Buzzworthy - May 21, 2021

New Leadership Roundup

It has been an eventful hiring week for Utah companies we have covered and continue to follow with interest. MX, PassiveLogic and Xenter added key people this week:

MX

On May 19, 2021 MX, one of Utah's leading fintechs, announced that Lexi Hall has joined the company as Director of Public Policy. Hall will oversee the company’s public policy initiatives, including federal, state and local government relations. She will report to MX Chief Advocacy Officer Jane Barratt. 

“Lexi Hall brings a wealth of experience to MX as a data expert and policy advisor for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and we are thrilled to welcome her to the team,” said Jane Barratt, Chief Advocacy Officer, MX. “Together with Lexi, we will work closely with regulators and policymakers to accelerate the future of open finance through modern connectivity to improve the financial health of millions of Americans.” 

Hall joins MX from the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, where she has served since January 2019 as a policy advisor for fintech and data governance. Prior to her position with the U.S. Senate, she spent two years at Morning Consult, a global data intelligence company, following roles at The Winston Group and Bain Capital as a data analyst. 

“Financial health begins with the ability for people to securely access their data. The U.S. is poised for true regulatory innovation in the financial data space and I’m thrilled to be joining the MX team to help drive this innovation,” said Lexi Hall, Director of Public Policy, MX. “Modern connectivity is the foundation of increased innovation in the financial industry and I’m excited to continue the conversation with policymakers and regulators to move the industry forward.”

PassiveLogic

Salt Lake City-based autonomous building solutions company, PassiveLogic, brought on Mike Luscombe as Chief Commercial Officer and Kirsten Billhardt as VP of Marketing.

Luscombe comes from Honeywell's Tridium division where he led global partnerships. He will be leading PassiveLogic’s sales and partner relationships with the company's customers and channel.

Billhardt was most recently at Dell Technologies where she was director of global marketing. She will spearhead market engagement with Passivelogic's autonomous building platform.

Both Mike and Kirsten will be instrumental in helping customers realize the true potential of their buildings through digital transformation. 

"PassiveLogic is the only fully autonomous building solution at a time when the building marketplace is desperately seeking digital transformation. We are seeing an exponential rise in inbound demand across diverse real estate interests," said Troy Harvey, Founder and CEO of PassiveLogic. "Mike and Kirsten will be instrumental in managing our growing partnership ecosystem, while helping customers realize solutions to their building challenges. We are delighted to welcome them to PassiveLogic."

Xenter

On May 20 2021, Xenter announced the appointment of two new key employees, Scott Heuler as Senior Vice President of Global Sales & Marketing and Gary Baldwin as Chief Technology Officer in its Hospital Technologies business unit. Xenter is a healthcare technology company based in Salt Lake City. It produces wireless technology for interventional cardiology, interventional radiology, and neurointerventional radiology. The company is also launching a digital health platform featuring new wireless interventional devices that provide physiologic data and images simultaneously and enable patients to have access and control of their medical data. As reported last week in Buzzworthy, the company just announced the closing of its $12 million Series A offering.
 
“As we continue our rapid expansion, we are extremely pleased to announce the addition of Gary Baldwin and Scott Heuler,” Linder said. “Gary Baldwin’s work in expanding technology companies ranging from startups to Fortune 50 companies such as Cisco is renowned. Likewise, Scott Heuler’s leadership in the medical device space at companies such as Boston Scientific and multiple others makes him an ideal sales and marketing leader as we launch our new wireless medical devices. I am delighted to welcome them to the leadership team in our Hospital Technologies business unit.”

Baldwin was VP of Engineering for Cisco Systems. Prior to his time at Cisco he led Software Engineering at two companies: Cerent which was acquired by Cisco Systems for $6.6B, and Telematics, Inc which was acquired by ECI Telecom. Before that, Baldwin was at ECI Telecom, Raytheon/E-Systems, Zipit Wireless and Dynepic where he and his teams delivered multiple HIPAA-compliant medical devices, cloud based AI systems, DOD SigInt systems, and IoT clouds and devices. Baldwin holds multiple patents in software and device technology.

“From my experience, I think Xenter is ideally positioned in both technology and IP, and in its ability to manage global expansion in a way that can make its new technologies pervasive very quickly," said Baldwin. "I look forward to growing the technology team and leading the technology and infrastructure developments for these new endeavors.”

Heuler’s background includes regional and senior sales leadership positions with Boston Scientific in Interventional Cardiology, Structural Heart, Cardiac Rhythm Management, and Peripheral Vascular. Heuler held senior sales and marketing leadership roles with NeuroOne Medical Technologies, Guidant Corporation and U.S. Surgical Corporation.
 
