Tech Moves: Longtime Microsoft leader James Phillips leaves Stripe; and more

— James Phillips is stepping down as president of financial services at Stripe, just one month after joining the company.

Phillips landed at Stripe in April after a decade-long stint at Microsoft, where he was most recently president of the Digital Transformation Platform Group, overseeing a team of more than 15,000 people. He joined in 2012 as a strategy advisor to Satya Nadella, who later became CEO.

In a LinkedIn post, Phillips called it a “painful decision to forego joining Stripe running their financial services business.”

“Though I remain exceedingly bullish on the company and its prospects, I’ve concluded it’s just not the right move for me and my family at this point in time,” Phillips wrote. “Stripe is an incredible company and I know they will continue to thrive!”

Phillips is currently a board member at F5 and a strategic director at Madrona Venture Group. He previously founded Akimbi Systems (acquired by VMware) and Couchbase.

— Michael Johnson, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, was appointed to JAXJOX’s newly formed advisory board.

JAXJOX is a health and wellness startup based in Bellevue, Wash. The company landed a $10 million investment in 2020 prior to the launch of its Interactive Studio, a tech-enabled workout system.

“JAXJOX delivers the most versatile and personalized connected workouts I’ve experienced,” Johnson said. “I look forward to advising the team as they continue to build on a data-centric fitness platform.”

Other personnel changes across the Pacific Northwest tech industry:

• 5G Open Innovation Lab hired former Microsoft and Cisco leader Scott Waller as its first CTO. Waller continues to run Seattle-area startup Thingy.
• Seattle startup Humanly hired two execs: BJ Shannon, former vice president of brand partnerships at Leafly, as chief customer officer, and Michelle Baird, former product manager on Twitter Developer Platform, as founding product manager.
• Greg Hart, a former Amazon leader who is chief product officer at Compass, was promoted to chief operating officer at the real estate giant.
• Terry Fry, head of T cell therapeutics at Sana, is leading a new cell and gene therapy institute at the University of Colorado.
• Nadia Carlsten, former head of product at Amazon Web Services, joined SandboxAQ as vice president of product.
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation appointed new members to its Goalkeepers advisory group: Kathryn Finney, Hervé Berville, Maryam Uwais, Kristina Lunz, Shan Huang, Prajakta Koli, Tlaleng Mofokeng, and Thoko Elphick-Pooley.