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Leadership moves at Amazon, Impinj and Brinc; USAFacts names Megan Winfield CTO

A May 2025 Seattle tech roundup covered Impinj and Amazon departures, Andrew Coté’s move from Brinc to Forterra, and USAFacts’ appointment of Megan Winfield as CTO.
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Several Seattle-area technology organizations reported personnel changes in May 2025: Hussein Mecklai left Impinj’s chief operating officer role, two long-serving Amazon leaders departed, Andrew Coté moved from Brinc Drones to Forterra, and USAFacts appointed Megan Winfield as chief technology officer. These were separate announcements, not one coordinated reshuffle.

At a glance

Person Organization and former role Reported move Timing and status
Hussein Mecklai Impinj, chief operating officer Left the role Disclosed in a regulatory filing in May 2025; no replacement was identified in the cited coverage
Christopher Niederman Amazon Web Services, managing director of Industries and Solutions Leaving Amazon After 11 years; planned time off before another senior leadership role
Mike Lavin Amazon Prime Gaming, head of global marketing Retired After more than eight years at Amazon
Andrew Coté Brinc Drones, vice president of strategy and growth Joined Forterra as senior vice president After four years at Brinc
Megan Winfield Campspot, chief technology officer Named USAFacts chief technology officer Announced May 22, 2025; subsequent status is not established by the cited reports

The Impinj, Amazon and Brinc moves were covered in GeekWire’s May 22, 2025 Tech Moves roundup. Winfield’s appointment appeared in a separate GeekWire report published the same day.

Impinj COO Hussein Mecklai leaves

Impinj disclosed that Hussein Mecklai had left its chief operating officer position in a regulatory filing. Mecklai joined the Seattle RFID technology company in 2018 and became COO in 2022. The report did not identify a permanent or interim replacement, explain the reason for his departure, or connect it to performance, restructuring or strategy.

The change followed the February 2025 retirement of Impinj chief revenue officer Jeff Dossett. Those two events are notable leadership changes, but the available reporting does not establish a broader executive crisis or a common cause.

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Two different Amazon exits

Christopher Niederman moves on from AWS

Christopher Niederman was leaving Amazon after 11 years as managing director of AWS Industries and Solutions. He said he planned to spend time with family and travel to Italy before taking another senior leadership role. The destination and timing of that next job had not been disclosed.

Mike Lavin retires from Prime Gaming

Mike Lavin retired after more than eight years as head of global marketing for Amazon Prime Gaming. It was described as a retirement, not a move to another employer. Lavin said he wanted to concentrate on family, new interests and opportunities to give back. Before Amazon, he spent about a decade at Microsoft, including work on Xbox Live marketing.

Niederman’s open-ended transition and Lavin’s retirement should be treated as separate career decisions. Neither report identifies either person as part of Amazon’s top corporate leadership or supports a claim of an Amazon-wide leadership exodus.

Andrew Coté leaves Brinc Drones for Forterra

Andrew Coté joined Forterra as a senior vice president after four years as Brinc Drones’ vice president of strategy and growth. Forterra is a Maryland-based defense and space manufacturing company.

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The move came after Brinc announced $75 million in new funding and a strategic alliance with Motorola Solutions. That financing was a company funding announcement, not a valuation or acquisition price. The available coverage does not say whether Coté’s departure was planned before the financing, whether Brinc named a successor, or whether the move changed Brinc’s Motorola relationship.

USAFacts appoints Megan Winfield as CTO

USAFacts named Megan Winfield chief technology officer in May 2025. She relocated to Bellevue from Lexington, Kentucky, after nearly three years as Campspot’s CTO. Earlier, she spent more than seven years at Hilton in software engineering and digital leadership roles.

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At USAFacts, Winfield was expected to lead engineering and join the organization’s leadership team. She described access to transparent, non-biased data as a critical public need and pointed to artificial intelligence and large-scale data processing as important technology opportunities.

USAFacts is a nonpartisan nonprofit founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and launched in 2017. The cited May 2025 report said it presented government data on topics including the economy, immigration, crime and public finances, drawing from roughly 100 government databases and employing about 47 people at that time. Those staffing and database figures are historical snapshots, not confirmed current totals.

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Timeline of the reported moves

  1. February 2025: Jeff Dossett retired as Impinj’s chief revenue officer.
  2. April 2025: Brinc announced $75 million in funding and its Motorola Solutions alliance.
  3. May 2025: Mecklai left Impinj’s COO role.
  4. May 2025: Niederman announced his departure from Amazon, Lavin announced his retirement, and Coté moved from Brinc to Forterra.
  5. May 22, 2025: USAFacts announced Winfield as CTO.

What the announcements show—and what they do not

Together, the announcements illustrate several forms of technology-career movement: retirement, a planned transition between senior roles, a cross-sector move from a drone company to defense manufacturing, and an external CTO appointment at a data-focused nonprofit. They span unrelated organizations and business models, so they should not be read as evidence of one regional restructuring trend.

Because the underlying reports date to May 2025, they establish the announcements and planned transitions at that time—not each person’s employment status in 2026.

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