Leadership changes at Bellevue, Wash.-based companies are dominating the news in this week’s Tech Moves, plus some notable items in neighboring Redmond.

— Former Amazon leader Asic Demberel is now chief technology officer for Scala, a Bellevue-based startup offering an AI operating system for contact centers and customer operations. Demberel was with Amazon for 15 years, first working on fraud technology for AWS and leaving the company as general manager and engineering leader for Amazon Pharmacy Kiosks.

“You don’t walk away from 15 years at Amazon for an incremental challenge. It takes an exceptionally complex problem and an opportunity so massive that you simply can’t look away,” Demberel said of his decision to leave.

Scala was founded by Smartsheet CEO Rajeev Singh and former Accolade executive Ardie Sameti. It raised an $8.5 million seed round in February.

— Flyhomes, a Bellevue-based company providing financial tools for home buying and selling, has named three leadership hires:

• Tyler Moynihan has been named vice president of business development. He most recently held a leadership role at Opendoor, following nearly 12 years at Zillow that ended in 2023. While at Zillow, Moynihan helped lead major deals including the purchase of ShowingTime and a partnership with Opendoor.
• Nihit Nirmal has joined as VP of product. Nirmal, who is based in Singapore, launched an AI agent startup to handle corporate conversations and worked in multiple fintech leadership roles.
• Wendy Tieu has rejoined Flyhomes as director of partner enablement. Los Angeles-based Tieu left the company in 2024 after seven years, taking leadership roles at MoeGo and Whatnot.

— Heinz Marketing, a Redmond, Wash.-based B2B marketing and consulting firm, is shaking up its leadership. The company has named Jenn Steele as its chief operating officer and president, while Matt Heinz, who started the business 18 years ago, is moving from president to CEO.

Steele joins Heinz Marketing from Seattle’s SoundGTM, which she co-founded and led. She has held executive roles at numerous Seattle-area companies including CEO of Kissmetrics and top marketing and revenue positions elsewhere.

Maria Geokezas is retiring as COO after nearly 17 years with the firm. The company credits her leadership with shaping the organization and said “the whole team is deeply grateful and will miss her.”

— Ludovic Fourrage announced that he is co-founder and chief AI officer for Untamed Intelligence, a Bellevue startup launched in May.

“Untamed Intelligence is an innovation studio dedicated to advancing human possibility. We begin by asking what human beings need to flourish and then explore how technology and learning science might help us get there,” the company said on LinkedIn.

Fourrage was previously senior program officer for the Gates Foundation. Before that, he was with Microsoft for more than 13 years, working in certification and learning leadership roles. Fourrage is also the founder of Nucamp Coding Bootcamp, serving as board chairman of the company.

The startup’s other co-founders are CEO Paul LeBlanc and Chief Product Officer Rachel Koblic. LeBlanc was president of Southern New Hampshire University for 21 years until 2024. Koblic has her own learning-focused consultancy and was chief learning officer for Matter and Space.

— LogicGate, a Chicago company offering a no-code governance, risk and compliance platform, has named two Bellevue-based leaders:

• Mike Zinne has joined as chief customer officer, after working at companies including Quiq, Outreach and Zendesk.
• Ram Venkat has taken the role of senior vice president of product, joining from Highspot. He also worked at Amazon and T-Mobile.

— The Technology Alliance has appointed Matt Medlin, a longtime CPA with a focus on venture-backed companies, chair of its board of directors. Two current board members have taken new roles, with Helion’s Jessie Thomas becoming vice chair and EY’s Alissa Garner Byersdorfer serving as treasurer. 

The UW Climate Risk Lab has named two new members to its leadership council:

• Brandon Middaugh, general manager of Microsoft’s sustainable markets and Climate Innovation Fund
• Peter Whitney, Amazon Web Services’ business development manager for AI and modern data strategy, for the Americas

— Seattle-based Nimbus Aerospace, which recently completed a test flight of its quarter-scale prototype, has added two advisory board members:

• Frank Paskiewicz, an aviation regulatory expert who served with the Federal Aviation Administration for 28 years, leaving as deputy director of the Aircraft Certification Service
• Sheikh Rabbi, CEO and co-founder of Magnetic Motion, a startup developing drop-in hybrid-electric propulsion systems for climate-friendly aircraft

— Evergreen Goodwill has promoted Derieontay Sparks to chief revenue officer, overseeing operations that support the nonprofit’s tuition-free education and workforce development programs.

