Cloud Leadership Shifts Put Enterprise AI and Talent in Focus

By Nathan Brooks

After more than 33 years at Microsoft, Mazhar Mohammed left the company to become vice president of AWS Streaming and Messaging at Amazon.

For HR leaders, the change touches executive succession, retention and the ownership of specialized technical teams. It also raises a practical question for employers adopting AI agents: can senior leaders turn new technology into measurable work rather than demonstrations?

What changes in Microsoft’s leadership?

Microsoft named Chad Thompson corporate vice president of Agent Cloud. The group develops technology that lets businesses deploy AI agents and put them to work across their organizations.

Thompson wrote in a LinkedIn post: “My view: enterprise is where AI pays off. Not in demos, but in measurable results. Lower costs, faster cycle times, better decisions, and work that gets done without someone pushing it along.”

He joins from Alteryx. He previously spent six years at Amazon, departing as general manager of Amazon Glow. His earlier employers include Smartsheet, Exasol and Adobe.

The appointment puts enterprise-agent deployment under a named senior executive. For employers, the capability question is whether those agents can lower costs, shorten cycle times and complete work without someone pushing it along.

Mohammed joined Microsoft as a software design engineer on Windows NT straight out of a master’s degree program. Across more than 33 years, he worked on messaging, mobile services and partner experience for cloud services. He most recently served as corporate vice president for the commerce and fraud protection platform.

Mohammed said he was “happy to share” the news in a brief LinkedIn post. The post featured an Amazon box with the message “Alexa, play ‘New Beginnings.’”

Which senior operators changed roles?

• Amazon appointed Gail Carpenter vice president and chief financial officer of Global Entertainment and Advertising. She most recently served as CFO of Worldwide Stores Finance and has been with the company for 11 years.
• Andre Woodson Jr. took a new role as Amazon manager of U.S. state and local policy communications and external affairs. He previously served as a regional field communications manager and has been with the company for more than 12 years.
• Hanna Grene left Microsoft to join Xcel Energy and will lead its newly established Enterprise Growth and Commercialization group, effective Nov. 16. At Microsoft, she served as global go-to-market and innovation leader for energy.

Who takes charge of AI and specialized growth?

BECU, a member-owned not-for-profit credit union based in Tukwila, Wash., named Geoffrey Fonga vice president of AI transformation. Fonga joins from DataRobot and previously held leadership roles at McKinsey & Company and Wells Fargo.

Fonga described his prior work in a LinkedIn post: “For years, I helped organizations adopt and scale AI as an advisor and a vendor,” he said. “Now I get to do the harder, more rewarding part: leading that transformation from the inside.”

His appointment shifts AI adoption from external advice to an internal leadership mandate. The role puts responsibility for adoption and scale inside BECU, rather than with an outside adviser or vendor.

Seattle biotech startup Lila Bio appointed Kimberly Ma chief development officer. The company spun out of Nobel laureate David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington and uses AI to design proteins that can treat cancer with targeted radiation therapy. Last year, it announced a collaboration with Eli Lilly to develop therapies for solid tumors.

Ma has 20 years of experience in oncology drug development, most recently as a leader at Abdera Therapeutics. At RayzeBio, she led clinical operations and supported the company’s IPO and its $4.1 billion acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2024.

RevealDx, a Seattle company developing AI to detect potentially cancerous lung nodules, made two appointments:

• Dr. Ryan Brevard became medical director after serving as a medical adviser and helping the company achieve FDA clearance. He has more than 23 years of experience in critical care and emergency medicine.
• David Austin became vice president of sales, bringing nearly 30 years in diagnostic imaging, radiology and medical technology commercialization.

Known, a Bellevue, Wash.-based technology company building accountability infrastructure for AI agents, appointed Edna Conway to its advisory council. Conway spent 20 years at Cisco before joining Microsoft in 2020 as vice president and chief security and risk officer for Azure infrastructure.

Chicago-based enterprise software company LogicGate named Steve Smith managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Amanda Meglemre general counsel. Multiple LogicGate C-suite executives work from its Bellevue office.

What do the talent and corporate appointments require?

Seattle-based startup Avalanche Energy, which builds fusion devices, named Chris Riegel head of talent acquisition. Riegel joins from HiringKit, the HR company he co-founded, and previously worked at Amazon and Unity Technologies.

The company also leads a team tackling DARPA’s nuclear battery challenge and is launching FusionWERX, a commercial-scale testing facility for fusion technologies in Eastern Washington. The talent appointment puts recruiting capacity alongside that stated research and development expansion.

• Julie Averill, former chief information officer at lululemon and REI, joined the UW Foundation Board, which helps raise philanthropic support for the university.
• Technology Alliance appointed Jen Oleson, a senior director at Seattle consulting firm Slalom, to its board and Research Capacity Committee.
• Ben Helsel left Premera Blue Cross to join Kaiser Permanente as vice president and general manager of commercial markets in Washington.

The next test for these leaders is whether cloud messaging, enterprise AI, regulated expansion and hiring can produce the measurable operating results that their mandates now require.