Tech Moves: Carbon Robotics’ new CFO; Microsoft gaming GM goes to Netflix; Nordstrom gets VP of AI
Agtech company Carbon Robotics appointed Kevan Krysler as chief financial officer. The Seattle startup, known for zapping weeds with lasers, reports it has surpassed $100 million in annual revenue. Carbon has also been name-checked twice by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for its pesticide-free approach to weed control.
Krysler joins Carbon from Silicon Valley-based Pure Storage, where he also served as CFO.
Carbon CEO Paul Mikesell said in a statement that Krysler “really gels with our culture and brings public company financial and executive experience to round out our team. This is indicative of Carbon Robotics pushing forward and evolving our leadership to match our rapidly increasing maturity in the market.”
Founded in 2018, Carbon has raised $177 million to date and employs about 260 people. The company operates a manufacturing facility in Richland, Wash., and ranks No. 10 on the GeekWire 200, our list of the top privately held startups in the Pacific Northwest.
— T-Mobile has promoted Allan Samson to chief marketing officer after nearly a decade with the telecom giant. In recent years he has led its broadband business scaling its 5G Home Internet nationally and worked to advance its fiber strategy and joint ventures.
“As CMO, Allan will bring the full power of our marketing organization into one connected performance marketing engine, aligning media, pricing, portfolio, product marketing, innovation and digital experience,” said Mike Katz, T-Mobile’s chief business and product officer, on LinkedIn.
— Attorney Keith Dolliver has retired after more than three decades at Microsoft, where he worked on initiatives involving LinkedIn, GitHub, Activision, Mojang (Minecraft) and others. He departs as vice president, deputy general counsel and corporate secretary.
Dolliver thanked executive leadership, partners and legal colleagues, and the corporate legal group, which he had led.
“I will miss all of you and will be cheering you on as you continue to take this consequential company forward,” he said on LinkedIn. He also credited his family, “who made home a place of positive energy, treated me with patience and grace, and were always in my corner.”
— Haiyan Zhang is leaving Microsoft for Netflix, where she’ll take on a role in gaming. Zhang spent more than 13 years at Microsoft, holding positions across Microsoft Gaming, Microsoft Research and Xbox Studios, most recently as general manager and partner for Gaming AI.
“Reflecting back, I still remember stepping through the doors at 30 Great Pulteney Street on March 27, 2013, into a newly formed Xbox game studio in London,” Zhang said on LinkedIn. “I felt at once excitement, trepidation, and optimism. As I step into this next chapter, I find many of those same emotions returning as I look ahead.”
Zhang is also founder and CEO of Thriven Foundation Labs, a nonprofit promoting AI for social good. Her wide-ranging career includes roles at BBC and IDEO in the United Kingdom.
— Graham Sheldon, has resigned as chief product officer for AI automation giant UiPath after more than three years with the company. UiPath, which is based in New York City, has an office in Bellevue, Wash.
Sheldon was previously with Microsoft for more than 20 years, leaving the role of corporate VP of product for Microsoft Teams. Early in his tenure, Sheldon served as technical advisor to Satya Nadella when the now CEO was a senior vice president. Sheldon also led engineers working on Bing, ads, MSN, Cortana and other initiatives.
Sheldon didn’t disclose his next move on LinkedIn, but said he’d be tackling bucket list items including getting his commercial pilot license, running a marathon, cheering on his daughter’s select soccer team and building with OpenClaw.
— Seattle’s Redfin has promoted Ariel Dos Santos to chief product and design officer. Dos Santos has been with the real estate platform for nearly four years. His career has also included roles at Amazon, where he helped lead the launch of Just Walk Out Technology, and at Microsoft, where he oversaw social marketing.
— Vinit Tople is now vice president of AI and developer platforms at Seattle’s Nordstrom. He previously spent more than 12 years at Amazon, most recently as head of product for Alexa, and more recently worked at JPMorgan Chase, helping lead adoption of AI agents.
“Nordstrom, often called a ‘century-old startup,’ has reinvented itself time and again over 125 years — evolving ahead of each new era of retail — and now it’s making a bold move to put AI at the center of its next chapter,” Tople said on LinkedIn.
— Chronus named Sanjay Parmar as chief AI officer for the Seattle-based mentoring software platform. He joins from Degreed, where he was CTO of the San Francisco Bay Area company.
Chronus CEO Ankur Ahlowalia, who took the helm in January, praised Parmar’s background in enterprise SaaS and AI-powered workforce solutions, saying in a statement it will help would help the company “make life-changing mentorship accessible to everyone.”
— Law firm Dorsey & Whitney appointed Cyrus Ansari as a technology commerce partner at its Seattle office. He was previously with two other Seattle firms: Perkins Coie and Davis Wright Tremaine.
“For several years now, my work has centered on commercial deals for cloud, AI, gaming and other technology businesses,” Ansari said on LinkedIn. “That focus continues at Dorsey.”
— Seattle’s Richard Moulds — a self-described car restorer, advisor, mentor and investor — joined the supervisory board of QuiX Quantum, a Netherlands-based developer of photonic quantum computing systems. Moulds left his role as general manager with AWS last year and now serves as a strategic advisor for quantum startups QEDMA and Nu Quantum.
