Power Moves: Meet The Washington Post’s first-ever accessibility engineer

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

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The Washington Post supports accessibility with new engineer

Holden Foreman will be the first-ever accessibility engineer for the renowned news outlet, which hosts its offices on K Street. In a tweet announcing the news, Foreman said he’s long been excited about making the Post’s content more accessible and is eager to jump into the new role.

“There are so many layers to [accessibility],” he continued. “It is an exciting area of focus, and I think journalism is all about wanting info accessible to as many people as possible.”

Foreman confirmed his employment to Technical.ly via email. He joined the team in 2021 as a full-stack software engineer on the newspaper’s elections team.

The new face of Novavax

As of Monday, John Jacobs is the new president and CEO of Gaithersburg, Maryland’s Novavax.

The biotech company develops vaccines for infectious severe diseases, including COVID-19 (for which the company’s vaccine earned approval earlier this year). Jacobs succeeds Stanley Erck, who will assist Jacobs as an advisor for the next 15 months.

Jacobs comes to this role from Harmony Biosciences, which he led as president and CEO since 2018 after holding other executive posts. During that time, Jacobs led the company through an IPO as well as the Food and Drug Administration approval process for its first product.

“I am grateful to [Stanley Erck] for the foundation that he has built and am honored to join Novavax in advancing its important global and public health mission,” Jacobs said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the team and helping to build on the accomplishments and business foundation that have been established over the past several years.”

Capitol One laid off tech employees

A move that will hopefully lead to future power moves: McLean, Virginia banking tech giant Capital One has laid off a significant portion of its tech workers.

Bloomberg reported that the company laid off over 1,100 of its employees late last week, including the company’s agile unit. Those who were affected were offered 16-week severance packages, it’s been reported, or encouraged to find other roles in the fintech company. The company currently employs over 50,000 people across the country.

“Decisions that affect our associates, especially those that involve role eliminations, are incredibly difficult,” Capital One told Bloomberg in a statement. “This announcement is not a reflection on these individuals or the work they have driven on behalf of our technology organization. Their contributions have been critical to maturing our software-delivery model and our overall tech transformation.”

Capitol One is only one of many big firms making cuts. Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Twitter and Spotify have all announced layoffs over the past few weeks and months.

Here’s who else has been updating their LinkedIn profiles as of late:

• DC-based Trinity Cyber, a network security company, appointed John Fraser as its new director of federal business. Fraser previously held roles at Securonix and Akamai.
• Herndon, Virginia-based Serco, a govtech company, promoted enterprise tech officer Don Styer to CTO. Senior VP of enterprise applications Christine Kalb was also promoted to the role of chief information officer.
• Satellite communications tech company ST Engineering iDirect, a fellow Herndon firm, appointed Don Claussen to the role of CEO. Claussen will succeed Kevin Steen, who left the company in September, and has previously held roles at Intelsat General and L3Harris.
• Following the sale of the company earlier this month, Frank Sturek is the new CEO of Compendium Federal Technology, based in Lexington Park, Maryland. Sturek was previously the president of SkyePoint Decisions.
• Bethesda, Maryland-based Collage Group has named Pat McGlynn as its chief revenue officer. McGlynn will be heading up commercial functions and growth acceleration in the new role.
• Reggie Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of event tech company Cvent, was appointed to the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. He’ll serve on the board for 2023 and 2024 alongside 31 other domestic travel leaders.
• Evan Blair was named the new general manager of North America for Searchlight Cyber. Searchlight is a UK-based intelligence firm specializing in the dark web and hosts its US offices in DC.
• Lawrence Anderson is the new chief technology and operating officer of the National Student Clearinghouse, effective January 30. The National Student Clearinghouse provides record exchanges and verifications for higher education.
• DC policy tech company FiscalNote has appointed Richard Henderson as its new chief revenue officer. Formerly, he was the chief sales officer at Higher Logic.
• As of January 1, Ben Weintraub is the new CEO of Kajeet, a McLean, Virginia IOT network firm. Weintraub takes over for founder Daniel Neal, who will become executive chair of the board.
• Tysons, Virginia govtech company Maximus has named Joe Jeter as senior VP for federal technology. Previously, Jeter held roles at Verizon and Unisys.
• Dave Walsh is the new VP of engineering for Perry Labs, an Alexandria, Virginia software and hardware developer for the Department of Defense and aerospace companies. Walsh comes to the role from a gig as director of open systems at Collins Aerospace.