Power Moves: GetUpside welcomed Kristen Thiede as its first chief people officer

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 at dc@technical.ly.

Downtown D.C.-based GetUpside has welcomed Kristen Thiede as its first chief people officer.

Founded in 2015, the company manages an app offering rewards on purchases at more than 15,000 stores as well as promotions at gas stations around the country. GetUpside has onboarded more than 70 new team members in 2020 already, and Thiede joins as the company plans to keep adding employees this year.

“The teams I’ve built achieved their most impactful business outcomes when they were built with a ‘people first’ perspective; with supportive organizational structures that enabled happier, more productive humans,” Thiede said in a statement. “At GetUpside, we’ll work in partnership with the extraordinary people we have to think deeply about our paths forward and about whether our structures provide support for our exponential growth.”

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Arlington, Virginia-based agile tech firm Excella recently promoted five of the its leaders to senior positions.

“Hiring and retaining exceptional Excellians, while creating meaningful solutions, is critical to our purpose and what we built Excella to do,” Excella CEO and cofounder Burton White said in a press release. “Each of these Excella leaders is instrumental to the growth of our organization, investing their professional passion, impacting our clients, and helping others cultivate exceptional careers.”

Here’s a list of the promotions with short descriptions of the new roles:

• Jaman Botts was promoted to director of workforce management from resource manager. He is now responsible for managing, developingand executing Excella’s resource management and workforce strategy.
• Beth Gomolka was promoted to VP of national security from director and market owner of national security. She is responsible for operating Excella’s activities within the national security market by expanding contracts and fostering new relationships.
• Sarath Ravella was promoted from director and market owner of defense to VP of strategic initiatives. He now leads the company’s strategic and cross-organizational initiatives to grow into new markets.
• Tony Solomita was promoted to VP of innovation from director of innovation. He now manages Excella’s innovation engine and its portfolio of delivery-related intellectual property and external thought leadership activities.
• Claire Walsh was promoted from director of engineering services to VP of engineering and services. She now maintains Excella’s capability portfolio for sustainability and growth and establishes baseline delivery practices.

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Georgetown-based digital health company Babyscripts announced that Dr. Lauren D. Demosthenes, OB-GYN has joined its advisory board as senior medical director. Demosthenes is the medical director of high-value care and innovation in the OB-GYN department at Prisma Health Upstate. In this new advisory board role, she will provide medical guidance and advise on topics such as care redesign and tech innovation.

“As a mom with personal prenatal care experience, and as an OB-GYN, my goal has always been to provide safe choices to women with respect to their healthcare,” said Dr. Demosthenes in a statement. “The energy within Babyscripts is palpable and motivating, and I’m looking forward to being part of the team, to help expand choice and innovation for women and our health care systems.”

Dr. Demosthenes brings more than 35 years of experience in private OB-GYN practice to the company and she has also worked on course direction at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville.

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D.C.-based educational fundraising platform GiveCampus has brought on Asher Burg as its new VP of sales. Burg joins the company after nearly four years at tech-based financing company SparkFund, where he served as chief revenue officer.

The six-year-old company now has now has a team of 36 employees working between its D.C. headquarters and San Francisco office. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Burg onboarded with GiveCampus virtually and he’s the fifth team member to join the company since March. GiveCampus plans to expand its team to 50 employees by the end of the year.

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Bethesda, Maryland-based Cloudbolt Software has added two C-suite employees to its team.

Launched in 2012, Cloudbolt is the creator of an enterprise cloud management platform. Last month, the company appointed Nick Mansour as chief revenue officer and Larry Kraft as its SVP of global channels and alliances. Based in California, Mansour will oversee all the company’s global revenue strategy and execution including sales, pre-sales engineering, sales operations, customer success and channel strategy. Also working remotely from Ohio, Kraft now leads Cloudbolt’s go-to-market partner strategies.

These key hires come after Cloudbolt acquired Georgia-based SovLabs in June, provider of codeless integration and automation technologies for hybrid cloud frameworks.