“Xenter’s Hospital Technologies business unit will transform the efficiency model throughout the diagnostic and interventional procedural settings ultimately leading to better patient outcome", said Heuler. "Our ability to utilize Physical Intelligence™ will lead to new and innovative ways to collect data and develop new therapeutic drug and device treatment options.”

 

Clene receives Award from US National Academy of Medicine

On May 17, 2021, Clene Inc. announced that its subsidiary Clene Nanomedicine, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the treatment of neurodegenerative disease, received a Healthy Longevity Catalyst Award from the U.S. National Academy of Medicine (NAM). This award will accelerate the preclinical development of CNM-Au8, a bio-energetic nanocatalyst for treatment of neuronal aging-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. 

The Healthy Longevity Global Competition was founded in 2019 by NAM to ‘kickstart innovation by the world’s greatest minds’ to support worldwide healthy longevity. NAM and its seven global collaborators received over 1,500 applications and ultimately issued more than $7.7 million in prizes in the inaugural round of Catalyst Awards, part of the broader Healthy Longevity Global Competition. 

Covered in August 2020 by TechBuzz, Clene was awarded a NAM Catalyst Award based on the novelty and innovation of CNM-Au8 as a therapeutic approach to neuronal aging-related diseases. In addition to receiving a prize, awardees will participate in the first annual Healthy Longevity Innovator Summit in September 2021 to share their work with policy makers, researchers, and fellow innovators from around the world.

“We are delighted to have received this award from the U.S. National Academy of Medicine in recognition of the potential of our therapeutic nanocatalyst, CNM-Au8, to contribute to healthy longevity,” said Rob Etherington, President and Chief Executive Officer.

The NAM funding supports a collaborative preclinical effort demonstrating the unique bio-energetic effects of CNM-Au8 on deficits associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease. The study will be led by Dr. Karen Ho, Head of Translational Medicine at Clene, in collaboration with Assistant Professor Jerome Mertens of the University of Innsbruck (Austria), whose expertise lies in reprogramming human cells into directly induced neurons that retain epigenetic and metabolic markers of aging. The work aims to identify key mechanisms by which CNM-Au8 may impact age-related neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease.
 

 

Utah’s National Economic Leadership: Reporters Roundtable

On May 25, 2021, the Salt Lake Chamber will host a webinar with reporters and policy watchers to discuss how Utah attained and can remain the best state for growth and economic opportunity. The webinar will explore how Utah attained such national recognition coming out of the pandemic. Recent reports from The Milken Institute, the Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report and others have highlighted the state’s economic strength. Several reporters covering Utah’s business community and economic development will share what they are seeing from the front lines. They will touch on the following questions:

• What progress Utah businesses are making?
• What factors are contributing to Utah’s economic success, even coming out from the pandemic?
• What lessons can be gleaned from business during the pandemic?
• What’s ahead for the State?
• And what challenges still need to be overcome to assure Utah remains in its preeminent position?

The one-hour event will take place on Tuesday, May 25, 2021 at 4:00 PM.   

Click Here to register.

SPEAKERS:

• Moderator: Boyd Matheson, KSL Inside Sources Host 
• Art Raymond, Deseret News Tech Reporter
• Jasen Lee, Deseret News Award Winning Business Reporter 
• Holly Richardson, Editor at Utah Policy Winslow
• Ginger Chinn, Vice President of Policy Salt Lake Chamber 

 

Virtual Summit: Four Ways 2020 Forever Changed Utah's Technology Workforce

Last minute reminder: Today, May 21, The Women Tech Council is Hosting a Virtual Talent Summit on the Four Ways 2020 Forever Changed Utah’s Technology Workforce. The virtual summit will discuss the post-pandemic impact on the workforce of Utah's technology community with original data and insights from Utah technology leaders. The discussion will be led by Cydni Tetro, Founder and President of The Women Tech Council.

Today's schedule:

11:30 am -12:00 pm - The Talent Shift Reality: survey data showing the talent shift in Utah’s technology workforce, insights on the impact it’s having on employees at all levels and college students, discussion on how to successfully manage a hybrid workplace

12:00 - 12:15 pm - Building Careers in the New Hybrid World: overview of the expansion of remote-only positions at senior levels and how employees can navigate this shift 

12:15 - 12:30 pm - Managing through the Talent Shift: insights on leading teams and organizations through these changes  

12:30-1:00 pm - New Leadership Essentials: discussion of the new essential leadership traits required to successfully lead this new type of work and employee

This Talent Summit will be available at no cost via Live Stream using this link.