Power Moves: Philly dev zooms to Tesla, new CEO at Bracket

What a time to be joining Tesla, now that one of its souped-up rides was careened off the Earth and put into orbit: Firmware Engineer Gabrielle Trotter, formerly with East Falls IoT company BuLogics, just snagged a job working for Elon Musk’s car company.

At the end of the month, Trotter will head for the West Coast and begin working with the company under the same title as part of its Gateway team, responsible for interprocess communication throughout the car and overseeing all the over-the-air software updates to the car.

“It should be a cool team to be on, because I will get a chance to understand a lot of different systems of the car and interface with a lot of other teams,” the developer said. “I think it will be a really great place to start. Ironically, I also spent the last year+ at BuLogics working on our own IoT Gateway, so I have a feeling there will be a lot of overlap in the type of work I will be doing now.”

As she heads west, Trotter said her goal is to gain a broad range of experience in as many technologies as possible.

“Two of the largest applications of embedded systems and firmware engineering are consumer electronics and automotive — so the move from the former to the latter made a lot of sense to me,” said Trotter, a Penn grad. “I am interested to see how much overlap I find.”

Trotter said she’ll miss Philly’s grittiness and sticktoitiveness.

“Its definitely important to dream big, and there is no shortage of that out there (in fact I don’t know if you can make it if you’re not), but I think there is something to be said for a balance with a healthy dose of reality,” she said.

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Michael Nolte has be been named CEO at Bracket, the 800-employee clinical trial technology company based in Wayne, Pa. Nolte succeeds Jeff Kinell, who became CEO in 2014 and will remain on the Bracket Board of Directors as a strategic advisor.

Monday was Nolte’s first day on the job. Two and a half hours into the exec role he chatted with Technical.ly about his priorities in the CEO seat.

“I want to continue the solutions we provide to supporting clinical trials, continue to deliver and build solutions that are market-leading,” said Nolte, who will relocate to Wayne from Atlanta, where he was formerly Chief Executive Officer of Influence Health. “It’s a market with lots of opportunity to drive growth. I’m interested in how we can scale and take on broader parts of the market.”

In March 2017, the company was acquired by San Francisco-based Genstar Capital.

“As Genstar were making the acquisition, they had conversations with the leadership team and I think there was a discussion during that process that Kinnell wanted to transition out,” Nolte said. “I expect to learn a lot from him.”

Nolte, an Army veteran, has ties to the Philly area by way of his wife’s family. He said he’s interested in learning about the local tech ecosystem and finding ways to connect Bracket to it.

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Conshy-based venture firm SeventySix Capital brought on a new Managing Director of Strategic Development in Alison Bush Delgado.

The investor has 27 years of experience in operations within the asset management industry. At Wayne Kimmel’s firm, she’ll be joining the company’s push toward the esports space.

“Alison will be responsible for our global fundraising strategy and investor relations, and will work with me to accelerate and expand our fundraising efforts for our current fund,” said Kimmel.

Last May, the company also added Phillies slugger Ryan Howard to its bullpen.