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“Moves”, our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.
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ImmPACT Bio, a clinical-stage company dedicated to the discovery of transformative chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for cancer patients, named Sylvain Roy as chief technology officer. Roy previously served as vice president of manufacturing operations at ImmunityBio.
Game Play Network, a gaming company with a patented software and technology platform which enables real money wagers on live horse races and casino-style games, appointed Ian Smith as chief technology officer. Prior to this role, Smith served as CTO at Rank Interactive.
Former co-president and chief creative officer at Wieden+Kennedy, Colleen DeCourcy joined social media giant Snap as chief creative officer.
Influencer management agency TalentX Entertainment welcomed Kimberly Duman and Vanessa DelMuro as managing directors. Duman previously served as senior director of talent campaigns at StyleHaul, where DelMuro was SVP of global talent.
SEO agency GR0 hired Paul Teddy as the new SEO director. Teddy previously worked at Wpromote, a digital marketing agency, as the senior director of SEO.
Media Guarantors, a company that brings filmmakers solutions to support their creative visions, welcomed Marina Lejsek as SVP legal and business affairs. Lejsek worked at Film Finances for the past decade, and was hired by current vice president Kamala Harris to work under her at the San Francisco District Attorney’s office..
Video game developer Riot Games, promoted former product lead Jake Perlman-Garr to global head of corporate development.
Hadi Tabbaa joined multi-stage global investment firm B Capital as partner and global head of investor relations. Prior to this role Tabbaa served as marketing and investor relations at Coatue Management.
D.A. Davidson Companies, a financial services firm hired Adam Waite as managing director to cover the blockchain and digital assets ecosystem. Waite previously served as director at Piper Sandler.
“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.
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Dating app conglomerate and Tinder parent company Match Group tapped former Zynga president Bernard Kim as chief executive officer.
Performio, an enterprise-grade sales commission software solution company, appointed former Salesforce executive Neil Graham as chief revenue officer and former Datometry vice president of engineering Dmitri Korablev as chief technology officer.
Sunstone Management, a venture capital firm, added Mike Stone as chief investment officer. Stone previously served as vice president at Morgan Stanley.
Trusaic, a pay equity software provider, tapped soccer icon and social activist Megan Rapinoe as chief equality officer and strategic partner to fight gender and racial wage inequality. She joins Trusaic’s newly-formed “E-suite,” a reimagining of traditional C-suites that acknowledges the role leadership plays in workplace equality.
Former BYD executive Samuel Kang joined Sienza Energy, a Caltech-incubated battery company, as chief operating officer.
Space simulation and analytics products company Slingshot Aerospace hired Erin Defossé as chief operating officer and promoted Dr. Belinda Marchand to chief scientist. Prior to their roles, Defossé served as chief product officer at Aceable, while Marchand served as the director of astrodynamics and space systems at Slingshot.
Disney Streaming added former Netflix director of engineering Devika Chawla and former Meta vice president of scaled operations Arun Chandra in senior vice president roles.
Tanya Lynch joined network provider Boingo Wireless as vice president of human resources. Lynch previously served as director of HR at Mouser Electronics and vice president of HR at the Neiman Marcus Group.
Video game developer Blizzard Entertainment hired Jessica Martinez as its first vice president, head of culture. Martinez previously served as director of strategic operations at Disney Parks, Experiences and Products.
Health care company The Mighty hired Matthew Michelson as president. Michelson previously served as president of Genesis AI at Genesis Research.
Talent agency UTA hired Nick Axelrod as vice president in its ventures department. Axelrod co-founded Courtney Cox’s homecare brand Homecourt, where he was the head of creative and product development.
Spotter, a startup that finances YouTube creators, welcomed Monica Khan as head of creator community and Derek Reynolds as executive vice president of legal and business affairs. Both YouTube veterans, Khan was previously a strategic partner manager at the video-streaming platform, while Reynolds served as head of business affairs for YouTube Originals.
Meta Hollywood added three new members to its advisory board: NFT Now co-founder and CEO Matt Medved, Wordpress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and talent agent Jim Toth.
Hyperdraft, an AI-powered software platform for lawyers, added Grindr data privacy and security executive Kelly Peterson Miranda to its advisory board.
Los Angeles-based tech executive Bernard Kim has been named the new CEO of Match Group, the dating app conglomerate that owns popular platforms like Tinder and Hinge.
Kim, currently the president of mobile video game developer Zynga, will replace outgoing Match Group CEO Shar Dubey on May 31. Dubey will remain with Dallas-based Match Group as an advisor and board director.
Kim—whose LinkedIn and Twitter pages identify him as based in Manhattan Beach—has continued to live and work in Los Angeles while serving as San Francisco-based Zynga’s president. A Match Group spokesperson told dot.LA that Kim “will stay in L.A. and serve as CEO from our L.A. office.”
Kim joined Zynga in 2016 after nearly 10 years as Electronic Arts’ senior vice president of mobile publishing. While at Zynga, he pushed an ambitious acquisition strategy and helped lead the gaming company to unprecedented growth during the pandemic.
Match Group talked up Kim’s credentials in a press release Tuesday, saying he “helped quadruple Zynga’s market cap” during his six years with the company. Zynga is now in the midst of being acquired by gaming giant Take-Two Interactive in a deal valued at $12.7 billion.
According to a May 3 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kim will earn an annual base salary of $1 million, plus millions more in stock grants, as Match Group’s CEO.
Besides West Hollywood-based Tinder, Match Group’s portfolio of dating services includes Hinge, Match.com, OkCupid and PlentyOfFish. In its first quarter earnings report on Tuesday, the publicly traded company said it was approaching 100 million total monthly active users across all of its apps. Match Group shares were down 2% Tuesday, to $79.02, and have slid 40% since the start of the year.
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