— And in case you missed it, two top Microsoft executives shared this week that they’re leaving the Redmond tech giant: Peter Lee, the former head of Microsoft Research, and Ryan Roslansky, Microsoft executive vice president overseeing both LinkedIn and Microsoft Office. See the whole story here.

The team at Seattle-based Nimbus Aerospace had planned to finish testing its quarter-scale prototype earlier in the summer, but struggled to schedule one of the few pilots skilled in remote-controlled flight.

“Not many people wanted to fly this thing,” said Adrian Groos, co-founder and CEO of Nimbus. “It was a $1 million-plus model that was significantly bigger than anything else most people have flown, as well as heavier.”

The startup is developing a hybrid-electric aircraft with high-lift wings designed to improve fuel efficiency. Nimbus plans to build a six- to eight-passenger aircraft with a 1,500-mile range that uses half as much fuel as a comparable conventional plane.

In June and August, the startup conducted two test flights of its NX1 prototype at the Pendleton Airport UAS Range in Oregon. The aircraft, which has a 15-foot wingspan and weighs 200 pounds, flew for 3 minutes 42 seconds in the first flight and 6 minutes in the second.

The tests achieved their goals of demonstrating the company’s manufacturing capabilities and the aircraft’s aerodynamics and stability, Groos said.

Nimbus has started engineering a full-scale prototype, with test flights targeted for 2028. The team is still deciding where to build the aircraft, considering Seattle against other locations around the country.

The ultimate goal is to begin delivering aircraft to customers in late 2030.

To get there, the team is working to navigate the Federal Aviation Administration’s certification process as smoothly as possible. The company has built a system called the ACT (AI Certification Tool) Platform to streamline and expedite FAA certification, and a former FAA deputy director of aircraft certification sits on the startup’s advisory board.

While the Nimbus product has a unique hybrid powertrain, components such as landing gear and lights use already-approved, pre-certified parts that will also be cheaper and easier to fix.

“We’re not trying to build a super novel design. That’s just a certification nightmare,” Groos said. “We’re trying to bring an aircraft to market that solves the needs that the people are asking for.”

And what customers want is a plane that burns less fuel and requires less maintenance, he added.

Aviation is one of the most difficult industries to decarbonize. It contributes 2.5% of the greenhouse gases emitted annually, but that percentage is expected to increase as other sectors go low-carbon and air travel increases. In addition to battery- and hydrogen-powered aircraft, sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, is seen as the most promising solution for larger planes.

Washington state is also home to sustainable aircraft startup magniX, though others have shut down. Electric-aviation startup Zunum Aero and Outbound Aerospace folded, and ZeroAvia largely ceased operations in the state earlier this year, though it remains active in the United Kingdom. California-based Universal Hydrogen, which test-flew a hydrogen-fueled plane in Moses Lake, Wash., closed in 2024.

“People created products that weren’t really ready for prime time,” Groos said. That’s particularly the case for hydrogen-powered aircraft — the fuel is in limited supply and the path to certification is uncharted, he added.

Other companies in the hybrid-electric space include Heart Aerospace, Electra.aero and Ampaire.

Groos and Nimbus co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Akim Niyonzima met on LinkedIn and began working on a sustainable aircraft in 2023. The five-person team also includes Chief Marketing Officer Eno Oduok. The startup, a past Techstars participant, has raised about $4 million from an unnamed family office. The company hopes to add six engineers over the next year.

Nimbus is going to move its NX1 to the Pendleton Airport UAS Range hangar, where it will be displayed alongside the Airbus Vahana eVTOL, a prototype all-electric, single-seat aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing.