Tech Moves: Qualtrics taps Microsoft vet as CFO; F5 names innovation chief

— Qualtrics appointed Microsoft veteran Rachita Sundar as its chief financial officer and member of the executive leadership team.

Sundar comes to Qualtrics from HubSpot, where she was senior vice president of finance. Previous to that role she was at Microsoft for 13 years, rising to the position of senior finance director of Microsoft U.S.

Sundar will be based in Seattle.

“Throughout my career I’ve sought to join organizations driving significant technological shifts, and I strongly believe experience management and Qualtrics are at the next frontier of this,” Sundar said in a statement.

Qualtrics, an “experience management” company with co-headquarters in Seattle and Provo, Utah, helps companies collect and analyze data through surveys and other technologies to make customer and employee decisions.

Qualtrics went public in 2021 but became a private company again last year. It laid off more than 1,000 employees in October 2023.

— Kunal Anand of F5 is changing roles, moving from chief technology officer to chief innovation officer. He’ll lead the company’s product organization, according to comments from F5 CEO François Locoh-Donou on a recent earnings call.

“Kunal brings deep domain expertise and technical knowledge across cloud, security, networking, SaaS and AI, his entrepreneurial mindset will be a tremendous asset as we execute the next phase of our portfolio road map,” Locoh-Donou said on the call.

Anand joined the Seattle-based application security and delivery company in April. His prior position was leading the technical and security teams at Imperva for more than five years.

F5 plans to hire a new CTO, a company spokesperson confirmed.

The company’s stock was up more than 10% last week after reporting its fourth fiscal quarter earnings. Revenue was $747 million, up 6% year-over-year, and GAAP net income was $165 million, up more than 8% year-over-year.

F5 recently confirmed layoffs spread across several teams that impacted less than 2% of the company’s global workforce.

The company also last week named Cooper Werner as its new CFO.

— Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s former chief marketing officer, joined the board of directors for the telecom company Lumen Technologies. 

Capossela spent more than 30 years at Microsoft. He oversaw marketing for consumer and commercial businesses, and led digital direct sales and retail partner sales for the company’s products. He now serves on multiple corporate and nonprofit boards.

“Nearly every large business is thinking about how AI can drive its strategies and whether they have the infrastructure to support AI,” Capossela said in a statement. “As they consider their networking needs, Lumen is becoming top of mind as a company to bet on.”

Lumen’s CEO Kate Johnson was previously Microsoft’s U.S. president. The company was formed by the merger of CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications, and rebranded as Lumen in 2020. Lumen, based in Louisiana, owns the naming rights for Seattle’s pro football stadium.

— Former top executives at sustainable trucking company First Mode have launched Sol Zero Group, a Seattle venture described as a think tank supporting companies that “solve important problems using systems thinking and human creativity.”

Chris Voorhees, First Mode’s co-founder and former CEO, and Rae Adams, former chief revenue officer, are the founders and managing partners for Sol Zero. The two also previously worked at Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining company that was acquired in 2018.

“I have been so very fortunate to have experienced firsthand the truly miraculous things that can happen when you combine good people with good problems,” Voorhees said on LinkedIn this past summer. “That journey continues today, and I can’t wait to share with you all the new stories that come from this next chapter!”

• Bjork Del Riego is Sol Zero’s chief of staff, and was formerly a senior executive assistant for First Mode.

• Two other former First Mode leaders, Clara Sekowski and Conor Duggan, are the founders and CEOs of two Sol Zero companies. Sekowski, former director of strategic R&D at First Mode, is now leading Special Teams, a startup offering “design and build” solutions for customers. Duggan, First Mode’s former director of government affairs, is running Civic Charge, a consultancy tackling the intersection of government, business, technology and community.

— Melanie Roberts has joined the Washington State Academy of Sciences as executive director. She was previously a senior advisor and director of state and regional affairs for the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

“We have great confidence that under Melanie’s leadership WSAS will continue to grow and help decision makers consider how to integrate science and technology for the benefit of Washington State citizens, governments and businesses,” WSAS President Allison Campbell said in a statement.

Roberts earned a Ph.D. in neurobiology and behavior from the University of Washington, but pivoted to policy through an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) science and technology policy fellowship.

— Seattle’s Valant hired Rick Katz as chief financial officer. Valant is an electronic health records and billing company serving behavioral health providers.

Katz’ duties will include overseeing corporate initiatives including mergers and acquisitions and other investment opportunities. He was most recently CFO at Opensignal and has more than 25 years of experience in finance and corporate development.

In December 2023, Atlanta-based private equity firm Resurgens Technology Partners bought Valant for an unknown sum.

— Graham & Walker, a Seattle-based firm investing in women-founded tech companies in North America, welcomed Eric Ries to its board of advisors. Ries wrote the best-selling book “The Lean Startup” and is the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange.

Ries is credited with creating the lean startup methodology and “is one of those rare Silicon Valley insiders who works tirelessly to make our industry more inclusive, future-focused and self-aware,” said Graham & Walker on LinkedIn.

— Michael Olson is now chief operating officer for Tala, a Santa Monica, Calif., fintech startup. Olson previously held leadership roles at Linktree, Twitch, LinkedIn and Microsoft. He will oversee global operations and be based in Portland, Ore.