— Former Microsoft and Amazon exec Angus Norton is now CEO of Inteum, an IP management platform for university technology transfer offices. Norton joins the Kirkland, Wash.-based company from Bodhi Venture Labs, an executive services firm focused on product management and marketing that he led for more than five years.
Norton launched his career at Microsoft in 1995, working on Office, Bing, and other products. He rose to vice president and general manager before leaving after 18 years. At Amazon, he served as GM for enterprise SaaS applications.
Working in tech, he was always “searching for, building, or acquiring leading-edge tech to realize a product vision,” Norton said on LinkedIn. “Honestly, I had no idea how to access or collaborate with the wonderful universities and research communities in all our backyards.” Inteum, he added, connects these institutions with the private sector to bring “their inventions to life.”
— Veeam announced Rashmi Garde as its new chief legal officer. The Kirkland, Wash.-based data protection and ransomware recovery company relocated its headquarters last year from Columbus, Ohio.
Garde is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and has provided corporate legal counsel at companies including Sophos, Centrify, BloomReach, Marin Software and VMware. She joins Veeam from Informatica, where she helped navigate the company’s $8 billion acquisition by Salesforce.
“Trust is the business of the agentic era, and I am excited to join Veeam at a moment when ensuring data is understood and resilient has never been more critical,” Garde said.
— Megan Fouty has been appointed chief operating officer at mpathic, a Seattle startup building software to analyze conversations in corporate texts, emails and audio calls. The company recently launched technology to make AI and chatbot communications safer, particularly for vulnerable users.
Fouty joins mpathic from Tin Can, a Seattle landline phone startup where she served as general counsel and head of people. Past roles include general counsel at Glowforge and Convoy. She is also the founder of Diversity University, a firm that provides diversity, equity and inclusion resources to companies and organizations.
— Peter Hamilton is now CEO and co-founder of Arena One, a newly launching live music and entertainment startup. According to a release, the venture aims to combine “premium audio and visual production with low-latency interactivity, delivering the energy of a live show with the intimacy of a front-row experience — at scale.”
Hamilton joins Arena One from Roku, where he spent more than four years as head of ad innovation. The Seattle-based leader previously served as CEO of Tune, a mobile marketing startup, for more than a decade. Arena One is not Hamilton’s first foray into the arts. He sang as a baritone with the Seattle Opera and co-founded the Seattle NFT Museum with his wife, Jennifer Wong.
“This move is a full circle feeling for me,” Hamilton said on LinkedIn. “I have undergrad degrees in music and film, and most of my work in tech and advertising has been a way for me to get closer to that ecosystem, ha!”
— Dr. Michael Han was named chief medical officer for Ambience Healthcare, a San Francisco Bay Area platform for clinical documentation. Han, based in Bellevue, Wash., joins Ambience from MultiCare Health System; he previously served as chief of surgery and as a urologist at Pacific Medical Centers.
Han said on LinkedIn that he had tested every documentation tool on the market and found Ambience to be the superior product — one that supports clinicians from pre-visit prep through accurate, compliant coding. “That’s the company I wanted to be part of,” Han said.
— Seattle Aquarium appointed Meg McCann as its new president and CEO, succeeding Bob Davidson, who retired in 2025 after more than two decades of leadership. McCann joined the aquarium in 2024 as COO and briefly served as acting president and CEO before officially landing the role.
“I have seen firsthand [McCann’s] ability to advance our mission of inspiring conservation of our marine environment, guiding the Aquarium toward an exciting and innovative future,” Davidson said.
— Julia Jones was named head of design for Aarden AI, a Seattle startup that emerged from stealth in October and has an AI platform that helps landowners research and navigate deals with developers eager to build data centers, clean energy installations, housing and other uses. Jones was previously at Omnidian for more than three years as a senior UX/UI designer.
“After onboarding at superhuman speed, [Jones] has upleveled every surface area of our org: design review, systems choices, user research, product, and marketing,” said Aarden CEO Danan Margason on LinkedIn.
— And in case you missed today’s GeekWire story, Zap Energy has changed its leadership line up as the Everett, Wash.-based company adds nuclear fission to its pursuit of fusion power.
- Zabrina Johal is now CEO, succeeding company co-founder Benj Conway, who is transitioning to president. Johal began her career as an officer and engineer in nuclear propulsion in the U.S. Navy and previously spent 18 years with General Atomics. Most recently, she was with AtkinsRéalis, a Montreal engineering firm with a nuclear power focus.
- Daniel Walter, a former director at Bill Gates-backed TerraPower, is director of nuclear engineering.
- Zap vice president Matthew Thompson is now SVP of fission technology.
