Tech Moves: Smartsheet names chief product officer; Meta vet joins Tech Alliance; and more

— Pratima Arora has been named chief product officer at Smartsheet, a new senior executive role at the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software giant.

A longtime product and technology leader, Arora will be responsible for Smartsheet’s product management, product marketing, user experience, pricing and packaging, and digital and product partnerships.

She previously held senior leadership roles at Atlassian and Salesforce, and was most recently the chief product and technology officer at Chainalysis.

“After a fantastic 4-month break to recharge, spend quality time with family, and dive deep into the world of GenAI, I’m energized and ready for what’s next,” Arora said on LinkedIn. “There’s no better place than Smartsheet to begin this new chapter. With a strong foundation, a passionate customer base, and a unique opportunity to reimagine collaborative work through AI, the road ahead is full of possibility.”

Smartsheet also announced that Nick Dunn, an eight-year veteran of the company, is now general counsel, responsible for leading the company’s legal, privacy, and risk functions, including corporate governance initiatives.

Launched in 2005, Smartsheet makes cloud-based enterprise work management technologies for managing and tracking projects, collaborating, storing data, and automating and assigning tasks, among other capabilities. It serves 85% of the Fortune 500 as customers. The company went public in 2018 and private again this year after completing an $8.4 billion acquisition by Blackstone and Vista Equity Partners.

Other key personnel news and changes across the Pacific Northwest tech industry:

— Khushboo Taneja (Sharan) of Meta joined the board of Technology Alliance, the nonprofit that advocates for tech businesses and research institutions in Washington state.

Taneja has been at Meta for more than eight years, and currently serves as vice president of product – generative AI. She previously spent almost 12 years at Microsoft.

— Tina Pamintuan has been appointed the next president and CEO of KUOW by the Seattle-based public radio station and the University of Washington.

A longtime journalist, Pamintuan is currently CEO of St. Louis Public Radio (STLPR). She has been an NPR Board member since November 2020 and chairs its DEI committee.

— Megan Shen, PhD, of Seattle’s Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and Mary L. “Nora” Disis, MD, of UW Medicine, are each recipients of $300,000 grants toward ovarian cancer research, awarded by the Rivkin Center and Andy Hill CARE Fund partnership.

Shen will use the funds to retool a patient support program for gynecologic oncologists. Disis is optimizing a novel delivery system for an ovarian cancer vaccine aiming to prevent the spread of chemotherapy-resistant strains of the disease.

Meanwhile, Fred Hutch’s Filippo Milano, MD, PhD received the inaugural Endowed Chair in Cord Blood Research. The endowment provides unrestricted funding for Milano’s work in cord blood transplants. 

— Lori Johnson joined Seattle-based WestRiver Group as managing director, investor relations. Johnson has decades of experience in capital formation within the broader equity markets.