— Microsoft has named Jon Friedman as its first chief design officer. Friedman, who has been with the tech large for greater than 22 years, mentioned the brand new function acknowledges the problem of innovating in an AI-dominated world the place prospects want merchandise they’ll belief, discover intuitive to make use of and that retain a way of humanity.
The chief design officer function “spans boundaries, connecting design, engineering, and product to make sure that what we construct comes collectively as a unified, human-centered expertise. It exists to cut back fragmentation, enhance alignment, and make innovation at scale actual throughout the corporate,” Friedman wrote on LinkedIn.
The place sits inside Microsoft 365, the suite of apps and providers that features Phrase, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive and Microsoft Groups. Friedman will report back to Ryan Roslansky, government vp of LinkedIn and Microsoft 365.
Friedman pointed to Microsoft’s early Copilot rollout as a cautionary story of what occurs with out robust design management. The AI know-how was added throughout the corporate’s merchandise however “attaching it to current experiences isn’t sufficient to create worth,” he mentioned, leading to a fragmented consumer expertise.
— Susan Loosmore has resigned from T-Cellular after greater than 17 years with the Bellevue, Wash.-based telecom large. Loosmore started her profession within the wi-fi sector 30 years in the past as a workers accountant at McCaw Mobile, the pioneering telecom acquired by AT&T. She departed T-Cellular as an government vp.
“A defining milestone in my profession was becoming a member of the senior management group as a girl. It stands as a reminder that with focus, resilience, and a dedication to each laborious and sensible work, it may be executed,” Loosmore mentioned on LinkedIn.
Loosmore has shifted her consideration to serving as a board member with Seattle Humane and Nationwide Fiduciary Belief, and is planning extra roles.
— Ian Fliflet, chief progress officer at OfferUp, is leaving the Seattle-based on-line market after greater than 12 years.
“After I began, we had been a scrappy group making an attempt to reimagine native commerce,” he mentioned on LinkedIn, noting that the platform now has greater than 20 million month-to-month customers.
Earlier than OfferUp, Fliflet spent greater than a decade at RealNetworks, departing as director of company improvement previous to becoming a member of GameHouse. As for what’s subsequent, he mentioned he plans to take time together with his household and “dig into an concept I’ve been enthusiastic about for some time. Extra to share when the time is correct.”
— Seattle-based legislation agency Foster Garvey has made two C-suite promotions, naming Scott Flichtbeil as CEO and Andrew Randles as chief monetary officer. The agency, which has extra places of work on each U.S. coasts, makes a speciality of know-how, mental property and patents, healthcare, logistics and hospitality.
Flichtbeil beforehand served as chief working officer for greater than 5 years and as CFO earlier than that. Randles, who is predicated in Portland, Ore., was beforehand director of finance and accounting.
— And in case you missed it, GeekWire on Friday reported on a slate of Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) researchers who just lately took roles at Microsoft, becoming a member of the Superintelligence group led by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman.
They embody Luca Soldaini, Kyle Lo, Dirk Groeneveld, Pete Walsh, Matt Jordan and Jake Poznanski.
