Tech Moves: Amazon Music names VP; Microsoft departures and a Copilot shakeup; Veeam adds exec. * 2 July 2026 * colind88 * News Feed - Hrishikesh Aradhye has joined Amazon Music as vice president of product and tech for the streaming service. He spent nearly 19 years at Google, most recently as senior director of engineering leading YouTube Music and Podcasts. "The music industry is going through a tectonic shift that will unlock entirely new kinds of customer experiences through AI," Aradhye said. Earlier in his tenure there, he worked at Google Research, where he helped pioneer computer vision and machine learning systems for YouTube and Android. - Vasu Jakkal is stepping down after six years as Microsoft's corporate vice president of Security, Compliance, Identity, Management & Privacy. She thanked colleagues and customers in a LinkedIn post. "It's been an epic journey - six years ago, we formed our Security customer solution area and the growth and impact of Microsoft Security over these past years has been incredible as we built the #1 security business in the world while keeping our mission of building a safer world for all at the heart of it," Jakkal wrote. Jakkal is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and previously held executive roles at FireEye and Intel. She did not indicate her next move. - Mika Yamamoto was named chief marketing and customer AI officer for Veeam Software, a Seattle-based data protection and ransomware recovery company. It's the latest in a string of leadership changes at Veeam, which has made four other executive hires or promotions this year. Yamamoto previously worked for Seattle-area companies including F5, Microsoft and SAP, and joined Veeam from Los Angeles-based Blackline. "She has experienced this industry from every angle - analyst, operator, executive leader - and has consistently put the customer and partner at the center of how companies operate," CEO Anand Eswaran said in a statement. - In case you missed it, Microsoft has undergone a leadership shakeup within Copilot as the company works to turn its platform into a "super app." Changes include: * Jacob Andreou has moved from corporate vice president at Microsoft AI to executive vice president of Copilot. He joined the company in 2025 from Greylock Partners and before that was at Snapchat-maker Snap. * Peter Sellis has been named Copilot's lead of design, growth and engineering, reporting to Andreou. He joins Microsoft from Discord and overlapped with Andreou at Snap, where Sellis was VP of product. * The reshuffle also comes with a departure. Trevor O'Brien, former VP of product for M365 Copilot experiences, has resigned from his role. "The past two and a half years have been inspiring, chaotic, intense, and deeply rewarding," O'Brien said on LinkedIn. He did not indicate his next move. - Seattle-based tech executive Niranjan Vijayaragavan has taken the role of CTO at Five9, a cloud-based contact-center-as-a-service company. He joins Five9 from Nintex, where he served as chief product and technology officer. Other past employers include Avalara and Expedia Group. "Five9 is at the center of one of the most important shifts in customer experience as AI reshapes how companies engage with their customers," Vijayaragavan said in a statement. The company is based in San Ramon, Calif., but Vijayaragavan will remain in Washington. - Maura Mast was appointed president of Seattle University, succeeding Eduardo M. Peñalver, who resigned to lead Georgetown University. Mast is the first woman and first mathematician to hold the top role at the Jesuit Catholic university. "Our world urgently needs spaces of dialogue and discernment that actively work to heal deep divisions and build a more equitable society," Mast said in a statement, adding that SU can lead in these areas. Mast will begin the job on Sept. 1 and joins SU from Fordham University, where she served as a dean and mathematics professor. - The Cascadia Sustainable Aviation Accelerator named Jake Gentry as its executive director. Gentry helped create CSAA, which aims to make the Pacific Northwest a center for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). He remains a managing director at Seattle's Earth Finance and is leading the accelerator as part of that organization. Hawaiian Airlines CEO Diana Birkett-Rakow praised Gentry's appointment, saying in a statement that he has "the right combination of strategic depth, execution orientation, coalition-building instincts, and commitment to the work." Gentry previously held sustainability leadership roles with companies including Point B and Boeing. - Seattle's F5 has added Gavin Munroe to its board of directors, where he will serve on the audit and risk committees. Munroe has decades of experience in financial services and most recently was chief information officer and transformation head at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. - Harini Gokul, a former leader at Microsoft and AWS and past chief customer officer at Entrust, has joined the board of Afiniti. The company builds AI software for call centers that aims to match customers with the appropriate agent. Gokul also serves on the Medina City Council. - Safe Software, a data and AI enterprise integration platform based in Surrey, British Columbia, has named Nabil Lodey vice president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Lodey will help lead the company's expansion in the UK and Ireland. - Allison Gruber is now VP and leader of Portland-based Cambia Health Foundation. She previously oversaw Cambia Health Solutions' Strategy and Innovation team, where she led data-driven strategy initiatives. - And some more folks are retiring from Microsoft, in addition to those featured Tuesday in a GeekWire story on the company's first-ever voluntary retirement program: * Nir Michaely, Azure software engineering manager, closes out 26 years with the company. * John Ballard, principal security researcher, departs after nearly 30 years. * Kristen Mattoni, senior product marketing manager, is leaving after 15 years.

Microsoft has rolled out "agentic" Copilot features across Word, Excel and PowerPoint, enabling the AI assistant to make direct edits rather than merely suggesting changes. The feature is on by default but requires user activation through a prominent prompt. The update represents Microsoft's continued push to embed Copilot throughout its products, a strategy that has drawn criticism from organisations like Mozilla for appearing to force integration. The shift to agentic behaviour has intensified concerns, particularly as recent scrutiny revealed Copilot's terms acknowledge the AI may be unreliable for important decisions. Microsoft emphasises users can review changes and monitor Copilot's actions during multi-step edits. The company claims early customer feedback shows the new default experience is "proving more useful in real work", though enterprise admins have previously faced challenges with automatic deployments.