Tech Moves: Amazon leaders depart; Zenoti adds CCO; Seattle U names business dean; and more

— Dr. Vin Gupta, chief medical officer for Amazon Pharmacy, has resigned after five years in his role. The tech giant launched the Amazon Pharmacy service in November 2020, following its acquisition of prescription-by-mail company PillPack two years earlier.

Last year, Amazon cut hundreds of jobs at Amazon Pharmacy and at its other health care unit, the primary care company One Medical.

Gupta is now a managing director at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, an integrated professional services firm, where he will “lead a diverse portfolio across health innovation,” according to a release.

Gupta still lists Seattle-area roles on his LinkedIn, including critical care pulmonologist for Virginia Mason Medical Center and affiliate assistant professor for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

Other key personnel changes across the Pacific Northwest tech industry:

— The head of Amazon MGM Studios is leaving to launch her own production company. Jennifer Salke led the studio for seven years and her new business has first-look deals with Amazon MGM Studios for film and TV, according to a memo viewed by the Los Angeles Times, which broke the news.

Initially launched in 2010 as Amazon Studios, the company acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 2021 for $8.45 billion and then rebranded. The Amazon business has produced and/or distributed celebrated shows and films including “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Manchester by the Sea.”

— Zenoti, the Seattle-area enterprise software maker selling to spas, salons and now the fitness sector, has added to its C-suite. Steve Hudek is joining the company as chief customer officer. Hudek was CCO for WorkWave, leaving after more than six years, and held leadership roles at Vonage.

Zenoti is on the rise with increasing revenue last year and nearly 30,000 customers. The company hit a $1.5 billion valuation in 2021 and employs 1,200 people worldwide. Salons, spas and gyms use Zenoti to provide services including booking appointments, managing payments and running marketing campaigns.

CEO Sudheer Koneru this week shared with GeekWire that the company is investing heavily in artificial intelligence as it looks to infuse more automation across its platform and expand into the fitness sector.

— Dan Turner, the associate dean of master’s programs at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, will become dean of the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University.

Turner has been at the UW for more than 25 years, where he has also been a teaching professor of marketing and the Peter and Noydena Brix Endowed Faculty Fellow.

The appointment is effective July 1.

— Longtime Seattle tech leader and entrepreneur Dave Cotter is CEO of Greenwood, a digital financial services company focused on serving the Black community. Cotter has held leadership roles at Leafly, Zulily, Amazon, RealNetworks and others. He co-founded and led Seattle’s MessageYes, which was purchased by Nordstrom, and SquareHub.

Greenwood this week launched two new programs, one that gives cash back to members who shop at participating Black-owned businesses, and a marketplace connecting users with vetted third-party loan providers and financial resources.

The company is based in Atlanta, but moving to Tulsa, Okla. It was named for the historic Greenwood district in Tulsa, a thriving business area that was known as “Black Wall Street” and was burned down in a racially driven massacre in 1921.

— Artemis Connection, a Seattle-area strategy consulting firm led by Christy Johnson, announced Nareen Sidhu as its new chief operations officer. Sidhu has worked as a consultant for Bain and founded a startup that helps small- and medium-sized businesses scale, with a focus on women-led companies.

— Daniela Braga, founder and CEO of Seattle-area startup Defined.ai, was selected as one of the this year’s “Top 10 Women in the World in AI” by AI Magazine.

The magazine noted that Braga is an expert in computational linguistics and “has been instrumental in advancing NLP and voice AI technologies.” AI Magazine said that Braga “played a significant role in shaping global AI policies, contributing to regulatory discussions on AI ethics” and was a key advisor for the White House National AI Initiative.

Braga launched Defined.ai in 2015 under the name DefinedCrowd. The company is ranked No. 69 on the GeekWire 200, our list of top Pacific Northwest tech startups.

— Pacific Northwest National Laboratory chemist Zheming Wang was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science — the highest honor bestowed by the global society. Wang’s research is focused on the chemistry underlying radioactive and advanced energy materials, as well as critical elements.

— NLM Photonics appointed Anthony Yu as a strategic advisor. The Seattle company is producing hybrid electro-optic modulation technology, which allows semiconductors to handle more data using less power. Yu is a former vice president at GlobalFoundries’ silicon photonics unit.