Power Moves: 11 of the latest tech hires and promotions around town

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? Email us.

As our sister site Generocity reports in their own edition of Power Moves, Code for Philly’s Dawn McDougall is joining PromptWorks as operations manager. But beware: McDougall is not, I repeat, not leaving Code for Philly, which, per McDougall, continues to be a volunteer-based organization.

“We have been thoughtful about leadership and its role in the sustainability of our community,” McDougall said. “We recently brought in a new leadership team to help distribute tasks and improve our current programming. With that shift, my role has become focused more and more on the vision and strategy of Code for Philly in close collaboration with Chris Alfano and my role in the day-to-day has naturally lessened.”

The firm may have been eyeing the organizer for some time now, as the firm has supported Code for Philly at events like DemHack2016 and Open Source Mentorship Program in 2015.

“We’re excited for how hiring Dawn will improve PromptWorks’ operational efficiency, marketing reach, and connection to the community,” said PromptWorks COO Jason Garber.

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Edtech startup Yellowdig did some shuffling of its senior leadership at the beginning of January. The move, said CEO Shaunak Roy, is a response to the company’s expanding customer base. “These management changes are very positive developments for our team for the next phase of our growth,” said Roy in a press release. The move put some of the company’s original senior leadership in spiffier titles. Here’s how the shakeup went:

• Akiba Covitz: The former head of business development is now head of Commercial, expanding his former role to include sales and partnerships in the higher-ed and K-12 spaces.
• Scott Barnette: Formerly VP of Sales and Marketing, Barnette is now head of Account Management.
• Shantanu Sharma: The old VP of Engineering has now been named CTO.
• Matthew Coppola: Former senior software engineer has been promoted to director of product engineering.

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Independence Blue Cross announced  the appointment of Gregory Deavens as chief financial officer. Deavens was previously employed by MassMutual Financial Group from 2006 to 2016, where he served as the company’s senior vice president and corporate controller.

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Comcast engineer and digital accessibility advocate Ather Sharif joined Argyle Analytics’s board for accessibility and inclusion. Argyle Analytics is #techincolor organizer Kevin Taylor’s training and management consultancy.

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King of Prussia-based Greenphire brought aboard Dave Espenshade as VP of contract research organizations partnerships. As Philly.com reports, Espenshade had been founder and president of Advanced Sales & Marketing Solutions.

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Leigh Goldenberg, formerly director of marketing for Wash Cycle Laundry, has joined Theatre Philadelphia as executive director.

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This one is a few months old but we missed it: Jake Wallace left food delivery service Zuppler to start in a newly created role focused on business development at AWeber.

“Same types of conversations I had at Zuppler but, focused on a different industry of course,” Wallace wrote to us.

He added:

My primary focus is on building solid relationships with our partners, which creates added value to our customers. In short, my goal is to strengthen our product offering by way of integrated partners. I love it here. Having the resources, the name (18+ years in the industry) and the freedom to go out and make things happen is a recipe for success.

He said Zuppler is still going strong.

It maybe raining ☔️ but, today marks my first day at @AWeber! Let's get it… pic.twitter.com/1rCUpmAM9M

— Jake Wallace (@Jake__Wallace) September 19, 2016

On the AWeber front, its former director of public relations and marketing communications Brandyn Bissinger left to head up marketing and communications for Doylestown cloud company Contour Data Solutions.