The Puget Sound Business Journal has once again rolled out its annual list of power brokers, newsmakers, influencers and luminaries — better known as the Power 100. While the honorees in the Power 100 represent multiple sectors that power the Puget Sound economy (from sports to health care to transportation, hospitality, finance, food service, public policy, real estate and community culture), those in the technical sphere are at the hub of our wheelhouse.
Here then is our parsing of the PSBJ’s Power 100 as the Tech 25, the select cadre of the twenty-five tech leaders in the Puget Sound whose impact on the world of Internet connectivity has touched so many lives in the PNW region and around the world (presented in alphabetical order).
Jody Allen is at the head of numerous Seattle business and philanthropic endeavors, including her role as chair of the Seattle Seahawks. She also serves as chair of real estate and project management company Vulcan and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, which she founded alongisde her brother, the late Paul Allen. Her philanthropy work includes support for conservation and the arts, including as founding director of the Seattle Museum of Popular Culture and the Wild Lives Foundation, among others.
Zillow co-founder and CEO Rich Barton is guiding the company through a challenging real estate market. Zillow generated $506 million in revenue during the second quarter of this year, compared to $504 million during the same period last year. Barton also founded Expedia and Glassdoor.
Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin. He served as the CEO for Amazon from its founding in 1994 until 2021, staying on as executive chairman of the board of directors.
Icertis co-founder and CEO Samir Bodas launched his company in 2009. The Bellevue-based contract management company received an investment from SoftBank in October 2021 at a $5 billion value. It received an investment in January 2022 from the German software giant SAP SE for an undisclosed amount.
Doug Bowser, president of Nintendo of America Inc., leads operations across the Americas for the Kyoto-based company. He started at the company in 2015 as a vice president of sales. Bowser told the Washington Post Nintendo is becoming an entertainment company, with games at the center.
Jane Broom, the senior director of philanthropy for Microsoft, has overseen the company’s landmark investment in affordable housing. Microsoft has pledged $750 million to help develop more affordable housing in King County.
Adriane Brown is a venture partner at Flying Fish Partners. Before joining Flying Fish Ventures, Brown spent decades helping overhaul aerospace and manufacturing operations for giants like Corning and Honeywell Transportation Systems.
Majdi Daher is a co-founder of Denali Advance Integration. The Redmond-based company helps clients with IT problems. According to Denali, the company has more than 850 employees and offers more than 275 services.
Trish Millines Dziko is the co-founder and executive director of the Technology Access Foundation. She left Microsoft in 1996 to start the nonprofit, which focuses on educating people of color in science, technology, engineering and math.
Bill Gates is one of the most influential people of modern times. He co-founded one of the world’s most valuable companies, Microsoft, as well as the world’s largest private charitable organization, the Gates Foundation, which helps millions of impoverished people around the globe.
Melinda French Gates co-founded the world’s largest private charitable organization, the Gates Foundation, with her former husband Bill Gates.
Bill Hilf is CEO of Vulcan, which was co-founded by the late Paul G. Allen and philanthropist Jody Allen.
Brad Jackson is the CEO of Seattle-based consulting company Slalom. Founded in 2001, Slalom offers services in product strategy, digital strategy and enterprise architecture.
Andy Jassy is CEO of Amazon, a position he’s held since 2021 when founder Jeff Bezos stepped down. Before leading the flagship company, he was the CEO of the cloud division, Amazon Web Services.
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman has led the real estate tech company since 2005. The company has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs recently but is looking to boost its web traffic in spite of a struggling housing market. Redfin reported $275.6 million in revenue during the second quarter, down from $349.0 million the year prior.
Expedia CEO Peter Kern in April 2020 took over the CEO role at the Seattle-based travel giant. More than three years later, Expedia has made major changes as travel rebounds, including a rebrand and a new corporate structure in 2021 to better organize its business.
Rick Luebbe is the co-founder and CEO of Woodinville-based battery tech company Group14 Technologies. He helped his company land a $614 million Series C round last year, plus $100 million from the Department of Energy. Group14, founded in 2015, makes a silicon-based anode powder to replace the traditional graphite powder found in most batteries today. The company is also building a factory campus in Moses Lake that is set to open in mid-2024.
Matt McIlwain, managing director at Madrona Venture Group, has been with the firm since 2000. Madrona in September 2022 raised $690 million across two funds.
Satya Nadella brought Microsoft into its next stage as CEO, turning the company into a major cloud provider and rival to Amazon Web Services. Over the last few years, Microsoft’s cloud division has grown enormously and become highly profitable and valuable.
Paresh Rajwat is the vice president and head of product for virtual reality at Meta, as well as the Northwest lead. He oversees the entire Seattle area, which is Meta’s second-largest engineering hub outside of its Menlo Park headquarters.
Heather Redman is co-founder and managing partner at Seattle-based venture capital firm Flying Fish Partners. The firm focuses on startups in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and it raised a $70 million fund, the firm’s second, in May 2022.
Adam Selipsky is the CEO of Amazon’s cloud division, Amazon Web Services, and the most high-profile boomerang employee of the company. After leading Tableau for five years, he came back to AWS in 2021 to replace Andy Jassy, who was named CEO of Amazon.com.
Mike Sievert wrapped up his third year as T-Mobile CEO in May. During his time, T-Mobile has moved people back into the office, finished up its campus renovations and expanded its 5G reach.
Steve Singh led Bellevue-based expense management company Concur as co-founder and CEO for more than 20 years before selling the company to SAP in 2014 for $8.3 billion. After staying at SAP for close to three years and leading developer tool Docker as CEO for about two years, Singh joined Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group as a managing director.
Chris Vonderhaar was most recently at Amazon Web Services, where he helped build the company’s data center empire. He was hired by Google for its cloud division this year.
