The top 9 leadership changes in Colorado tech in June

by April Bohnert
July 6, 2017

Leadership changes can have a major impact on a company and its culture, so when a new exec comes on board, it’s a big deal. In the month of June, Colorado tech companies saw a number of leadership shakeups, bringing on nine new execs with fresh talent and perspective. See who they are.

 

John-Schnipkoweit-choozle.jpgDigital advertising platform Choozle brought on John Schnipkoweit as its first chief technology officer in an effort to strengthen its technology stack. Before joining the Choozle team, Schnipkoweit founded and led multiple Denver-based tech companies. He will lead the strategic direction for the technical side of the business and help scale Choozle and its products for growth.



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Insurance tech company Vertafore recently moved its headquarters from Bothell, WA to Denver, and they’ve been hiring like crazy ever since. Last week, the company brought on Sharmila Ray as its new senior vice president of product and strategy. Ray spent the last 11 years working as associate partner and senior knowledge expert for the insurance firm McKinsey & Company. Ray will use her deep insurance industry expertise to lead product management and strategy efforts for the company, and will report directly to CEO Amy Zupon.



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Denver-based safety wearables startup Revolar landed Brian Thomas as the new president and CEO of the company in June. Thomas most recently held the position of CEO at Otterbox, where he led the company's growth from $2 million in annual sales to more than $1 billion in revenue. He joins the Revolar team at a pivotal time in its growth, coinciding with the launch of a new product and the release of its products in stores like Target, T-Mobile and Best Buy. Co-founders Andrea Perdomo and Jacqueline Ros will remain on the executive team as chief marketing officer and chief community officer.



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Denver’s Brandfolder provides a cloud-based digital asset management platform for businesses that allows them to organize and share things like press kits, marketing materials and brand guidelines. On June 5, the company brought entrepreneur and digital media executive Luke Beatty onto the team as CEO and chairman. Beatty led the TechStars Boulder program before taking over as president of media brands at AOL. He left AOL last year and has spent the last several months on hiatus with family.



timothy-bates-homesphere.jpgHomeSphere provides technology-driven solutions that connect the residential home construction industry and enhance the way they do business. At the start of this month, the company announced the addition of Timothy Bates to its C-suite. Bates worked with the company as a product management consultant prior to coming on board as CMO and will continue to focus on advancing HomeSphere’s product initiatives in the residential construction space.



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Last week, IoT engineering and consulting firm Cardinal Peak named Mark Carrington as its new CEO. Carrington joined Cardinal Peak six months ago as president, bringing over a decade of experience as a Silicon Valley executive. He held senior leadership roles at tech companies such as DiviCom, Kontiki and, most recently, Magnum Semiconductor. Moving forward, current CEO and co-founder Howdy Pierce will serve as chairman of the board.



GutCheck, a Denver-based provider of agile market research solutions, added three new members to its leadership team last week, bolstering the company’s efforts to provide clients with faster and more actionable insights through consumer data.

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Keith Johnson came on as the chief product officer, bringing with him years of experience growing businesses with big data. Most recently he served as executive vice president of strategic data solutions at Wunderman. Johnson will oversee the development and launch of all products.

 



shawn-vaughn-gutcheck.jpgShawn Vaughn joined the GutCheck team as executive vice president of sales and client services. Formerly the vice president of account management for Mintel International Group, Vaughn will lead GutCheck’s sales and account management teams with a distinct focus on customer satisfaction and partnerships.

 


josh-ashton-gutcheck.jpgGutCheck also hired Josh Ashton as its next vice president of people operations. Ashton hails most recently from SendGrid, where he helped scale the team from 40 people to 400, and brings a combined 15 years of human resources experience.  


 


 

Photo via featured companies and social media.

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