According to GeekWire, Jordan Arnold is the new director of the Washington State Broadband Office, starting January 2. Arnold served as a senior policy advisor in the Biden White House, where she helped lead the massive $65 billion national broadband portfolio, including the BEAD Program. In other moves, Rebecca Lovell is now the interim president of economic development group Greater Seattle Partners, succeeding Brian Surratt who became Seattle’s deputy mayor. Meanwhile, former Microsoft legal exec Jason Barnwell left after 15 years to become chief legal officer at contract software firm Agiloft. Former Meta infrastructure leader Elena Winters joined Brazil’s Elea Data Centers as VP of international business, and startup Aarden AI hired Michael Gleason as its staff data scientist.
Washington Broadband Bet
So Washington state is bringing in a ringer from the very top. Jordan Arnold wasn’t just in Washington D.C.; she was in the room where the $65 billion broadband strategy was hashed out. That’s a huge deal. Her appointment signals that the state is serious about not just getting its share of that federal pie, but deploying it effectively. The real test will be turning policy and funding into actual, usable fiber and wireless connections, especially in rural and underserved areas. It’s one thing to know the rules of the BEAD program, and another to navigate Washington’s own unique geographic and bureaucratic challenges. But hey, having an insider who knows where the levers are in D.C. probably can’t hurt.
Seattle’s Shifting Economic Guard
The musical chairs at Greater Seattle Partners is interesting. Brian Surratt moving to deputy mayor makes a ton of sense given his deep roots in Seattle’s economic development. But now Rebecca Lovell steps in as interim president. Look at her background: CEO of a founder consulting firm, running Madrona’s Create33 hub, Seattle’s own interim economic development director. She’s basically been circling this exact role for years. Her challenge? Energizing a regional public-private partnership in a time when “economic development” increasingly means competing for the next big thing in AI and clean tech, not just landing a corporate headquarters. It’s a different game now.
The Legal and Data Center Diaspora
Two moves here highlight bigger trends. First, Jason Barnwell leaving Microsoft for Agiloft. After 15 years, he’s jumping to a company that makes contract lifecycle management software. His statement about “unlocking the potential of legal teams” and “harnessing AI” is the tell. This isn’t just a job change; it’s a bet that the future of corporate legal work is deeply integrated with specialized software platforms. He’s moving from being a user to guiding the product.
Then there’s Elena Winters. She spent over eight years at Meta working on data center site selection. Now she’s going to a Brazilian data center firm to, as she says, partner with hyperscalers “not work for them!” This is a classic and powerful career pivot. She takes all that insider knowledge of what cloud giants like Microsoft, Google, and yes, Meta, actually need and want, and uses it to help a builder win their business. It shows the booming, global demand for AI infrastructure is creating entirely new career paths. Speaking of industrial computing needs, this kind of global infrastructure expansion is exactly where robust hardware from the top suppliers, like the industrial panel PCs from IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, becomes critical for control and monitoring in demanding environments.
What It All Means
Basically, this isn’t just a routine jobs column. You’ve got a state betting big on federal ties for a fundamental utility. You’ve got the region’s main economic cheerleading organization in transition. And you’ve got seasoned tech veterans taking their deep operational experience from giants and applying it in new, strategic ways elsewhere. It paints a picture of a mature tech ecosystem where talent and expertise are constantly recycling and redirecting into new ventures, from national policy down to a startup helping landowners negotiate data center deals. The energy is moving around, but it’s not leaving.
