New tower on Wacker Drive will get 2 floors of luxury coworking space
Two of the three penthouse floors in the new 55-story tower coming to 110 N. Wacker Drive will be occupied by a luxury coworking space. A Switzerland-based provider of deluxe working spaces known as No18 leased 55,000 square feet at the top of the tower that will feature a rooftop terrace, atrium and grand views of the river once the building opens in late 2020. The company currently has a space in Atlanta’s Buckhead district. [Crain’s]
World’s fastest supercomputer is coming to Chicago
Intel and the U.S. Department of Energy are teaming up to build a supercomputer at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago that is expected to be the fastest computer on the planet upon its construction in 2021. The computer, named Aurora, will be capable of doing one quintillion floating point computations per second, and also has advanced high-performance computing and artificial intelligence capabilities. Aurora’s power will be used to work on research projects that include simulating cosmological and climatological events, doing cancer research, and more. Here’s to hoping there’s decent Wi-Fi at the lab. [Business Wire]
UPshow secures $6M Series A for more screens
UPshow, a company that turns screens in places like restaurants, entertainment venues and fitness centers into interactive customer engagement tools, raised a $6 million Series A to develop its product and expand its customer base. TDF Ventures and Jump Capital supplied the funding, which will also be used to make 20 sales, technology and operations hires this year. “This round will help UPshow continue to build strong partnerships with top enterprise brands across hospitality, fitness and health,” said CEO Adam Hirsen. [Built In Chicago]
Oh, and then there was an influx of new Chicago tech leaders...
Cloud-based risk management solutions provider Fusion Risk Management announced two new changes in its executive cast. Its new VP of business continuity and disaster recovery solutions is David Halford, who was promoted from VP of advisory services to the role, where he will lead the company’s product vision for all business continuity management. Alex Toews is Fusion’s new risk solutions manager. Toews was most recently a financial services risk advisory and consulting manager at EY, and a corporate analyst at Fidelity Investments prior to that. [Business Wire]
Logistics company ShipBob has a new set of executives ready to work at its Chicago office and fulfillment center. Former Wayfair Associate Director Todd Bills was brought on as the new senior vice president of supply chain. He carries with him over 25 years experience in e-commerce supply chain and operations management. Chris McDonough — a 25-year veteran of logistics and fulfillment operations that has led teams at Wayfair, Petco, Sears and more — is the company’s new vice president of order fulfillment. Sean Bellucci is ShipBob’s final hire, brought on as general manager of its Chicago fulfillment center. He was previously the supply chain process owner at Ulta Beauty and the e-commerce fulfillment manager at Petco. [Press release]
Cybersecurity software provider Keeper Security made two new executive hires in Peter Santis as vice president of sales and Tom Mersman as director of inside sales. Santis has held executive sales positions at a number companies including Ansarada, Extenua and Cisco Systems. He has over 20 years of experience and will help grow the company’s international commercial direct sales channel. Mersman, a former divisional sales manager at Groupon, will build, evolve and mentor Keeper's domestic sales team. [PR Newswire]
SMS Assist, a provider of cloud-based building maintenance and repair management software, welcomed Graham Blackwell as chief strategy and revenue officer. Blackwell has around 20 years of experience in evolving business strategy and execution efforts within technology, retail, and the business services industries and most recently served as executive vice president with Bain Capital’s North American Private Equity Team. In his new position at SMS, he will oversee the company’s strategy, pricing, marketing, and sales organizations. [Business Wire]
Signal, provider of an identity platform that helps marketers improve customer experiences, brought on Jay Stocki as chief operating officer. Stocki previously acted as chief product officer and chief marketing officer at Experian, was a senior executive at Yahoo, Corio and NVIDIA and also founded a digital consultancy company. At Signal, he will direct the company’s marketing, product and delivery efforts as well as oversee the company’s operations. [Press release]
Healthtech company higi announced Darren Singer as its group vice president of network alliances. Singer has over 30 years of experience at consumer-focused healthcare companies and was most recently a retail health and wellness consultant at Fellow. Prior to that, he held leadership roles at Shopko, Safeway, Albertsons, Block Drug Company and more. In his new role, Singer will help grow the company’s consumer engagement programs. [Press release]
Fraud and risk detection service provider FRISS appointed Jim Murphy as vice president of products for North America. Murphy held similar titles at IBM, MetLife and Genpact and will use his nearly 30 years of insurance industry experience to push the company’s domestic product strategy forward. [Business Wire]
Staffing and consulting firm Addison Group announced Michael Samuels as its chief financial officer. Samuels has over 25 years of finance, operations, strategy and integration experience and spend 19 of those years at Information Resources, Inc., where he most recently acted as CFO before joining Addison. In his new role, he will collaborate with other management staff to help the company evolve and scale. [Press release]
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