly 15 years at the helm.

Manisha Arora Promoted to VP at ServiceNow

Manisha Arora has been promoted to vice president at ServiceNow, the California-based cloud company. Arora, who works out of the company’s Kirkland, Washington offices, has been with ServiceNow for nearly 10 years. She previously spent over a decade at Microsoft in program management roles.

Monod Bio Adds Robert Bujarski to Board of Directors

Monod Bio, a Seattle biotech company specializing in computational protein design, has appointed Robert Bujarski to its board of directors. Bujarski previously served as EVP and chief operating officer at QuidelOrtho Corporation for 20 years.

Fred Hutch Announces 2025 Weintraub Award Recipients

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center has named 12 recipients of the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award, honoring outstanding achievements in the biological sciences. The award is named after the molecular biologist who helped establish Fred Hutch’s Basic Sciences Division and died of brain cancer in 1995.

The 2025 recipients are:

• Keene Abbott, biology PhD student at MIT
• Gabriella Chua, PhD student in chemical biology at Rockefeller University
• Lifei Jiang, molecular biology PhD student at Princeton University
• Won Jun Kim, MD/PhD student at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center/Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering tri-institutional program
• Ruchita Kothari, PhD student in Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Ayush Midha, PhD student at UCSF Tetrad Graduate Program
• Rohith Rajasekaran, PhD student in integrated program in Biochemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Yusha Sun, PhD student in Neuroscience Graduate Group / Medical Scientist Training program at University of Pennsylvania
• Andrea Terceros, PhD student in David Rockefeller Graduate Program at Rockefeller University
• Wendy Valencia Montoya, PhD student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University
• Zachary Walsh, PhD student in integrated program in Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
• Peter Yoon, PhD student in molecular and cell biology at University of California, Berkeley

Tags & Viral Phrases

• Seattle startup ecosystem
• HP deep tech leadership
• AI-native teams collaboration
• Energy software for commercial buildings
• Health data company Truveta
• Sustainable tech startup Bayou Energy
• National Cybersecurity Alliance
• Phase 1 clinical trials network
• Remitly leadership change
• ServiceNow VP promotion
• Computational protein design
• Fred Hutch Weintraub Award
• Tech career pivots 2025
• Clean energy startup growth
• Cloud company leadership moves
• Biotech board appointments
• Cancer research graduate honors
• Big tech exits and new ventures
• Seattle tech hiring boom
• Climate solutions consultancy launch

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