Tech Moves: Microsoft vet joins Expedia as new product chief; Avanade names president

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Shilpa Ranganathan. (Expedia Group Photo)

Shilpa Ranganathan is back at Expedia Group as its new chief product officer.

Ranganathan spent the past 16 years at Microsoft, most recently as a corporate vice president on the senior leadership team of Windows.

Her first stint at Expedia was from 2004 to 2008, when she was a director in product management.

She’ll lead product and design teams in her new role at the Seattle-based travel giant. Ranganathan will report to CEO Ariane Gorin, who took over in May.

In a statement, Gorin said Ranganathan “brings extensive experience in building consumer products based on customer needs and leveraging cutting-edge technology.”

Expedia last month named former Fanatics exec Ramana Thumu as its chief technology officer. Its CFO, Julie Whalen, announced last month that she’s stepping down.

Other key personnel changes across the Pacific Northwest industry:

Seattle-based IT consulting company Avanade named Gord Mawhinney as president of The Americas, the company’s largest business unit. Mawhinney has been an exec at Avanade since 2016 and was previously CEO of Long View Systems. Avanade formed in 2000 by Accenture and Microsoft and provides various digital, cloud, and AI-related services across the Microsoft ecosystem. Pamela Maynard, the company’s former CEO departed in August for a job at Microsoft.
Portland, Ore.-based identity verification company SheerID hired Carter Lassy as chief product officer. Lassy, who is based in Los Angeles, was previously chief product and technology officer at Toronto-based e-commerce company Maropost, and held exec roles at Terminus, Cheetah Digital, and Experian. SheerID named Rebecca Grimes as its new chief revenue officer in September.
Seattle-based biotech startup Talus Bioscience hired Chris Joyce as its new vice president of business development. Joyce previously was director of business development at Absci. Talus raised $11.2 million in August to advance its drug discovery program for hard-to-treat diseases.
Aaron Cohen, a longtime communications and marketing exec, joined Wichita, Kan.-based weavix as vice president of corporate communications and brand. Cohen previously led corporate communication at RealWear, and runs a boutique PR firm out of Portland, Ore., called glitch pr.