Facebook CAO Decides to Resign; Company Appoints Former NBCUniversal Information Chief
Jas Athwal notified Facebook of his decision to resign from his position as the company’s Chief Accounting Officer after nearly nine years with the company. Athwal will continue to serve as the company's CAO until the company completes its year-end audit and file its Annual Report.
Atish BanerjeaFacebook has announced the appointment of a new CIO Atish Banerjea, who was formerly CIO of NBCUniversal. Banerjea replaces Tim Campos, who earlier this year announced he was moving from this company to start a new company.
GE Announces Digital Executive Appointments
Patrick Franklin has joined GE as VP & GM, Applications, GE Digital. Prior to joining GE, he was a VP of Engineering at Google. Over his twenty-five year career, Patrick has held leadership positions at Amazon, Microsoft, Intel and the United States Navy.
Steven Martin has joined GE as VP & Chief Digital Officer, GE Energy Connections. Prior to joining GE, Martin was GM & Chief Data Scientist, Azure at Microsoft. Over his twenty-five year career, Steven has held leadership positions in engineering, product management, venture capital and strategy.
Priceline.com Interim CEO Takes up CEO Role Permanently
The Priceline Group announced that priceline.com's current interim CEO, Brett Keller, has been named CEO of priceline.com. A veteran executive of priceline.com, Keller was named interim CEO of Priceline.com in June 2016 after serving as COO of the business, and prior to that, CMO. Keller joined priceline.com in 1999 and over the past 17 years has played a central role in evolving the brand's product and go-to-market strategies for its diverse digital offerings. He also serves on the board of directors for Broadridge Financial Solutions..
Netflix’s VP, Original Films Steps Down
Pauline Fischer exits Netflix as VP, Original Films in order to establish a business consultancy company. She will be transitioning out of the company over the coming weeks, and will remain as a consultant on active productions during this period.
Sprint Appoints Former Comcast Exec as Chief Digital Officer
Rob Roy joins Sprint as Chief Digital Officer to advance the company’s use of online and mobile technology to improve the customer experience. At Comcast, as VP for digital revenue Roy helped to lead up product development and sales across all digital channels. Before that, he led e-commerce, self-service and digital marketing Time Warner Cable, which is now part of Charter Communications.
Kroger Announces Digital Leadership Changes
The Kroger Co. announced its succession plan for group VP and chief digital officer. Kevin Dougherty, 63, group VP and chief digital officer, will retire in January 2017, after 15 years of distinguished service. Yael Cosset, 43, chief commercial officer and CIO of 84.51°, will succeed Dougherty. Yael Cosset joined dunnhumby in 2009 as EVP of consumer markets. He was named global CIO in 2011 and led technology and product matters. He also served as chief executive officer of KSS Retail.
Safran Announces Executive Changes to Accelerate Internal Digital Transformation
Safran, the supplier of systems and equipment for aerospace, defense and security, announced that, two senior management positions were recently created in the corporate performance and competitiveness department, headed by Jean-Jacques Orsini, to accelerate company’s digital transformation. Franois de la Fontaine was named director of the 'Factory of the Future' initiative, to oversee one of the main aspects of this transformation, the digitization of the Group's facilities.
Daniel Dubreuil was named Chief Digital Officer, products and services, and is in charge of another key facet of digital: the development, production engineering and in-service monitoring of Safran's products.
LinkedIn Announces Board Changes after Acquisition
In connection with the completion of Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn, Keith R. Dolliver and Benjamin O. Orndorff, who constituted the Board of Directors of Liberty Merger Sub, a wholly owned direct subsidiary of Microsoft formed in June 2016, solely for the purpose of engaging in the M&A transactions, became the directors of the company. Each of the seven directors of LinkedIn: Reid Hoffman, Jeff Weiner, A. George “Skip” Battle, Leslie Kilgore, Stanley Meresman, Michael Moritz and David Sze are no longer directors of the company.
Ctrip.Com Promotes COO and C-President as CEO
Ctrip.com, a leading travel service provider, appointed Jane Jie Sun as CEO and a member of the board of directors of the company. Sun has served at several senior executive positions at Ctrip since 2005. She was Ctrip's COO since May 2012 and Co-President since March 2015, and CFO from 2005 to 2012.
James Jianzhang Liang, Ctrip's Chairman and former CEO, will serve as Executive Chairman of the board.
Volvo Names New SVP for IT and Chief Digital Officer
Volvo has named Atif Rafiq as its new senior VP for IT and Chief Digital Officer.. Rafiq set up McDonald's Silicon Valley outpost in 2014 in an effort to better train and recruit digital talent. Projects he has overseen include tests of mobile ordering and payment, as well as McDonald's World Cup effort, which included an augmented reality game. Before McDonald's he held general management roles at Amazon, Yahoo, and AOL.
Twitter Witnesses Series of Executive Changes
Adam Bain has informed the company of his decision to step down as COO and explore opportunities outside the company. Anthony Noto who has served as the company's CFO since July 2014, has been named COO. Bain will assist with the transition of the COO role over the coming weeks.
Twitter appointed Keith Coleman, who has a decade of experience at Google, as Head of its product to oversee products, filling a position that's been empty since January. At Google, Coleman led product for Gmail and related services.
Parminder Singh, who oversaw the business in India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East for the past three years, said he is moving on to new pastures within the next month. This is the third high profile exit reported in Twitter. Karen Stocks, who headed Twitter in Australia, departed. Maya Hari is the new Managing Director of Southeast Asia and India reporting to Aliza Knox. Maya previously managed Twitter's Ads Product Strategy & Adoption for Asia Pacific, MENA and Latin America.
Head of India Rishi Jaitly has announced his resignation. Jaitly leaves after four years at the company. In August, he was appointed VP of Media for Asia Pacific-Middle East North Africa.
Mark Little will step down as head of Twitter in Ireland, just months after taking up the job. The move comes as a result of a company-wide restructuring effort at Twitter, which is seeking to turn a profit and grow its user base. Little is a former RTÉ television anchor and founder of Storyful. He joined Twitter in 2015 and was appointed managing director in June.
Flex Appoints Dr. Kal Patel as SVP of Digital Health
Technological manufacturer Flex appointed Dr. Kal Patel to the new role of SVP of Digital Health. Dr. Patel joined Flex from Doctor on Demand where he served as Chief Commercial Officer, responsible for all business and commercial functions, including marketing, business development, partnerships, implementations, operations and account management.
TripAdvisor Announces Viator Leadership Changes
TripAdvisor announced that Barrie Seidenberg, CEO of its subsidiary Viator, is resigning from TripAdvisor to pursue opportunities outside the company. TripAdvisor will expand Dermot Halpin’s role to serve as President for both its global vacation rentals and attractions divisions. Halpin joined TripAdvisor in 2011 to build and lead the company’s vacation rentals division. Before joining TripAdvisor, Halpin served in a number of senior leadership roles at Expedia, rising to the role of President of EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
Shopify Appoints former CEO and Chairperson of Constant Contact Gail Goodman to its Board
Gail Goodman
Canadian e-commerce company Shopify appointed Gail Goodman to its board of directors. Gail is the former CEO and Chairperson of Constant Contact, a software company providing small businesses with online marketing tools to grow their businesses. After becoming CEO in April 1999, she led Constant Contact through its initial public offering and for eight years as a publicly traded company, until its acquisition by Endurance International Group Holdings in February, 2016. Shopify announced that Trevor Oelschig has resigned from its board of directors.
WebMD Announces CEO
WebMD appointed Steven L. Zatz, M.D., its President, to serve as its CEO. Dr. Zatz has been a member of the senior leadership of WebMD and its predecessor companies for 17 years. Dr. Zatz was appointed President of WebMD in 2013. Prior to becoming President, Dr. Zatz was EVP of Professional Services, responsible for Medscape, the company's site for healthcare professionals. As a result of this transition, Dr. Zatz's responsibilities will expand to include WebMD Health Services.
58.com Announces Executive Changes
58.com announced that an EVP Chuan Zhang has tendered his resignation. Zhang's resignation was not due to any disagreement with the company regarding its business, finance, accounting and/or any other affairs. Zhang will work with the Company to ensure a smooth transition with his successors. Zhang's responsibilities will be taken over by Hongyu Xing, CTO, Jiandong Zhuang, EVP, Mingke He, SVP, and few other VPs.
HSN Appoints Rod Little as CFO
HSN, an interactive multi-channel retailer with strong direct-to-consumer expertise, announced that Rod Little will join the company as CFO. Little comes to HSNi with significant public company expertise in the consumer products industry, having served as CFO for Elizabeth Arden as well as a variety of leadership positions with Procter & Gamble.
Little will succeed Judy Schmeling, who was named president of HSNi operating division Cornerstone Brands in August 2016, in addition to her ongoing leadership role as COO of HSN.
Shutterfly Announces Board Appointments
Shutterfly elected two new independent directors, Elizabeth (Libby) Sartain and H. Tayloe Stansbury, to its board of directors. Sartain is an executive and advisor with more than 30 years of experience as a senior human resources leader. Her diverse industry exposure includes technology, media, consumer products, professional services, and manufacturing. Sartain is currently the vice chairman of the board of AARP and holds board seats at Manpower Group and the SHRM Foundation. Sartain has served as chief people officer at Yahoo.
Stansbury is a tech leader with more than 30 years of experience building scalable technology platforms and organizations across a number of leading companies. Since 2009, Tayloe Stansbury has worked at Intuit, where he is EVP and CTO. He previously served as CIO at VMware; as EVP of products and operations at Ariba; in leadership roles at Calico Commerce, Xerox, and Borland International; and in engineering and research roles at Sun Microsystems and Xerox PARC.
Alarm.com Gets New CFO from SugarCRM
Steve Valenzuela
Alarm.com, a technology company that provides cloud based services for remote control, home automation and monitoring services, announced that Steve Valenzuela has been named CFO. Valenzuela joins from SugarCRM, where he served as CFO since January of 2015. He has served as CFO of five different software enterprises including Apigee Corporation and served as the VP of Finance and Operations for the Mobile Platforms Group at Citrix following its acquisition of Zenprise, where he was CFO.
Etsy CFO to Step Down Next Year
Peer-to-peer e-commerce website Etsy entered into a retention agreement with Kristina Salen, which provides for her continued service as Etsy's CFO through March 2017, at which point she will resign from Etsy.
TrueCar Appoints Zillow and Neustar Executives to Board
Automotive pricing and information website for cars, TrueCar, announced that Erin Lantz and Wesley Nichols were elected to the company's board filling vacancies created by the resignations of Tom Gibson and Todd Bradley. Lantz, 37, is the VP and GM of Mortgages at Zillow Group.
Nichols, 52, is the SVP of Strategy at Neustar.
New Zealand Based Vector Appoints Chief Digital Officer
New Zealand based energy company Vector appointed Nikhil Ravishankar to the new executive role of Chief Digital Officer. The new role will be responsible for managing Vector's IT function and digital strategy and will work across the group to help shape Vector's response to disruptive technologies. Nikhil joins Vector from Accenture where he held the position of Managing Director for NZ operations and also sits on their Global Advisory Council for Telecommunications and Media practice. Prior to this role he was the Head of Technology Strategy for Spark and was part of their group transformation office.
Date Range: November 1st - December 9th