Tony Hoggett, the Amazon senior vice president overseeing the company’s worldwide grocery stores business, is leaving the company to join Wonder, a delivery- and takeout-focused restaurant chain based in New York. The move was reported by Fortune, noting that Hoggett will be Wonder’s chief operating officer. GeekWire reported on Hoggett’s departure from Amazon, with his last day being Nov. 1. Hoggett, a former Tesco executive, joined Amazon in January 2022 and served on the company’s senior leadership team, the S-team. Amazon has not yet announced a succession plan for replacing Hoggett. Throughout his tenure, Amazon made various attempts to find success in the grocery sector, introducing new store formats, closing some stores, pausing and restarting expansion, and changing its technology in Amazon Fresh stores.
Wonder, the restaurant chain where Tony Hoggett will serve as COO, has 27 outlets in the northeast with plans for more. The restaurants offer a broad menu, including signature items from celebrity chefs. Wonder is in the process of launching a pilot project to place its restaurants inside Walmart stores. Wonder is led by Marc Lore, a longtime e-commerce entrepreneur who previously founded Jet.com and sold it to Walmart for $3.3 billion in 2016. Lore also sold Diapers.com parent company Quidsi to Amazon in 2011 for $545 million.
Data protection and ransomware recovery company Veeam Software has announced Lucy Hur as its chief people officer. Hur previously held a similar role at Slalom, overseeing the company’s global expansion. With over 12 years of HR leadership experience at Microsoft, and stints at Starbucks and Nokia, Hur brings a wealth of knowledge to Veeam. Veeam recently relocated its headquarters to Kirkland, Washington, citing its proximity to major cloud providers and a deep pool of technical talent in the Seattle area. CEO Anand Eswaran praised Hur’s leadership abilities and strategic focus as Veeam enters a new phase of rapid growth.
Emad Elwany, co-founder of Lexion, which was acquired by DocuSign, has joined Seattle’s AI2 Incubator as a venture partner. Elwany has also been named vice president of engineering at DocuSign and previously spent over nine years at Microsoft leading an engineering team that focused on artificial intelligence democratization. Matt Welsh, a Seattle technology veteran, has taken on the role of chief architect at Aryn, a Mountain View software company specializing in large language model computing platforms. Welsh brings experience from Google, OctoML, Apple, and his previous startup, Fixie. Welsh also founded Ziggylabs, a startup focused on human-friendly AI technology and supports side projects like Podverse, an AI-powered platform for podcasters.
Medbridge, a Seattle-area health technology company, announced leadership changes following its acquisition of Rehab Boost, a startup with motion capture technology for physical rehabilitation providers and patients. Paul Jaure, founder of Rehab Boost, will lead AI at Medbridge, while Garth Savidge, former chief commercial officer at Rehab Boost, will take on a new role at Medbridge. Alberto Grande has been named head of marketing at Seattle’s DevZero, a cloud-based code writing platform founded by former Uber engineers. International law firm Fenwick has announced nine new partners, including corporate partners Chelsea Anderson and Chris Gorman in Seattle, specializing in life sciences, technology, and other industries.
Angela Broughton, a pharmacy billing coordinator at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, received the T. Evans Wyckoff award for her exceptional contributions and teamwork.
