Kirsten Paust, a longtime leader at publicly traded manufacturing giant Fortive, took on a new role at Microsoft as a corporate vice president focusing on continuous improvement.
Paust spent eight years as an executive at Everett, Wash.-based Fortive, and also dedicated more than 12 years at global conglomerate Danaher, which spun off Fortive in 2016.
“For those who know me, you understand when I say that deciding to leave a place I deeply loved and admired — where I grew both personally and professionally — was incredibly tough,” Paust wrote on LinkedIn. “But I’ve made this major leap, not just to a new company and industry, but to a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: the chance to deeply embed continuous improvement into the fabric of Microsoft’s culture, fueled by the transformative power of AI.”
In her new role at Microsoft, Paust is “empowering teams to simplify processes to deliver even greater innovation to our customers, removing inefficiencies and making work more fulfilling for our employees,” according to her LinkedIn profile.
Paust was involved in Fortive’s partnership with Seattle startup studio Pioneer Square Labs. She earned her MBA from Harvard Business School in 2003 and graduated from Whitman College in 1998.
“My career journey has been a story of return on luck — the courage to embrace new opportunities, the hard work and perseverance to keep going in the face of challenges, and the determination to go through the doors that luck presented,” Paust wrote in a separate post earlier this month.
Other key personnel changes across the Pacific Northwest:
— Seattle video creation startup Pictory hired Scott Rockfeld as its new chief marketing officer. Rockfeld was previously a “fractional CMO” in the Seattle region and was the CMO at Seattle startup Novel Effect. He also spent 18 years at Microsoft.
— Starbucks North America CEO Michael Conway is retiring after just five months in the new role and 11 years at the coffee giant, according to Reuters. Conway was previously an executive at Johnson & Johnson.
— Athira Pharma announced that it terminated Andrew Gengos, chief business officer and chief financial officer, and Rachel Lenington, chief operating officer and chief development officer, effective Oct. 1. The terminations are related to a restructuring that resulted in laying off 70% of the company. The company appointed Robert Renninger, vice president of finance, as its new principal financial officer and principal accounting officer.
— Longtime Seattle-area sales executive Gavin Hewitt joined New York-based product data startup Velou as chief operating officer. The company announced a $5 million seed round Tuesday. Hewitt previously worked for Attentive, Yonder, Loop Commerce, and Bluecore.
— Seattle tech veteran Russ Mann joined the board of Thinkific, a Vancouver, B.C.-based online education company.
