Tech Moves: Amazon grocery exec will join Marc Lore’s Wonder; AI2 Incubator adds venture partner

Tony Hoggett, the Amazon senior vice president overseeing the company’s worldwide grocery stores business, is joining Wonder, a delivery- and takeout-focused restaurant chain based in New York led by longtime e-commerce entrepreneur Marc Lore.

Fortune reported the move, noting that Hoggett will be Wonder’s chief operating officer.

GeekWire reported on Hoggett’s departure from Amazon on Friday. His last day is Nov. 1.

A former Tesco executive, Hoggett started at Amazon in January 2022, and served on the company’s senior leadership team, or S-team, which meets regularly with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and other top executives.

Amazon has not shared a succession plan for replacing Hoggett.

Amazon has been trying for many years to come up with a successful formula in grocery, with mixed results. Hoggett’s tenure saw the company introduce new store formats, close some stores, pause and restart expansion, and shift away from the “Just Walk Out” checkout-free technology in its large format Amazon Fresh stores.

Wonder has 27 outlets in the northeast with more in the works. The restaurants offer a wide variety of menu options, including signature items from celebrity chefs. Wonder is reportedly launching a pilot project to put its restaurants inside Walmart stores.

Lore previously launched Jet.com and sold the e-commerce company to Walmart for $3.3 billion in 2016. He also sold Diapers.com parent Quidsi to Amazon in 2011 for $545 million.

— Data protection and ransomware recovery company Veeam Software announced Lucy Hur as chief people officer.

Hur was previously at Slalom in a similar role during the company’s global expansion. She held HR leadership roles for more than 12 years at Microsoft, and also worked for Starbucks and Nokia.

Veeam this year shifted its corporate headquarters from Columbus, Ohio, to Kirkland, Wash., for its proximity to the Seattle area’s major cloud providers and the deep pool of technical talent.

“[Hur] understands the delicate balance between strategic and operational priorities that create the very best inclusive environment for our people,” said Veeam CEO Anand Eswaran in a statement. “Her leadership will be critical as we enter the next phase of rapid growth.”

— Emad Elwany is now a venture partner at Seattle’s AI2 Incubator.

Elwany co-founded Lexion, which was acquired by DocuSign in May. He’s currently vice president of engineering at DocuSign.

Elwany was one of the first entrepreneurs-in-residence at AI2, and was at Microsoft for more than nine years where he led an engineering team working to democratize artificial intelligence.

— Seattle tech vet Matt Welsh is now chief architect at Aryn, a Mountain View, Calif., software company building a large language model computing platform.

“Our product is an AI-powered query engine for complex document analytics — taking in all of the messy docs meant for humans and making it possible to extract data and insights from them not possible with other systems,” Welsh said on LinkedIn.

Welsh previously co-founded Fixie, a large language model startup in Seattle. He left the company in March.

Welsh was a principal engineer for Google in Seattle for more than eight years and also worked at OctoML, Apple and elsewhere.

He is the founder of Ziggylabs, a startup that he describes as being “focused on human-friendly AI tech.” The venture supports Welsh’s side projects, such as Podverse, an AI-powered platform for podcasters.

— Medbridge, a Seattle-area health technology company, announced two leadership changes following its acquisition of Rehab Boost, a startup with motion capture technology for physical rehabilitation program providers and patients.

Paul Jaure, founder of Rehab Boost, will join Medbridge as head of AI, while Garth Savidge, chief commercial officer at Rehab Boost, will take a role as director of commercial operations for Medbridge.

— Alberto Grande was named head of marketing at Seattle’s DevZero, which launched two years ago and is led by former Uber engineers. It’s developing a platform that aims to make it easier for developers to write code in the cloud. Grande was formerly vice president of marketing at X-Team.

— International law firm Fenwick announced nine lawyers joining as partners. In Seattle, that includes corporate partners Chelsea Anderson and Chris Gorman.

Anderson is focused on life sciences and technology industries to provide counsel on public company capital market transactions, private company financing and corporate governance matters. Gorman serves clients in technology, fintech, life sciences and consumer products. He counsels on public and private clients on mergers and acquisitions, carveouts and divestments, tender offers, and strategic investments.

— ​​Angela Broughton, a pharmacy billing coordinator at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, has received the T. Evans Wyckoff award, which recognizes exceptional contributions and teamwork.