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Power Moves: Mark Conway follows City Council primary win with new Chesapeake Conservancy role

New month, new roles: Exelon's board gains a Baltimore business leader, and there are new execs at TEDCO and Tradeswell.

Mark Conway is joining Chesapeake Conservancy. (Courtesy photo)

Power Moves is a column where we chart the comings and goings of talent across the region. Got a new hire, new gig or promotion? Tell us: baltimore@technical.ly.


In June, Mark Conway won the primary to become the Democratic nominee for the Baltimore City Council’s 4th District. In July, he was announced as the executive VP of programs for Annapolis-based environmental group Chesapeake Conservancy.

In the latter role, he will serve as the second-most senior manager at the org, and oversee work of its Conservation Innovation Center, which brings data tools to conservation efforts.

Previously, Conway was executive director of the Remington-based Baltimore Tree Trust, where he worked for a time out of ETC as he expanded programs and secured $2.7 million in grant funding. He also served in Baltimore city government, leading implementation of quality-of-life tool OutcomeStat as deputy director of CitiStat.

“From my time at Baltimore City working on OutcomeStat and CitiStat, I have a deep respect for the power of technology and innovation to get things done,” Conway said in a statement. “With Chesapeake Conservancy’s focus and commitment to precision conservation through technology, I know I am exactly where I need to be to make the greatest impact on the Bay.”

With a win in November’s general election (where he is running unopposed), he’ll balance this role with serving on the City Council. In Baltimore, the elected legislative positions are considered part time.

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Energy company Exelon, which has a large presence in Baltimore and owns electric utility BGE, said last week that Marjorie Rodgers Cheshire was appointed to its board of directors.

Cheshire is president and COO of A&R Development Corp., a Baltimore-based real estate investment firm that owns large-scale housing and commercial properties in the Baltimore-D.C. area. She was previously senior director of brand and consumer marketing for the NFL, VP of business development for TV network Oxygen Media and a director and special assistant to the chairman and CEO of ESPN.

Cheshire is also board chair of Baltimore Equitable Insurance, and a trustee of Johns Hopkins Medicine and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, as well as the Baltimore School for the Arts.

Marjorie Rodgers Cheshire. (Courtesy photo)

“Marjorie’s experience in organizational leadership and her deep background in compliance, strategy, marketing and brand development will be an asset to the board,” Exelon chairman Mayo Shattuck said in a statement. “Her work advising and volunteering for civic organizations focused on business development, education and the arts also will bring a diverse perspective to our work.”

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TEDCO followed up the recent announcement of a new CEO with a pair of exec-level appointments.

The state-backed agency that provides funding and support for early-stage tech said Michael Hauser is joining as managing director of investments. This role oversees the investment teams at TEDCO, including the pre-seed Builder Fund for disadvantaged founders, various seed funds and the later-stage Maryland Venture Fund.

Michael Hauser. (Courtesy photo)

Hauser previously led HorizonX, which is the business incubator and accelerator at aerospace giant Boeing. He brings 20 years of experience that includes startups and larger companies, as well as venture capital.

Terry Rauh is joining the agency as VP and chief administrative officer. Rauh was previously the COO/CFO at Glenstone Consulting, and has also held a variety of C-level roles.

Terry Rauh. (Courtesy photo)

The new appointments bring additional leadership under Troy LeMaile Stovall, who was appointed CEO of the organization in July. It shows the organization filling leadership ranks about a year after a wave of executive departures, including previous investment head Andy Jones. This followed a critical audit that has led to many new regulations at the organization, and a pause on investment that ended at the beginning of this year.

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On the same week as it went public with a $3.3 million seed round and news that former Millennial Media CEO Paul Palmieri was getting back into a day-to-day startup leadership role, ecommerce company Tradeswell made a pair of executive appointments.

Mark Fruehan is joining the Brewers Hill-based company as EVP for revenue, reporting to Palmieri. Fruehan most recently served in top leadership roles for mobile marketing platform Verve Group, which was acquired by Media and Games Invest in January. He has also held senior positions at Amplifi.ai, Opera Mediaworks and VeriSign.

Kelly Hogue was named VP of U.S. sales for the company. Having most recently served as VP of programmatic and strategic partnerships at New York-based email marketing service LiveIntent, Houge previously worked at AOL and Millennial Media, which have long roots in Baltimore’s advertising technology community.

Palmieri told us last week that Tradeswell emerged from a project to tackle the economics of ecommerce, and the opportunity led him to move from investing back into running a company.

“We are building a world-class technology platform that needs world-class leadership to bring it to market,” he said in a statement. “Partnering with Mark has been years in the making, and being able to partner with both Mark and Kelly should yield truly special results for the company.”

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Fearless has a new leader overseeing its business with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

David Simeon, Jr., joined the downtown Baltimore digital services firm as a portfolio manager after roles as a principal with consulting and technology services firm ICF, engagement director for software and services company Pivotal and innovation and technology chief for DHS’ U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

David Simeon. (Courtesy photo)

“I was interested in building a digital services company and practice that would change the way the government used and developed software to serve the needs of their customers and constituents. Fearless was the company I would have founded if Delali [Dzirasa, CEO of Fearless] hadn’t founded it first,” he said.

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Mount Washington-based Credit Xpert is planning a move to Medfield’s Hangar Building later this year, but it’s not waiting to bring a couple of new hires to the team.

The 20-year-old company, which offers credit analysis for mortgage professionals, said Frederic Rey joined the team as agile business analyst, with a focus on bridging the gap between IT and using analytics to evaluate processes.

Frederic Ray

Frederic Ray. (Courtesy photo)

Andy Williams joined as deployment and QA specialist, arriving after 15 years at Philips to work on a big company initiative to migrate software to cloud-based hosting.

Andy Williams. (Courtesy photo)

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Jeff Cherry was elected to the board of Philly-based Naval tech company McKean Defense. Cherry, who leads Baltimore accelerator Conscious Venture Lab and is CEO of The Porter Group, is a proponent of purpose-driven capitalism, in which companies impact society as well as deliver business value.

“As an employee-owned company, McKean is always seeking to expand our Board membership with candidates who deeply understand McKean’s business and have mastered the unique stakeholder engagement required in this business model,” said Joseph Carlini, CEO of McKean Defense, in a statement. “Jeff clearly has both. His recent work on economic diversity is also attractive to us as we continue to work toward a more inclusive environment, both inside and external to McKean.”

Companies: Fearless / TEDCO
Series: Power Moves
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